Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I have two pairs of High Gain pickups. One pair is from a '92 330 and the other pair from a '90 350.

The black tops on the 92's look like they were designed to fit into the chrome Toaster covers - there are two long & thin raised ovals that fit into the chrome Toaster cover's "slots". If you look at a Toaster pickup, you'll know exactly what I mean. They also have the usual six pole piece buttons.

The black tops on the 90's are completely flat except for the pole piece buttons.

Does anyone know how the High Gain pickups evolved over the years? Did they simply use and modify Toaster pickup tops when they ran out of the proper High Gain tops?

The bobbins are probably standardised for both toaster and hi gain use.
I wonder if they use the same bobbins in the bass treble pups.
Personally I think the high gains look better with the toasterstyle bobbins in it.

Both my 360 and 340 have the hi-gains with the toaster shapes on the black plastic

Wildberry wrote:Both my 360 and 340 have the hi-gains with the toaster shapes on the black plastic

What years were they made?

LenMinNJ wrote:

Wildberry wrote:Both my 360 and 340 have the hi-gains with the toaster shapes on the black plastic

What years were they made?

Easy, check my signature

I see. So they're recent.

I wonder if the situation changed between 1990 and 1992, and then remained that way since then?

wim wrote:The bobbins are probably standardised for both toaster and hi gain use.
I wonder if they use the same bobbins in the bass treble pups.
Personally I think the high gains look better with the toasterstyle bobbins in it.

The Toaster® and the Hi-Gain™ may look similar on the top but the back is quite different. The bobbins are made from entirely different molds. There's also bass and treble position bobbins; each and all have their own part numbers.

Are the ridges on the Hi-Gains simply a design element then, or do they serve some function?

johnhall wrote:The Toaster® and the Hi-Gain™

Toaster is a registered trademark? Really?

johnhall wrote:There's also bass and treble position bobbins; each and all have their own part numbers.

Uh oh - a veritable can of worms. Thanks, John!

How does one tell the difference between a treble position High Gain and a Bass position one?

And in guitar with three pickups, what's the middle pickup: a bass or a treble?

And another question: The bobbin tops on the High Gain pickups from 1990 are flat and look like some sort of impregnated woven fabric or textile, while the ones from '92 look like molded plastic. Did the transition to a molded bobbin happen around then?

johnhall wrote:

wim wrote:The bobbins are probably standardised for both toaster and hi gain use.
I wonder if they use the same bobbins in the bass treble pups.
Personally I think the high gains look better with the toasterstyle bobbins in it.

The Toaster® and the Hi-Gain™ may look similar on the top but the back is quite different. The bobbins are made from entirely different molds. There's also bass and treble position bobbins; each and all have their own part numbers.

If so, standardising doesn't seem like a bad idea at all, in fact could make a lot of economical sense.

wim wrote:If so, standardising doesn't seem like a bad idea at all, in fact could make a lot of economical sense.

Won't work. Each item has different spacings and other engineering requirements, otherwise we would have done so back when Bob D. and I redid the bobbin molds.

LenMinNJ wrote:The black tops on the 92's look like they were designed to fit into the chrome Toaster covers - there are two long & thin raised ovals that fit into the chrome Toaster cover's "slots". If you look at a Toaster pickup, you'll know exactly what I mean. They also have the usual six pole piece buttons.

Here's an image of the High Gain pickups on a '91 360:



You clearly can see the long, thin raised oval moldings.

Here's an '87 360:



Flat, no ovals.

And here's a '90 360:



Also flat, no ovals.

So for the moment, it looks like the transition happened in late 1990 or early 1991.

Narrowing it down a bit more, here's a 330 from February 1991 that has flat pickup tops:

http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... lebrity%3D



And another from June 1991 that still has flat pickpups:

http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... lebrity%3D



And a 360 from July still with flat pickups:

http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... lebrity%3D



And here's a 360 from September 1991 that has molded pickups:

http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... lebrity%3D



And finally, a 350 from August 1991 that has molded pickups:

http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... lebrity%3D



So it appears that the molded pickup bobbins started to be used around August 1991.

Notice how all your post-1990 examples of Hi-Gain's with non-molded pickups are black? They are likely holdovers from past production and not current units from that time period.