Accurate replicas of the Red Special’s pickups
Carefully reproduced through years of study and research, using real examples of the same era and type of Burns® Tri-Sonic® Vintage pickups used in the
Red Special guitar.
The recipe includes Brian and Harold’s various tweaks and modifications such as:
Neck pickup without metal base, filled with epoxy.
Middle pickup with gaffa tape between baseplate and aircoil/magnets.
Bridge pickup with epoxy between baseplate and aircoil/magnets.
According to modifications made by Greg Fryer in 1998, each pickup is wax potted and a strip of textured rubber is sandwiched between the cover and the pickup to minimise unwanted feedback.
Key Features:
Magnets:
Custom clones of vintage isotropic ferrite magnets with the same characteristics as the original mid-1960s units I own.
Magnetised to the same strength as the pickups used by Brian.
Based on Greg Fryer’s measurements during the restoration in 1998.
Two magnets per pickup
Aircoils:
Same identical construction as Burns’ 1960s.
This is specifically done using a rectangular removable former like the one used to make the Red Special pickups.
The magnet wire used is a custom made 44AWG plain enamel wire. The resistance per foot and outer thickness of the wire are the closest to the original samples tested. This has a huge impact on the frequency response.
Maniacal attention to detail has been paid to the winding phase, taking into account variables such as copper wire tension, speed, turns per layer/density and total number of turns, as well as the overall shape of the air coil.
Everything is then hand-wrapped in cotton tape with the same characteristics as the original.
Baseplates:
Each baseplate is hand folded.
Thickness and dimensions are exactly the same as the originals.
The material used is uncoated steel, just like the vintage ones.
Baseplates are only used for bridge and middle pickup.
The neck pickup has no baseplate, just two legs welded to the inside of the cover and held together with epoxy/araldite.
This lack of a metal base under the coil results in a different sound and behaviour, with the magnetic field being more focused towards the centre of the pickup.
This was Brian’s modification and I have recreated it.
Covers:
Custom-made Deep drawn chromed thin brass material with the same dimensions and look as the originals.
Marco G. Di Marco testing Ferrari Pickups
Special thanks for their support to:
Marco G. Di Marco, Julian Hemingway, Woody Thomas, Ron Smith, Paul Cottrill, Sebastian Cano and Alessio Zerbinati.