01/30/2020: Thank You! This was so interesting. I had no idea the history of the lipstick pickups. PS: I am totally impressed by how respectful you are replying back to people that are rude to you. Also, I love how you mention how amazing your wife is and how she supports you in doing videos. I am 74 years old, and can say with confidence that I have seen many times men that did not show lovingly respect to their wives and take care of them, would lose her to some other man, who knows how to take care of a good woman with love and respect. You set a good example for all men young and old to see. Thank you!
I'm glad you continued to make videos and didn't quit. The thing about string gauge is purely personal choice. There are other ways of changing guitar tone, but Rhett made a cool point in that video about how he liked the feel of the lower gauge strings and that he felt like he played with more confidence and a different touch. That indeed is a personal revelation.
I'm glad you finally talked about the lipstick pickups. However, I think you were too brief in your description. I was hoping to hear some science behind why they sound like they do. White board drawings and all. Also, I think the "standard" sized lipsticks for say a Fender are constructed differently than the Danelectro ones. I have a Dano and the pickups are a bit longer than normal single coils. There is a video on UA-cam that shows someone cutting open a Dano style single coil. What they pull out is a rather large bar magnet, no bobbin, with wire wrapped around it with only some insulating tape to separate the bar and wire. My opinion on the Dano and lipsticks (after playing on one for 20yrs) is that they are greatly underrated. I think they have an excellent and unique tonal quality. Just my opinion. I am open to hear others thoughts on them too.
So proud! And btw, I adore Rick Beato for his knowledge about music, that's why I best like his music-related videos. And he pointed me towards Rhett Shull, who's videos I also enjoy.
You are absolutely 100% correct when it comes to using steel wool on or even around an electric guitar. Back in the day when I use to rewind and restore pickups I use to see this corrosion problem all the time and it was directly caused from people as well as guitar techs polishing frets with 0000 steel wool. Now that we have The Lizard Spit fret polishing system there is no excuse for anyone to even think about using steel wool to polish frets anymore. The Lizard Spit does a far superior job with none of the risks that steel wool has.
I'm a retired Aerospace Machinist and discovered White #M ScotchBrite years ago. I've also done repairs and restoration since about '75. I get the argument all the time, "Well, I tape up the pickup covers when I polish frets, so everything is OK with using steel wool" BS! those fine particles get into everything! I, too have witnessed too many shorted out coils to ever use steel wool.
Lipstick pickups are really simple to understand because they're so simplistic, even by pickup standards. What's really mysterious to me when it comes to vintage hardware is gold foils. If you could make a video on how those work, that would be great. Also: thank you for actually putting the whole lipstick thing into perspective with regard to what vintage lipstick tubes were actually like. About them fitting into other guitars though, I have a 2007-ish reissue of the Dano '64 and I'd bet you dollars to donuts that the lipsticks in that are too large to fit in a guitar made for Fender style single coils without some modifications to the guitar. Other companies making them explicitly to put into guitars after market are their own story, but Danelectro's own lipstick pickups seem to retain the original vintage dimensions at the very least, so I wouldn't go thinking I could just drop a pair of those into just whatever.
you can get a danelectro sized lipstick from china and i did - they are bigger - had to do some cuttin on my guitar to get it to fit there has been a steady campaign to get dylan to talk gold foils - i've been on the train for a while now... maybe we should start a petition...
I'm from Waterbury Ct. home of Scoville,manufacturing in the U.S, had a huge start in my area. It and the music industry has always attracted my interest,thanks you for informative and instructive content,I dont care for B.S. so you have my attention! And RESPECT!
I am so glad about this video. I have told people over and over that lipstick pickups and tele neck picks are not the same thing! Also I hate gold hardware it looks tacky. I love this video.
From Leo: I have taken apart an old lipstick tube. They did not used to be valuable. Once a Danelectro gets wet in a flooded basement, it is pretty much junk as the body comes apart. There was no bobbin. The bar magnet had a strip of rough brown paper around it. The wire was wrapped directly around the paper and there were two ribbons of silky cloth holding it together. It had a thin waxy coating around everything. The assembly was very difficult to pull from the outer tube. (and impossible to reinsert) They are cool pickups, I just pulled a neck humbucker out of a guitar and after grinding out the opening put in a lipstick tube. Blending that with a series/parallel switching against a telecaster bridge pickup has some very usable tones with just a hint of uniqueness. I believe there is less hum from a lipstick then a traditional single coil pickup.
just want to put this out there for those interested in vintage spec lipstick pickups, theres a guy who runs under the brand name neptone pickups, he makes lipstick pickups to exact vintage specs that danelectro used back in the day. 42 gauge enameled wire, alnico 6 bar mags 6 not 5, and he winds the wire directly onto the bar mag and the dimensions of the pickups are exact vintage lipstick spec. he offers different winds like normal, custom (more hot), and overwound (hottest). his price is 86 bucks for normal wound and a little more for the other winds. anyway if you guys are looking for something like these, check neptone out i got two of them and they are super nice and spot on vintage spec far as i can tell :)
Just found your channel. Been playing since 86' and I have learned more from you in 7 videos than I have in all those years it seems. I hope you find the time needed to keep them going. Super informative and easy for the common joe to understand. Thanks!
Regarding string thickness, there is physics supporting how the tone depends on the thickness. The reason being that the thicker the string is, the more it starts to behave like a metal rod. For those who have seen the bass piano strings know what I'm talking about. For more info, look up the Dispersive Wave Equation
I agree, don’t use steel wool. Even if you clean up with a strong magnet, it won’t get it all. Gold hardware is gorgeous! Unfortunately it gets old looking pretty fast and then becomes unsightly. String gauges matter more on acoustic guitars. I prefer 10’s on my electric guitars. Great job Dylan.
Dude, I stumbled across your channel sometime around the 30k subscriber mark and it is hands down one of the best channels I’ve seen. You have a great way of breaking down and explaining this stuff that makes it very easy to understand. Thank you. Edit*- And now im going to subscribe to your other channel purely out of principle lol. I’m sure I’ll love it too
In reference to string gauges: I used to use very heavy strings (12s to 14s). My father in-law was a professional guitarist from '69 to '84, and is still a great player to this day. He picked up one on my guitars (Kingston Strat out of the '88 or '89 Sears catalog with Graphtech saddles strung with 13s) and said "These strings are like steel bars! How can you fret them, let alone do any bends?" I proceeded to play some bluesy licks, including some pretty big bends. It all comes down to what you're comfortable with. For the record, I also played bass, so I guess my hands were stronger than his. He could still play circles around me! I wouldn't recommend heavy gauge strings for beginners, because it could severely limit their progress.
Hi Dylan, just wanted to say thank You for all the hard work and time you put into the videos I learn a lot from you.By the way i keep coming back because your so honest it's refreshing in a world were ppl cant even be honest with themselves.(talking to me on that one as well). I agree about what you said about communication with your wife and her being understanding. She is worth more then all the precious stones on God's green Earth Dont forget to give her an extra Hug or two simply out of appreciation. All the best to you and your family!
The most important thing with pickups is to have them parallel to the strings. Just a little bit out of parallel and they lose their ability to capture the guitar. They lose all their magic, and most players have no idea about this and they never check to see if they are perfectly parallel to the strings. One time I bought a Van Halen type of Strat. It sounded amazing. I bought a second pickup for the neck position and worked on the guitar and in the process, the pickup was no longer parallel, and the guitar was never the same, and it took me 10 years to figure out what the problem was. That guitar could have made amazing recods, and it all got lost because of some little thing like that.
@@whitaker_media Saw the old Randy Rhoads in black & gold, saw the new one, saw Les Pauls, and they all look tacky to me. But to be honest, the natural mahogany isn't über tacky. The only piece of musical equipment that works in black & gold in my book works so well because of the big white letters on it; a Marshall amp.
I prefer chrome, but have seen several guitars that look both beautiful AND tasteful with gold hardware. The problem is, the gold plating quickly wears away and looks blotchy and cheap. THIS looks terrible. I have heard some people say they LIKE that look, but to me, that's akin to a penchant for old hookers with heavy makeup.
Great job, in about 66' I had a black and white Danelectro shorthorn 3021 guitar and a DS 50 amp with three ten inch speakers. Danelectro guitars and amps were a very big bang for the buck. I wish I still had that amp. I enjoyed this video.
*THAAAAAAAAANKS!* Btw sorry for spamming your videos with the request for this comparison, but I really wanted to see it. Hey, you've earned yourself a sub! :)
I watched the Rick Beato string gauge video. What bothered me about it was that they only used a dirty tone and the whole "you might have the wrong string gauge"-attitude. I got nothing against him and I follow his videos, because there is some good stuff there, just saying that the perspective could have been more neutral. I agree with Dylan that it's a personal choice and should be based on playing style and what kind of response you need from the string. To my experience string gauges do matter, but mostly because they affect the playing so much. I play bass also and can't play an electric guitar with something less than 11s, because I unintentionally press them out of tune. I prefer 12s and 13s. I think the whole discussion about guitars and tone would be a lot better if people accepted that their playing styles have unique characteristics and that they never need to sound like someone else. It's ok to talk about your preferences, but it annoys me when someone imposes their preferences on me. Own your style! Dylan is cool though. Very informative and fact based, and doesn't force his preferences on others. That's why I follow this channel! :)
The output of lipstick pickup is due to the physical constraints of the design, he uses 43 gauge to have as many windings as possible on such a small space between the case and the magnet, also, the metal case (as in all pickup with full cover) block some of the signals from the strings, the good thing is that eddy currents are generated by the interaction of the casing and the strings giving you beautiful melodic undernotes. new designs reducing magnet size or using higher output magnet are being produced, but cause increased high notes, also, lipstick pickups are not full range, they lack bass response well above 120 khz contributing to the fell of low output.
@@TononiaWorld Thanks, i had the same thought as Vlad Maverick after watching the video. Didn't know that tele's weren't lipsticks, but aside from that i wasn't really sure what this video was about. is there anyway to increase the low range threshold on lipstick pickups? that could be interesting.
@@knightbrolaire526 actually lipstick pickups start dipping @ around 200mhz, that's what I meant, I haven't fully graph the frequency responses so I'm not 100% on this, is a "sound like" interpretation
@@slavesforging5361 winding width and magnet strength can help increase it, but in lipstick pickups you can't do much, but you can EQ it with the tone I would use two resistors as a voltage divider network with the tone control so you don't loose to much output, but the sound is part of the character of the instrument, it does have its applications
Seeing the steel wool segment got me to thinking: do the old lipstick pickups ever suffer from corrosion problems? Thank you for another informative video.
if lipstick pickups are constructed with ceramic, then the answer is no, but Alnico, over time, rust, wax potting only reduces the rate, but is not water, humidity or anything else than Oxigen, and guess wax has oxigen molecules
String gauge helps maintain a string tension at certain scale Lengths. It's why a Les Paul feels so different from a Strat with the same Gauge strings. Like you where saying, the impact to your tone is mostly on how that effects your playing, unless you are getting very heavy with lower tuneing or higher tuneings with much lighter strings. There is a tonal difference with all playing differences aside between say, nines and tens, and it comes from the strings mass and tension influencing the vibration of the string (a 10 gauge string has higher mass, and is under 16.22lb of tension, where a 9 gauge is lighter and 13.14 lb of tension. The lighter the string gauge the "floppier" the string gets.) The less tension on a string, the wider and "sloppier" the vibrations are, exactly like tuning down, which effects string movement over the pickup. Switching from 9s to 11s will certainly tighten things up all around, but so would switching from Nickel to Steel on your wound strings, and the bigger difference is on how your pick attack effects said vibrations. If you have a heavy hand, maybe go for those 10s or 11s. But its tone and feel and that will always be a personal preference to the person playing. Those looking for comparison of string gauges and scale length in regards to tone should check out Said Too Muchs channel, almost all of his stuff is messing with that sort of thing.
Btw, Rick didn't try to make any rules for string gauges. His point was just that people have a lot of false beliefs about this, eg that thicker strings have a fuller tone.
Always drives me crazy when people call a tele neck pickup a listick pickup. Great video on the description of a lipstick pickup. I already knew this but love watching your videos.
Glad you said that about the stings. I've always used 9 - 42 Fender or Ernie Ball. After Beatos' video I tried 8's. I literally could not play with them. I so completely changed the feel of my guitar. It couldn't pick properly, even after 2 days trying to get used to them. Needless to say I'm back to my 9's.
I bought a brand new Silvertone 1303 SVB guitar a few months ago and absolutely love it. Once I pick it up, it is all I can do to put it down. Mahogany body and neck. 4 bolt diagonal bolt on neck and boy does it s u s t a i n !!!! Lipstick pickups are standard and running this bad boy thru my Electro Harmonix Satisfaction Fuzz pedal and then into my Fender Deluxe amp, it sounds like Armageddon.
Nicely broken down, one of the few times I actually already knew about the subject already. I learnt it from a very wise diminutive scotsman, it was one of his tatas. Looking forward to broadening my knowledge on your next one. Cool post 😎🎸✅
This was informative. Was looking at getting a Dean electric resonator guitar with a lipstick pickup and wondered if I could replace that pickup with a Tele neck. So the more you know!
I gotta a wife like that. I have 15 guitars now, and l just ordered 2 more. And i swear she told our daughter yesterday, 'oh well, it's his money'. Not totally true, it's our money, but she loves to hear me play different guitars/amps/pedals, and loves my love for music. Don't hate! LOL!
Obviously the similarity is that they are both chrome colored. That's the only reason people call the Tele neck pickup a lipstick pickup - because they look similar.
Interesting!!! So, what kept the wire on the magnet, without the lip of a bobbin there to keep it in place when they were winding them back in the day? That must have taken some serious skill.
To the steel wool thing, i use it all the time. Easy solution to it getting in the pickups. Just take them out before working on the guitar. Its even easier if its a pcb plug gibson. That not an option? Low tact double sided tape. They'll stick to the tape
I use the 2" wide blue masking tape, it allows for faster coverage. Once Im done, and have metal shavings everywhere I cover the area with more tape to trap the metal shavings between the two layers of tape so they cant get out.
OMG YOU'RE MARRIED?! The woman must be a saint with an endless supply of patience and good will. A veritable Milkmaid of Human Kindness. Send her my condolences. Aaaaand I'm just busting your balls. Thanks for that breakdown on lipsticks. The history was particularly interesting to me. I love how the old timers put these things together with the cheapest stuff they could get their hands on and now we try to recreate it with with precious materials assembled by the nimble fingers of 14 yr old Mongolian virgins under a full moon. Its hilarious.
I have 2 Danos; a U2 and a DC 12 string - both early 90s reissues and I love them. About to put some Golden Age lipstick humbuckers in an old Epi dot to see how they sound. Those buckers are pretty hot and might make a semi hollow guitar howl, but it’s an experiment. They look super F-ing tight. Shout from ECobb.
Nice vid. I've always liked Lipsticks - just another tone palette. I have a 3 pickup Tele style with Dan Electro sized lips in neck/mid & HB in bridge. The P/Us are from an MIK Agile Elec Sitar - so I assume they are Artecs; bit hotter than DE spec and work well. Also have geeky p/u switching and gets lots of diff/usable tones. Luv Nk/mid in series, or Mid/brg [coil split], in series. BTW - check out SRV's white tele; 'Charley'. It was built by SRV's guitar tech, Charley Wirz in late ’83; with three DE lipsticks.
Really enjoyed this, very informative, did I miss why they're low output ? Totally agree on string gauge being subjective. Kudos to your wife encouraging you to do this.
I believe their output is so low because the magnetic field is not focused as strongly on the strings in comparison to a single coil or a pickup that uses metal slugs or screws. Also keep in mind that the bar magnet in the lipstick pick up is further away from the top edge of the cylindrical shape of the tube. This adds an additional gap from the strings.
Sorry , Big Strings make a Huge Diff Step up to a piano nummies , and , well And about that SRV tone ? My own Strats and Gibson Invader (The only LP shape spanker for me) Strung differently? Heavy or Light ? Night and Day Thin or Piano like Tone Been at it for 50 years and can tell which guitar certain artists are playing
Love your channel. I learn something every time... Subject matter: I've a 60's single pickup Harmony Rocket. It is a Blues machine, delivering a unique, but Bluesy clean scream that pleases my ear to no end. The guitar is a piece of crap, but when I plug it in, it sounds so good, I put up with the guitar's flaws. BTW, I did put good tuners and a Tune-o-Matic bridge on it, which really improved the sound. I had to file narrower string slots in the bridge so the strings would be over the pole pieces. I also put a piece of steel wire across the pole pieces. What is with these DeArmond pickups? I have an acoustic, built to 1930's Martin spec, wide neck and bridge string spacing (2 3/8"). Everything about these dimensions rocks my world. I want to make a Tele with these dimensions. I know that NOBODY makes Tele pickups that can accommodate these wide dimensions. I know I will have to also make the pickups from scratch, including the bobbin. I was wondering. If I put X amount of turns on this wider bobbin, I'll add additional wire, which in turn with raise the impedance compared to standard width bobbin... right? Is it possible to calculate the length of the wire to get a certain impedance? I do prefer low impedance sound, and am not bothered by pickup noise, because I play live... Your input would be appreciated.
phil mcknight cut one in half for science n shit the beato video had me smirking - i've been using 9's on my LP for a while - sound fantastic - tried 10's and hated em - rhetts reaction to the 8's got me curious about how they feel so i went a bought some - i'll try them soon..
Hi Dylan Very good Chanel and as always informative and to the point video. I'm trying to make lipstick like sound in my diy pickup; may I ask if it's not "classified" how many warp of wire and what gauge of wire a lipstick pickup have? How much resistance it must have? And if I prefer a hotter lipstick pickup what can I do for it? Will a neodymium magnet help?
thank you this was the one I had inquired about, and mistakenly called the telecaster neck pickup a lipstick....thats what i wanted to know.....great video...missed the section on low output and why...
Dylan:"NEVER buy gold hardware it's gross. my opinion tho" shots fired! jaja i think gold looks goo on all black, blue or all white guitars only. on lipstick pickups: they're made exactly like i thought they were made, I'm proud of myself!
Hey man, great video. What kinda sounds could I expect if I stuck one of these lipsticks down on the bridge position of my squire strat? I'm looking for a sorta noisy garage racket punchy with a bit of twang...
Gold hardware looks great in certain themes imo. Gold is a sign of wealth and extravagance. Its a little flashy and Maybe not for everyone, but it's certainly not gross.
Just because your "unwashed" doesn't mean you have to hate nice things, in fact that's the motivation to have nice things. Unwashed to me sounds llike a piriful reason to be a lazy piece of shit. I've been working since I was 12. Life is what you make it, dont give me excuses. This is the land of opportunity.
I ordered some bronze wool off of ebay subsequent to your admonition to avoid steel wool. I would imagine it should avoid the problem of particles getting into the pickups. Hasn't arrived yet so I can't attest to how well it will work.
I put tre old Dan Electro Lipstick in my hardtail stratocaster and they sounds awesome! Any one who wonder how they sound. Listen to Stevie Ray Vaughn when he play his guitar Charley. Just some input from Sweden 🇸🇪
Cool vid on lipstick pickups. I did not know that they were a different construction inside as compared to a single. With shorter magnets, could you make a single fit a lipstick pickup case?
Hi Dylan, I like to build a telecaster with a lipstick-pickup in the neck position. I saw Charlie Starr live, playing a telecaster he got form Haggis of the Four Horseman. It seems the lipstick in neckposition is an original vintage one, because it seems to be longer then the modern ones. Do u know something bout it? Thanks Marc
>"Gold hardware is gross" Good lord, something we completely agree on. Yellow gold in general is gross to me. I much prefer silver colors to yellow gold. But ROSE gold on the other hand.....
When was the «real» lipstick pickups made? Was it like 54-56? Or was it for a shorter/longer period of time. Im thining of those with no bobbins in them
1:55 " Don't ever buy gold hardware..ehh.. I don't like gold hardware I think it's gross..just my opinion " and I laughed... and some WARE inside I said.. AMEN.
Totally agree. I just picked up a Jay Terser tobacco Tele with gold bling hardware. Ugly. But it has a very nice maple neck with a maple birdseye fretboard. Time to change out to silver.
Great, great video Dylan! Really explains every doubt possible on this subject. If I can, I would like to ask for a video about "offset guitars". What is a offset guitars, what makes a guitar an offset.? Thank you for sharing knowledge, and it's my favorite guitar Chanel on UA-cam, I will look for be part of patreon.
Wasn't the Burns Tri-Sonic pickup similar to the original lipstick? Weren't the tri-sonic's just wire wrapped around a bar magnet? Would be cool if you covered the differences between the Burns and lipstick if there are any.
Lipstick are single coil, so they share a lot of the same characteristics, lipstick pickups enduce Eddy current so they have a more harmonic sound and a more metallic sound, also, due to the constructio is more expressive but with less bottom end
Dylan, did I miss "Dylan Talks Tone" about the lipstick pickups? What's the characteristics of them, why do you still make them, and for who/what style music? I just wanted to know the main genre that attracts people to this style.
Hey Dylan! I was wondering if you would do a video or share your experience with “dummy” pickups sometime? I love true single coils but I can’t play them at my church because of the hum. I know there are a lot of ways to approach this but haven’t loved many of the compromising solutions I have found. Thanks for all of the great content man, it’s been super helpful and eye opening! P.S. I have looked at some “dummy” pickup circuits and it seems like when the “dummy” pickup is in the circuit it diminishes the output value. Is there something that could help with that?
The Dimarzio HS-2, 3 and 4 are a single coil wired in series with a dummy pickup below out of phase to create a hum-less sound. you can wire a capacitor in series from the selector switch and the volume with a 1M resistor to ground to create a high pass filter above 60 kHz (2.2 M resistor will give you 120 KHz ) or wire in series a cheap pickup with ceramic magnet and just remove the magnet and place it inside the guitar.
Great video on the history of lipstick pickups. Question: Would you recommend lipsticks for a solid body electric 12-string? I am having a Warmoth build done and am looking for options. I am looking at a S-S-H configuration on a Jazzmaster body with pick guard. Your thoughts? Thanks
Sup Dylan! new fan of the channel, so my question is if the bobbin for a lipstick is the same as a mini-humbucker, would wiring two of them together like a humbucker sound similar or different to a mini-humbucker?
01/30/2020: Thank You! This was so interesting. I had no idea the history of the lipstick pickups. PS: I am totally impressed by how respectful you are replying back to people that are rude to you. Also, I love how you mention how amazing your wife is and how she supports you in doing videos. I am 74 years old, and can say with confidence that I have seen many times men that did not show lovingly respect to their wives and take care of them, would lose her to some other man, who knows how to take care of a good woman with love and respect. You set a good example for all men young and old to see. Thank you!
Thanks a lot for these videos, will you ever do blade/rails vs single pole pieces ?
I'm glad you continued to make videos and didn't quit. The thing about string gauge is purely personal choice. There are other ways of changing guitar tone, but Rhett made a cool point in that video about how he liked the feel of the lower gauge strings and that he felt like he played with more confidence and a different touch. That indeed is a personal revelation.
I'm glad you finally talked about the lipstick pickups. However, I think you were too brief in your description. I was hoping to hear some science behind why they sound like they do. White board drawings and all. Also, I think the "standard" sized lipsticks for say a Fender are constructed differently than the Danelectro ones. I have a Dano and the pickups are a bit longer than normal single coils. There is a video on UA-cam that shows someone cutting open a Dano style single coil. What they pull out is a rather large bar magnet, no bobbin, with wire wrapped around it with only some insulating tape to separate the bar and wire.
My opinion on the Dano and lipsticks (after playing on one for 20yrs) is that they are greatly underrated. I think they have an excellent and unique tonal quality.
Just my opinion. I am open to hear others thoughts on them too.
So proud!
And btw, I adore Rick Beato for his knowledge about music, that's why I best like his music-related videos.
And he pointed me towards Rhett Shull, who's videos I also enjoy.
Shout out to a fellow Rhett Shill fan! That guy is not only super talented, but simply informative & down to earth humble. Very entertaining channel.
You are absolutely 100% correct when it comes to using steel wool on or even around an electric guitar. Back in the day when I use to rewind and restore pickups I use to see this corrosion problem all the time and it was directly caused from people as well as guitar techs polishing frets with 0000 steel wool. Now that we have The Lizard Spit fret polishing system there is no excuse for anyone to even think about using steel wool to polish frets anymore. The Lizard Spit does a far superior job with none of the risks that steel wool has.
I'm a retired Aerospace Machinist and discovered White #M ScotchBrite years ago. I've also done repairs and restoration since about '75. I get the argument all the time, "Well, I tape up the pickup covers when I polish frets, so everything is OK with using steel wool" BS! those fine particles get into everything! I, too have witnessed too many shorted out coils to ever use steel wool.
Lipstick pickups are really simple to understand because they're so simplistic, even by pickup standards. What's really mysterious to me when it comes to vintage hardware is gold foils. If you could make a video on how those work, that would be great. Also: thank you for actually putting the whole lipstick thing into perspective with regard to what vintage lipstick tubes were actually like. About them fitting into other guitars though, I have a 2007-ish reissue of the Dano '64 and I'd bet you dollars to donuts that the lipsticks in that are too large to fit in a guitar made for Fender style single coils without some modifications to the guitar. Other companies making them explicitly to put into guitars after market are their own story, but Danelectro's own lipstick pickups seem to retain the original vintage dimensions at the very least, so I wouldn't go thinking I could just drop a pair of those into just whatever.
you can get a danelectro sized lipstick from china and i did - they are bigger - had to do some cuttin on my guitar to get it to fit
there has been a steady campaign to get dylan to talk gold foils - i've been on the train for a while now... maybe we should start a petition...
I'm from Waterbury Ct. home of Scoville,manufacturing in the U.S, had a huge start in my area. It and the music industry has always attracted my interest,thanks you for informative and instructive content,I dont care for B.S. so you have my attention! And RESPECT!
I am so glad about this video. I have told people over and over that lipstick pickups and tele neck picks are not the same thing! Also I hate gold hardware it looks tacky. I love this video.
From Leo: I have taken apart an old lipstick tube. They did not used to be valuable. Once a Danelectro gets wet in a flooded basement, it is pretty much junk as the body comes apart. There was no bobbin. The bar magnet had a strip of rough brown paper around it. The wire was wrapped directly around the paper and there were two ribbons of silky cloth holding it together. It had a thin waxy coating around everything. The assembly was very difficult to pull from the outer tube. (and impossible to reinsert)
They are cool pickups, I just pulled a neck humbucker out of a guitar and after grinding out the opening put in a lipstick tube. Blending that with a series/parallel switching against a telecaster bridge pickup has some very usable tones with just a hint of uniqueness. I believe there is less hum from a lipstick then a traditional single coil pickup.
just want to put this out there for those interested in vintage spec lipstick pickups, theres a guy who runs under the brand name neptone pickups, he makes lipstick pickups to exact vintage specs that danelectro used back in the day. 42 gauge enameled wire, alnico 6 bar mags 6 not 5, and he winds the wire directly onto the bar mag and the dimensions of the pickups are exact vintage lipstick spec. he offers different winds like normal, custom (more hot), and overwound (hottest). his price is 86 bucks for normal wound and a little more for the other winds. anyway if you guys are looking for something like these, check neptone out i got two of them and they are super nice and spot on vintage spec far as i can tell :)
Just found your channel. Been playing since 86' and I have learned more from you in 7 videos than I have in all those years it seems. I hope you find the time needed to keep them going. Super informative and easy for the common joe to understand. Thanks!
Thankyou for getting the tele issue sorted once and for frigging all!!!
Regarding string thickness, there is physics supporting how the tone depends on the thickness. The reason being that the thicker the string is, the more it starts to behave like a metal rod. For those who have seen the bass piano strings know what I'm talking about.
For more info, look up the Dispersive Wave Equation
I agree, don’t use steel wool. Even if you clean up with a strong magnet, it won’t get it all. Gold hardware is gorgeous! Unfortunately it gets old looking pretty fast and then becomes unsightly. String gauges matter more on acoustic guitars. I prefer 10’s on my electric guitars. Great job Dylan.
Dude, I stumbled across your channel sometime around the 30k subscriber mark and it is hands down one of the best channels I’ve seen. You have a great way of breaking down and explaining this stuff that makes it very easy to understand. Thank you.
Edit*- And now im going to subscribe to your other channel purely out of principle lol. I’m sure I’ll love it too
In reference to string gauges: I used to use very heavy strings (12s to 14s). My father in-law was a professional guitarist from '69 to '84, and is still a great player to this day. He picked up one on my guitars (Kingston Strat out of the '88 or '89 Sears catalog with Graphtech saddles strung with 13s) and said "These strings are like steel bars! How can you fret them, let alone do any bends?" I proceeded to play some bluesy licks, including some pretty big bends. It all comes down to what you're comfortable with. For the record, I also played bass, so I guess my hands were stronger than his. He could still play circles around me! I wouldn't recommend heavy gauge strings for beginners, because it could severely limit their progress.
Hi Dylan, just wanted to say thank You for all the hard work and time you put into the videos I learn a lot from you.By the way i keep coming back because your so honest it's refreshing in a world were ppl cant even be honest with themselves.(talking to me on that one as well). I agree about what you said about communication with your wife and her being understanding. She is worth more then all the precious stones on God's green Earth Dont forget to give her an extra Hug or two simply out of appreciation. All the best to you and your family!
The most important thing with pickups is to have them parallel to the strings. Just a little bit out of parallel and they lose their ability to capture the guitar. They lose all their magic, and most players have no idea about this and they never check to see if they are perfectly parallel to the strings. One time I bought a Van Halen type of Strat. It sounded amazing. I bought a second pickup for the neck position and worked on the guitar and in the process, the pickup was no longer parallel, and the guitar was never the same, and it took me 10 years to figure out what the problem was. That guitar could have made amazing recods, and it all got lost because of some little thing like that.
Great job of explaining all of this, Dylan.
13:54 “medical particles”. Then don’t use medical grade steel wool and just use regular steel wool. 😂
I knew there was a reason I liked your content.
Gold hardware is always tacky, no matter which color it's paired with.
Aw come on. Check out the new Jackson Rhoads with the gold hardware and natural mahogany oil finish. Gorgeous.
Yeah - agreed. That said, I've got blonde maple hollowbody, with gold HW; also has Gold Bigsby. It actually looks good there
@@whitaker_media
Saw the old Randy Rhoads in black & gold, saw the new one, saw Les Pauls, and they all look tacky to me. But to be honest, the natural mahogany isn't über tacky.
The only piece of musical equipment that works in black & gold in my book works so well because of the big white letters on it; a Marshall amp.
Agreed! Anyone with those tacky LP customs, especially '56 and '57 black beauties, please contact me to dispose of them for you.
I prefer chrome, but have seen several guitars that look both beautiful AND tasteful with gold hardware. The problem is, the gold plating quickly wears away and looks blotchy and cheap. THIS looks terrible. I have heard some people say they LIKE that look, but to me, that's akin to a penchant for old hookers with heavy makeup.
I am really trying to just play and get away from discussions about gear in general. However, you seem like a cool guy so I subscribed! Cheers!
Great job, in about 66' I had a black and white Danelectro shorthorn 3021 guitar and a DS 50 amp with three ten inch speakers. Danelectro guitars and amps were a very big bang for the buck. I wish I still had that amp. I enjoyed this video.
*THAAAAAAAAANKS!*
Btw sorry for spamming your videos with the request for this comparison, but I really wanted to see it. Hey, you've earned yourself a sub! :)
I watched the Rick Beato string gauge video. What bothered me about it was that they only used a dirty tone and the whole "you might have the wrong string gauge"-attitude. I got nothing against him and I follow his videos, because there is some good stuff there, just saying that the perspective could have been more neutral.
I agree with Dylan that it's a personal choice and should be based on playing style and what kind of response you need from the string. To my experience string gauges do matter, but mostly because they affect the playing so much.
I play bass also and can't play an electric guitar with something less than 11s, because I unintentionally press them out of tune. I prefer 12s and 13s.
I think the whole discussion about guitars and tone would be a lot better if people accepted that their playing styles have unique characteristics and that they never need to sound like someone else. It's ok to talk about your preferences, but it annoys me when someone imposes their preferences on me. Own your style!
Dylan is cool though. Very informative and fact based, and doesn't force his preferences on others. That's why I follow this channel! :)
Scovill got their start making buttons. A large percentage of Civil War - WW2 military buttons were made by Scovill.
Thanks for another informative video .
You forgot to talk about the reason of low output on lipstick pups.
EDIT: Also, I didn't see any of those on your store, do you make them?
The output of lipstick pickup is due to the physical constraints of the design, he uses 43 gauge to have as many windings as possible on such a small space between the case and the magnet, also, the metal case (as in all pickup with full cover) block some of the signals from the strings, the good thing is that eddy currents are generated by the interaction of the casing and the strings giving you beautiful melodic undernotes. new designs reducing magnet size or using higher output magnet are being produced, but cause increased high notes, also, lipstick pickups are not full range, they lack bass response well above 120 khz contributing to the fell of low output.
@@TononiaWorld "they lack bass response well above 120 khz"... I guess you meant to say "they lack bass response *below 120 Hz* " ?
@@TononiaWorld Thanks, i had the same thought as Vlad Maverick after watching the video. Didn't know that tele's weren't lipsticks, but aside from that i wasn't really sure what this video was about. is there anyway to increase the low range threshold on lipstick pickups? that could be interesting.
@@knightbrolaire526 actually lipstick pickups start dipping @ around 200mhz, that's what I meant, I haven't fully graph the frequency responses so I'm not 100% on this, is a "sound like" interpretation
@@slavesforging5361 winding width and magnet strength can help increase it, but in lipstick pickups you can't do much, but you can EQ it with the tone I would use two resistors as a voltage divider network with the tone control so you don't loose to much output, but the sound is part of the character of the instrument, it does have its applications
Seeing the steel wool segment got me to thinking: do the old lipstick pickups ever suffer from corrosion problems?
Thank you for another informative video.
if lipstick pickups are constructed with ceramic, then the answer is no, but Alnico, over time, rust, wax potting only reduces the rate, but is not water, humidity or anything else than Oxigen, and guess wax has oxigen molecules
@@TononiaWorld Danelectro Lipstick Pups are supposed to have Alnico 6 Bar Magnets in them, traditionally. Strat styles often have Alnico 5, though.
String gauge helps maintain a string tension at certain scale Lengths. It's why a Les Paul feels so different from a Strat with the same Gauge strings. Like you where saying, the impact to your tone is mostly on how that effects your playing, unless you are getting very heavy with lower tuneing or higher tuneings with much lighter strings. There is a tonal difference with all playing differences aside between say, nines and tens, and it comes from the strings mass and tension influencing the vibration of the string (a 10 gauge string has higher mass, and is under 16.22lb of tension, where a 9 gauge is lighter and 13.14 lb of tension. The lighter the string gauge the "floppier" the string gets.) The less tension on a string, the wider and "sloppier" the vibrations are, exactly like tuning down, which effects string movement over the pickup. Switching from 9s to 11s will certainly tighten things up all around, but so would switching from Nickel to Steel on your wound strings, and the bigger difference is on how your pick attack effects said vibrations. If you have a heavy hand, maybe go for those 10s or 11s. But its tone and feel and that will always be a personal preference to the person playing.
Those looking for comparison of string gauges and scale length in regards to tone should check out Said Too Muchs channel, almost all of his stuff is messing with that sort of thing.
Btw, Rick didn't try to make any rules for string gauges. His point was just that people have a lot of false beliefs about this, eg that thicker strings have a fuller tone.
Yeah I watched it. Great video.
Always drives me crazy when people call a tele neck pickup a listick pickup. Great video on the description of a lipstick pickup. I already knew this but love watching your videos.
Glad you said that about the stings. I've always used 9 - 42 Fender or Ernie Ball. After Beatos' video I tried 8's. I literally could not play with them. I so completely changed the feel of my guitar. It couldn't pick properly, even after 2 days trying to get used to them. Needless to say I'm back to my 9's.
I bought a brand new Silvertone 1303 SVB guitar a few months ago and absolutely love it. Once I pick it up, it is all I can do to put it down. Mahogany body and neck. 4 bolt diagonal bolt on neck and boy does it s u s t a i n !!!! Lipstick pickups are standard and running this bad boy thru my Electro Harmonix Satisfaction Fuzz pedal and then into my Fender Deluxe amp, it sounds like Armageddon.
I'm with you Dylan...I despise gold hardware...I've never had any luck with them not tarnishing & looking like trash pretty quick
Nicely broken down, one of the few times I actually already knew about the subject already. I learnt it from a very wise diminutive scotsman, it was one of his tatas.
Looking forward to broadening my knowledge on your next one.
Cool post 😎🎸✅
I love your videos Dylan - you tell it as it is
very cool! Thanks for still doing videos.
I’m still waiting for a video on pickup covers and the difference they make
instead of opening up an original vintage lipstick pickup, you could photograph it in an x-ray. but that means you also have to acquire an x-ray.
This was informative. Was looking at getting a Dean electric resonator guitar with a lipstick pickup and wondered if I could replace that pickup with a Tele neck. So the more you know!
I must be running in much different guitar circles because I've never heard anyone call a tele neck pickup a lipstick.
I gotta a wife like that. I have 15 guitars now, and l just ordered 2 more. And i swear she told our daughter yesterday, 'oh well, it's his money'. Not totally true, it's our money, but she loves to hear me play different guitars/amps/pedals, and loves my love for music. Don't hate! LOL!
Obviously the similarity is that they are both chrome colored. That's the only reason people call the Tele neck pickup a lipstick pickup - because they look similar.
Interesting!!! So, what kept the wire on the magnet, without the lip of a bobbin there to keep it in place when they were winding them back in the day? That must have taken some serious skill.
Great vid as usual! Is it possible to do a comparison between dynasonics and Rickenbacker pickups? Both have about the same footprint.
Pretty sure Rick pronounces his name "bee-auto", not "beet-oh".
To the steel wool thing, i use it all the time. Easy solution to it getting in the pickups. Just take them out before working on the guitar. Its even easier if its a pcb plug gibson. That not an option? Low tact double sided tape. They'll stick to the tape
Dude, Phil McKnight took one apart. Go to his channel to see it.
The Guitologist did too. He fixed a pickup that had a busted case.
That was a Seymour Duncan bridge pickup not an original
Beato did that whole test on a Les Paul. Different strings sound different w/ different guitars. 10's capture the Strat tone perfectly...I think.
Great video, can you do a video on sustanianc pickups?
Second request. Please do comparison between Staple P90 variant and modern P90 pickup. Please???
So pull the pickups before using steel wool on guitar, got it.
or mask with tape and plastic bag
I use the 2" wide blue masking tape, it allows for faster coverage. Once Im done, and have metal shavings everywhere I cover the area with more tape to trap the metal shavings between the two layers of tape so they cant get out.
I love these pickups
OMG YOU'RE MARRIED?! The woman must be a saint with an endless supply of patience and good will. A veritable Milkmaid of Human Kindness. Send her my condolences.
Aaaaand I'm just busting your balls.
Thanks for that breakdown on lipsticks. The history was particularly interesting to me. I love how the old timers put these things together with the cheapest stuff they could get their hands on and now we try to recreate it with with precious materials assembled by the nimble fingers of 14 yr old Mongolian virgins under a full moon. Its hilarious.
Wasn't that a Billy Bragg tune?
I have 2 Danos; a U2 and a DC 12 string - both early 90s reissues and I love them. About to put some Golden Age lipstick humbuckers in an old Epi dot to see how they sound. Those buckers are pretty hot and might make a semi hollow guitar howl, but it’s an experiment. They look super F-ing tight. Shout from ECobb.
Nice vid. I've always liked Lipsticks - just another tone palette. I have a 3 pickup Tele style with Dan Electro sized lips in neck/mid & HB in bridge. The P/Us are from an MIK Agile Elec Sitar - so I assume they are Artecs; bit hotter than DE spec and work well. Also have geeky p/u switching and gets lots of diff/usable tones. Luv Nk/mid in series, or Mid/brg [coil split], in series. BTW - check out SRV's white tele; 'Charley'. It was built by SRV's guitar tech, Charley Wirz in late ’83; with three DE lipsticks.
Really enjoyed this, very informative, did I miss why they're low output ? Totally agree on string gauge being subjective. Kudos to your wife encouraging you to do this.
I believe their output is so low because the magnetic field is not focused as strongly on the strings in comparison to a single coil or a pickup that uses metal slugs or screws. Also keep in mind that the bar magnet in the lipstick pick up is further away from the top edge of the cylindrical shape of the tube. This adds an additional gap from the strings.
God bless you for teaching me what it is a bar magnet wrapped in wire inside old Iip stick tubes...very interesting
Good wife ...
Sorry , Big Strings make a Huge Diff
Step up to a piano nummies , and , well
And about that SRV tone ?
My own Strats and Gibson Invader
(The only LP shape spanker for me)
Strung differently? Heavy or Light ? Night and Day
Thin or Piano like Tone
Been at it for 50 years and can tell which guitar certain artists are playing
Nickle hardware is where it's at agree with you about the gold
5:00 ... I took apart a lipstick pickup just to see how it was made.. I should have taken some pictures! 😂 yes, I made a mess of it!!
Awesome info. Would be awesome if you could talk about the Burns Tri-sonic and what sets them apart from other single coils. Keep up the great work🤘🏻
I was always wondering how they used to wind coils over bare magnet bars.
Love your channel. I learn something every time...
Subject matter: I've a 60's single pickup Harmony Rocket. It is a Blues machine, delivering a unique, but Bluesy clean scream that pleases my ear to no end. The guitar is a piece of crap, but when I plug it in, it sounds so good, I put up with the guitar's flaws. BTW, I did put good tuners and a Tune-o-Matic bridge on it, which really improved the sound. I had to file narrower string slots in the bridge so the strings would be over the pole pieces. I also put a piece of steel wire across the pole pieces.
What is with these DeArmond pickups?
I have an acoustic, built to 1930's Martin spec, wide neck and bridge string spacing (2 3/8"). Everything about these dimensions rocks my world.
I want to make a Tele with these dimensions. I know that NOBODY makes Tele pickups that can accommodate these wide dimensions. I know I will have to also make the pickups from scratch, including the bobbin.
I was wondering. If I put X amount of turns on this wider bobbin, I'll add additional wire, which in turn with raise the impedance compared to standard width bobbin... right?
Is it possible to calculate the length of the wire to get a certain impedance? I do prefer low impedance sound, and am not bothered by pickup noise, because I play live...
Your input would be appreciated.
phil mcknight cut one in half for science n shit
the beato video had me smirking - i've been using 9's on my LP for a while - sound fantastic - tried 10's and hated em - rhetts reaction to the 8's got me curious about how they feel so i went a bought some - i'll try them soon..
Hi Dylan
Very good Chanel and as always informative and to the point video.
I'm trying to make lipstick like sound in my diy pickup; may I ask if it's not "classified" how many warp of wire and what gauge of wire a lipstick pickup have? How much resistance it must have?
And if I prefer a hotter lipstick pickup what can I do for it? Will a neodymium magnet help?
thank you this was the one I had inquired about, and mistakenly called the telecaster neck pickup a lipstick....thats what i wanted to know.....great video...missed the section on low output and why...
Dylan:"NEVER buy gold hardware it's gross. my opinion tho" shots fired! jaja i think gold looks goo on all black, blue or all white guitars only.
on lipstick pickups: they're made exactly like i thought they were made, I'm proud of myself!
Hey man, great video. What kinda sounds could I expect if I stuck one of these lipsticks down on the bridge position of my squire strat? I'm looking for a sorta noisy garage racket punchy with a bit of twang...
Gold hardware looks great in certain themes imo. Gold is a sign of wealth and extravagance. Its a little flashy and Maybe not for everyone, but it's certainly not gross.
Some of us unwashed masses find extravagance gross, lol.
Just because your "unwashed" doesn't mean you have to hate nice things, in fact that's the motivation to have nice things. Unwashed to me sounds llike a piriful reason to be a lazy piece of shit. I've been working since I was 12. Life is what you make it, dont give me excuses. This is the land of opportunity.
I ordered some bronze wool off of ebay subsequent to your admonition to avoid steel wool. I would imagine it should avoid the problem of particles getting into the pickups. Hasn't arrived yet so I can't attest to how well it will work.
do you repair pickups? i enjoy your videos!
Surely Masking tape over the pickups beforehand and a vacuum cleaner with a soft brush attachment would prevent any issues?
You would think... but why do people make excuses for their own tradition and take the risk. It really baffles me.
I put tre old Dan Electro Lipstick in my hardtail stratocaster and they sounds awesome! Any one who wonder how they sound. Listen to Stevie Ray Vaughn when he play his guitar Charley.
Just some input from Sweden 🇸🇪
Cool vid on lipstick pickups. I did not know that they were a different construction inside as compared to a single. With shorter magnets, could you make a single fit a lipstick pickup case?
Hi Dylan, I like to build a telecaster with a lipstick-pickup in the neck position. I saw Charlie Starr live, playing a telecaster he got form Haggis of the Four Horseman. It seems the lipstick in neckposition is an original vintage one, because it seems to be longer then the modern ones. Do u know something bout it? Thanks Marc
>"Gold hardware is gross"
Good lord, something we completely agree on. Yellow gold in general is gross to me. I much prefer silver colors to yellow gold.
But ROSE gold on the other hand.....
The whole argument about string gauge can be proved null by the fact that an amp normally has an EQ. Play the strings that feel comfortable to you.
When was the «real» lipstick pickups made? Was it like 54-56? Or was it for a shorter/longer period of time. Im thining of those with no bobbins in them
1:55 " Don't ever buy gold hardware..ehh.. I don't like gold hardware I think it's gross..just my opinion " and I laughed... and some WARE inside I said.. AMEN.
Totally agree. I just picked up a Jay Terser tobacco Tele with gold bling hardware. Ugly. But it has a very nice maple neck with a maple birdseye fretboard. Time to change out to silver.
Monty Ellingsworth hate gold hardware but this is just preference. Next guy will love it and that’s fine too. But for me it’s a NO.
CSG Guitars did a whole video on lipstick pickups, in which he takes them apart and shows exactly how they're built and explains them. Look it up.
I swapped out the tele neck design for a lipstick, single core sounds so surfy 😜
this comment gets my hopes up a lot hahaha, just ordered a lipstick to put in my tele neck
@@seansibley9371 gonna need a slightly wider route in the body and plate though 😀
Just like that the price of old Danelectros just went up. Hahaha. Great video Dylan.
Dylan, your link to your other UA-cam page has been hacked just fyi
Hi, what about the lace sensors? Can you make a video about it?
Great, great video Dylan! Really explains every doubt possible on this subject. If I can, I would like to ask for a video about "offset guitars". What is a offset guitars, what makes a guitar an offset.? Thank you for sharing knowledge, and it's my favorite guitar Chanel on UA-cam, I will look for be part of patreon.
Wasn't the Burns Tri-Sonic pickup similar to the original lipstick? Weren't the tri-sonic's just wire wrapped around a bar magnet? Would be cool if you covered the differences between the Burns and lipstick if there are any.
Tri Sonics use an impregnated rubber magnet, just like real Gold Foils. and some Rickenbackers
What are the tonal differences between a lipstick and a single coil? I missed that part, if it was in the video.
Lipstick are single coil, so they share a lot of the same characteristics, lipstick pickups enduce Eddy current so they have a more harmonic sound and a more metallic sound, also, due to the constructio is more expressive but with less bottom end
Dylan, did I miss "Dylan Talks Tone" about the lipstick pickups? What's the characteristics of them, why do you still make them, and for who/what style music? I just wanted to know the main genre that attracts people to this style.
thanks for the information.. much appreciated
How do lipstick pickups do on noise, compared to a Strat single-coil? Does the metal case help with shielding?
Is that a greatful dead hat? Or similar? Im in Maryland if you ever want to talk tone man id love to pick your brain. I could also use a pickup....
Hey Dylan! I was wondering if you would do a video or share your experience with “dummy” pickups sometime? I love true single coils but I can’t play them at my church because of the hum. I know there are a lot of ways to approach this but haven’t loved many of the compromising solutions I have found.
Thanks for all of the great content man, it’s been super helpful and eye opening!
P.S. I have looked at some “dummy” pickup circuits and it seems like when the “dummy” pickup is in the circuit it diminishes the output value. Is there something that could help with that?
The Dimarzio HS-2, 3 and 4 are a single coil wired in series with a dummy pickup below out of phase to create a hum-less sound. you can wire a capacitor in series from the selector switch and the volume with a 1M resistor to ground to create a high pass filter above 60 kHz (2.2 M resistor will give you 120 KHz ) or wire in series a cheap pickup with ceramic magnet and just remove the magnet and place it inside the guitar.
What's a difference between a twisted tele neck pickup and a normal tele neck pickup? Why do they sound different?
MOST people, NEVER know what they're talking about!
Especially @DMSProduktions... ;) J/K
@@andrewsmith1520 LOL! I DON'T claim to be an oracle, but I know more than some others!
really love these videos, like, a lot.
Great video on the history of lipstick pickups. Question: Would you recommend lipsticks for a solid body electric 12-string?
I am having a Warmoth build done and am looking for options. I am looking at a S-S-H configuration on a Jazzmaster body with pick guard. Your thoughts? Thanks
Sup Dylan! new fan of the channel, so my question is if the bobbin for a lipstick is the same as a mini-humbucker, would wiring two of them together like a humbucker sound similar or different to a mini-humbucker?