Advice: PUs for Washburn KC70V

  • A washburn KC70V was my first electric guitar ever, more than 25 years ago. I had many gigs with this guitar, even travelled from germany to NY and played in a small club on broadway. So I have very good associations with this guitar. Even knowing it is a cheap instrument and you can see it has been used lots. Playability and intonation fits fine.


    Unfortunately I am not playing this instrument any longer. Other guitars (single cut, strat, tele, prs, ...) have taken over all the jobs, mainly because they are sounding better. The washburn pickups all sound quite thin. The 2 single coils are sounding thin, but fairly ok. The humbucker sounds liveless, split it is absolutely thin. Also none of the combinations sounds really usefull. 25 years ago, this didn't matter to me. But now with other possibilities...


    While the guitar has its specialities... it is my only one with a floyd rose, you can turn on/off each pickup via a mini switch, it is my only HSS setup, it has the best fitting case I own.


    Thus I would like to "revive" this instrument with new pickups.


    I typically prefer the more lower output PUs: e.g. Gibson Burstbucker Pro, DiMarzio Area Series, Fender NoCaster. But I am not so much into brands.


    My idea was to give this guitar a style typical somewhat hotter PUs. I also wanted to use the mini switches to allow every pickup to split. As I had problems with the potis already, I would exchange them as well.


    I was thinking about Seymout Duncan TB16 turned round to use the hotter coil outside as the single coil. In the middle I wanted to put a SL59-1N and in the front a SJBJ-1N. Wiring should be hum reducing in 2 and 4 single coil setup. I'ld replace the switches for Göldo012 on-off-on. I am not sure of a reasonable function for push/pull potis than any longer, so they would stay global volume and tone, but with new 500k logarithmic potis.


    In best case, I have a quite versatile travelling instrument, that combined with the Kemper Floor can go with me to practice and gigs. In worst case I have an instrument which with the hotter humbuckers and the flyod rose can be used for some harder music styles.


    Maybe somebody can advice, actually I would invest much more, than the guitar is worth.

    Kemper Stage

  • Nice plan and given the history I fully understand your thoughts. Nevertheless quite hard to give a good advice without more details, e.g. which wood in the body, neck and fretboard of the guitar (maybe you could also post a picture).


    I understand you're from Germany? Acy's Lounge for instance offers great advice and great selection of very versatile Häussel pickups. Maybe it would make sense to talk to a guitar luthier or to Acy in order to get some experience from there.


    Basically your plan and the mentioned pickups sound okay at first view - again I would really propose to select those depending on the characteristics of the guitar.

  • The guitar is elder body and rosewood fingerboard.

    You can also see some bruises... good ones are sold used for about 250$.


    The flagship of the series (KC90) actually had Seymour Duncan PUs instead of the washburn eleminators, but also had an ash body.


    Analytically I would say that mids and low freqs are missing with the current PUs (thin) and I am also missing harmonics (liveliness). There could also be more dynamics in the PUs. The output is the lowest of all my guitars, just the humbucker in humbucker mode has a quite normal output. I don't expect that liveliness as with P90s, however compared with my others, the sound is "dead" if this is understandable. But this is the sound of the guitar with those PUs, don't know how it would be with others.


    Häussel PU I only knew for their good PAF remakes. And while Acy's Lounge does not offer Trembucker or single coil sized Humbuckers (apart from blades), they seem to offer lots of custom stuff, so I'll give them a try.

    Kemper Stage

  • I'm not an SD guy, so I can't really help on that front. What I CAN say is that, assuming you are willing to spend some money for this reinvigoration, the Fishman Fluence series of pickups are AMAZING! I'd say go with a Classic Humbucker in the bridge and two of their SSA pickups in the middle and neck positions. You can see the typical configuration on the SSA page, but here it is, for reference:


    HSS Positions:

    • Position 1 (Bridge) — Bridge humbucker of choice
    • Position 2 — Combines one coil from the bridge and middle with resonance shift for true in-between quack
    • Position 3 — Vintage single coil tone
    • Position 4 — Combines one coil from the middle and neck with resonance shift for true in-between quack
    • Position 5 (Neck) — Vintage-voiced neck tone


    Now, if you want strictly passive pickups, and without knowing what genre of music you play, I would recommend on the DiMarzio side of the fence:


    Bridge: ToneZone or AT-1 (Andy Timmons)

    Neck/Middle: Satch Track Neck model or Maybe the Injector Neck for a lower output choice


    You could always use their pickup finder to kind of dial in their suggestions based on the details of your guitar and music style, as well:

    https://www.dimarzio.com/pickup-picker


    Hope that helps!

    Shred 'til yer dead,

    Jeff in Houston

  • I have an active base and I have to admit... I hate it. I always forget to pull out the cable and empty the two 9V blocks inside and it is only passiv useable, when I need it. 3 years didn't cure me from this mistake. Soundwise I like the Fishmans and pricewise would still be an option.


    I actually started searching with DiMarzio. My ideas were like:

    FRED - Satch Track - Pro Track
    PAF 36th Anni - Chopper - Fast Track 1


    I really like DiMarzios single coil sounds, especially the Area series and VV54 Pro, but also the Injector. Nevertheless with the humbuckers I have my selection problems (too many options for me ;-)). Tone Zone (sounds interesting) and AT-1 (higher output PAF 36th) are close to the Gravity Storm or Dominion which the DiMarzio Tech said are good to split. But aren't those too much output, compared to the single coil sized PUs?

    Kemper Stage


  • Cool! I guess one thing to keep in mind as far as the Fishman's go is that they sell a rechargeable battery pack to power them... so you wouldn't need to constantly be popping new batteries in if you go that.


    In terms of the output of the DiMarzio's... yes, you MIGHT have an issue with matching the overall volume levels, but you MAY be able to mitigate this, in whole or in part, by playing with the pickup heights of the single-coil sized ones vs. the humbucker.


    My Alder-body with maple cap Ibanez USBRG30 came with a Tone Zone in the bridge and a PAF Pro in the neck, originally. I swapped it out for the Petrucci "Awake"-era Steve's Special bridge and Air Norton Neck models... but that wasn't because they didn't sound good... I was just in full DT-worship mode. I have my MIJ Fender HM Strat setup with the Tone Zone and Humbucker From Hell Neck (with an additional HS-3 in the middle position) and those sound quite good in that basswood guitar (ala Petrucci's setup for "Images and Words").


    As a comparison:


    TZ - HFH = 375 - 226 = 149 mV difference

    SS - AN = 390 - 270 = 120 mV difference


    Given that those are stock combos used in a variety of guitars, my guess would be that, as long as you are 150 mV or less in terms of the difference, you should be fine. And like I said, you can use the pickup height as an additional way to dial in a little more or a little less volume to get them to match better.


    Sorry I didn't go through the math for all the other combos you list, but here are the quick output voltages:


    FRED - 305

    Gravity Storm Bridge - 340

    Dominion Bridge - 360

    Fast Track-1 - 191

    SatchTrack - 245

    ProTrack - 275

    The Chopper - 260


    HTH!

    Shred 'til yer dead,

    Jeff in Houston

  • My fishmans would need a recharge everytime I want to play them... but thats my personal problem:

    • Either I stop playing middle of the night, when playing with fellows
    • Or I only stop because my wife or kids cry for me

    So either I am to tired or to fast away to recharge or pull out cable. ;)


    I really wanted to use that active bass, but I am using two passives instead, now.


    So if a difference up to 40% might be ok, that would really ease selection. I am typically playing lower output PUs and they often suffer quite a lot in tone from wrong string distance, thus I was looking lots also in matching outputs. But to put the Humbucker lower would be the easiest task.

    Kemper Stage