Q & A

Do mass production pickups use cheaper parts than custom shop pickups?

• NOPE. They use the same parts. For example, magnetic wires are purchased from MWS in US and shipped out to Dongho Electronics for consistent build and sound quality.

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How does a cover affect the SETbucker sound?

• The nickel silver cover basically increases the pickup inductance, cutting the high end subtly and adding chorus-like "feel". The HB mode would have exactly the same effect or benefit as the traditional humbucker pickup would have. The tone from SE and SET modes gets slightly rounder and mellower when the SETbucker is covered. You can check the difference between open and covered pickup sounds from C-5N/5B sound clips. 

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How does the SE mode sound like?

• The SE mode sound lies between traditional humbucker split coil and P-90 tones. In general, a higher output SETbucker produces a SE tone closer to P-90. A key benefit of the SE mode is the reduced output difference from the humbucker mode. Personally, one of the worse complaints with traditional coil split was the abrupt output drop, which actually led me to the inner-coil idea. 

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Which model maximizes the effects of inner-coil?

• The inner-coil basically boosts up split coil output and clarity. I think the clarity effect is similar across all SETbucker models. The output boosting effect is larger with low output pickups. Added coil turns is pre-determined by the slug hole wall volume so the amount of output addition is the same. A relative output boost would be larger with a smaller output pickup.

• One more important aspect is the tone distinctiveness of individual modes. In this aspect a higher output pickup is more advantageous because the SET mode output is adjusted to a real single coil pickup output. An output difference between modes also means a difference in tone clarity and drive sound.

• So... which model maximizes its effect? The answer is... no single pickup does. Technically, M-2N would have the maximum output boost effect and M-3B or I-2 would have the maximum tone distinction among modes. That's why my personal favorite HH combo is M-2N/M-3B. The introductory video was actually made with this combo.

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How is a SETbucker as a humbucker pickup?

• A simple answer is... it is at least as good as a regular humbucker. The SETbucker development/optimization took almost 5 years since the idea had come about. In fact, most challenging to prove was this subject - is my SETbucker as good as other humbuckers, or in other words, does the inner-coil really not affect the humbucker tone? ​I had run blind testing between SETbuckers and reference pickups with similar builds/specs (mostly, Seymour Duncan and Gibson) to make sure the SETbucker is competitive just as a humbucker pickup.

• Here goes the real story where I finally decided to go mass production... One day I installed my A2 SETbucker (now C-2) set in 1976 Greco EG900 and ran a blind test against 1979 Greco EG800 with Gibson A2 pickups. It was quite a routine process back then. The result was my defeat (eh, again?), which was consistent for almost a year. Definitely, mine always won Epiphone 1960 Tribute Les Paul with Gibson A2 pickups in another blind test. However, it did not make me happy because it was not a good apples-to-apples comparison. Then, a crazy thought came up - to switch pickups between 1976 and 1979 Grecos. And the result was... voila, mine won finally! The smoking gun was the guitars, not the pickups. It was the last checkbox before starting a SETbucker brand and I was able to move forward to mass production with confidence.

• If you want to use a SETbucker just as a humbucker pickup, just solder green and shield wires to ground and black wire to signal, and ignore all other wires. A good thing is that SETbucker is offered for a comparable price to other regular humbuckers, in spite of added complexities and functionalities!

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Are you ever going to make white or zebra pickups?

• For sure. We are working on that. 

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Can I purchase wiring parts from CJLabs?

• Yes, we can sell parts as needed through Reverb.com. Contact us for your needs and we will post them to our Reverb shop for your purchase.

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What is the warranty policy?

• We offer the original purchaser 2-year warranty from the day of purchase for any manufacturing defects. 

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Can I do out-of-phase wiring with a SETbucker?

• The SETbucker does not support in-pickup out-of-phase wiring due to its construction, in which two bobbins are connected in parallel but out of phase. If you are interested more explanations... the out-of-phase wiring is available only with a 4-wire humbucker pickup. 2 each of lead wires are harnessed out from each bobbin. One wire from one bobbin should be connected to another wire from the other bobbin, and depending on which wires are connected, it can be in phase or out of phase. In case of the SETbucker 2 wires are pre-connected in-phase in the build so it cannot be reversed. The SETbucker could have had the out-of-phase wiring option if it had 6 lead wires. However, we decided to go with 5 lead wires (2 terminals pre-connected) considering wiring simplicity and space limit.

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