Wolfetone Pickups: Marshallhead/Dr. Vintage and Meaner/Mean P90

I recently bought two sets of pickups from Wolfetone Pickups during their 25% off sale.

Marshallhead/Dr. Vintage

The humbucker set is an Alnico 5 Marshallhead bridge pickup (9.3k DCR) and Alnico 2 Dr. Vintage neck pickup (7.8k DCR), both in reverse zebra. The pickups were wound on the same day that I put the order in, and arrived in 6 days. I went with the 4-conductor lead option to wire these pickups for series/parallel switching. I am installing these pickups in my 2003 Ibanez SZ520QM. I previously had GFS Mean 90 pickups in this guitar. The guitar will be set up to be tuned down to D Standard.

Both pickups mounted.

Control cavity shielded with conductive copper tape.

I am using 500K CTS push/pull pots to perform the series/parallel switching. The diagrams that I have encountered (Stew-Mac) seem to have the humbucker wired in parallel when the pot is pushed in, which is the opposite function that I want. I will attempt to wire the pickups as shown below:

Series/Parallel Wiring of Humbuckers

 

8/11/20 - I found time to complete the wiring of the humbuckers. I only had about a minute to try out the guitar through my Pro Junior to make sure all was working properly. The CTS pot switching worked as expected: pushed in for series, pulled out for parallel. I left many of the wires long for future troubleshooting/experimenting. The tone pot is a CTS 500KA with a 0.022uF orange drop capacitor. I don’t like to solder onto backs of pots, since I always burn the flux trying to get enough heat on the pot casing. I found these solder lug washers from GuitarElectronics.com, which allowed me to get a soldered connection onto a pot.

I still have D'Addario 12-52 Chromes installed from the previous configuration of the guitar. I will be trying Elixir 12-52 Nanowebs on this guitar to see how much string life I can get out of them.

Completed wiring of control cavity.

Reinstalling the knobs and switch tip right after completing the re-wiring.

A full shot.

11/5/20 - I have been acclimating with the new pickups for a little while. The guitar is tuned to Drop C with Elixir Nanoweb 12-52 strings. This set has a wound G string, which I did not pick up on.

The Marshallhead is lower output than my initial expectations, but sounds great clean and with gain. The Dr. Vintage neck is clear, not flubby despite the thick strings. The output of these pickups is very low when set in parallel, but I can find uses for the sounds.

The previous combination of thick flat wound strings and P90 pickups had given me a thick sound that was fun for clean and fuzz, but limited for distorted rocksounds. The brighter nature of the current configuration allows me to fool around with downtuned heavy music without flubbing out.

Update. Marshallhead bridge pickup through Helix Native.

Marshallhead and Dr. Vintage into a Fender Pro Junior IV.

Marshallhead bridge pickup through more Helix Native amps.

Meaner P90/Mean P90

The Alnico 2 P90 soap bar set is made up of a Meaner P90 (9.3k DCR) for the bridge position and a Mean P90 (8.3K DCR) for the neck position. I will be putting the pickups in an SX Hawk, and changing out the pots from 250K to 500K, with a 0.022uF orange drop capacitor. The control cavity and pickguard will be shielded with conductive copper tape.

SX Hawk pickup route under pickguard with Wolfetone P90s mounted.

8/13/20 - I wired up the guitar with audio taper pots. The guitar originally had linear taper volume pot, which I have gotten used to. My first observations are that the Meaner P90 bridge position is much brighter than with the stock pickups/electronics. The new pickup definitely has more output than the stock ceramic bridge pickup. The change to 500k pots could be adding the extra high end that I am not used to with this guitar. The Mean P90 in the neck position is comparable to the stock pickup from my memory. 

Wolfetone Meaner P90 and Mean P90 through my Plexi-circuit 50W amp.

Edit - 12/5/23 - I bought another Meaner/Mean P90 set just as the Wolfetone sale was ending for good. These pickups went into a Squier Cabronita Baritone Telecaster. The guitar , since the sound wasn’t all that inspiring. The stock pickups sounded like P90s, but I wanted the upper midrange that the Wolfetones provided in the SX guitar.

I think the guitar sounds great now, and I keep coming back to it. The pickups sound great with gain.

While swapping the pickups out, I also shielded the pickup/control cavities with leftover copper tape to minimize noise. The guitar was rather noisy without any shielding in the cavities, and hard to tolerate with distortion. The guitar is now quiet enough to play with Plexi crunch-levels of distortion when I position of guitar in just the right magnetic position.

Click for Links to Cabinet IRs/NAM Captures

Link to NAM captures on Tonehunt: https://tonehunt.org/OutmodedElectronics

• Vox AC15C1
• Peavey 6505 1992 Original
• Plexi Amp Build
• Tweed Deluxe Build
• Tweed Champ Build
• Fender Pro Junior IV
• MXR Fat Sugar
• Way Huge Saucy Box
• BBE Green Screamer
• Naga Viper Clone
• Madbean Mudbunny Build
• Tomsline AGF-3 Fuzz
• JRR Pedals GESI Face Fuzz
• DOD Carcosa Fuzz
• Way Huge Havalina Fuzz
• Fuzz Factory Clone
• CAPI VP28 Mic Preamp
• Chameleon Labs 7603 Mic Preamp

Download links to my guitar speaker cab impulse responses:

G12M25 Greenback in Jet City 24SVe 2x12

G12H75 Creamback in Jet City 24SVe 2x12

Vintage 30 in Eminence XTC212-BT 2x12

Classic Lead 80 in Eminence XTC212-BT 2x12

The following chain was used to capture the impulse responses:

Steinberg UR824 Line Out → ART DTI → 

Behringer A800 Power Amp → Guitar Cab →

Microphone → Chameleon Labs 7603 Mic Pre → Steinberg UR824 Line In

Guitar cab speakers I've shot:

• Celestion Greenback
• Celestion Creamback H75
• Celestion Vintage 30
• Celestion Classic Lead 80

Speakers I need to re-shoot:

• Celestion V-Type
• Weber Ceramic Blue Dog 30W
• Weber Ceramic Silver Bell 30W
• Weber 12A125A
• Speed Shop A12Q
• Weber 10A125
• Eminence GA10-SC64
• Jensen P10R
• Jensen C10Q
• Jensen C10R
• WGS G8C

I've decided to capture each speaker with the following microphones:

• Shure SM57 with Crimson Orange mod
• Shure 545SD
• Shure SM48
• Beyerdynamic M201TG
• Beyerdynamic M160
• Beyerdynamic M69
• Beyerdynamic M88TG
• Sennheiser MD421 II
• Sennheiser E906
• Audix I5
• Audix OM2
• Blue Ball
• BeesNeez BU87I C
• Soyuz 013
• Warm Audio WA47JR
• Sterling ST170
• Monoprice LR100
• Digital Reference DRI100

Eminence XTC212-BT Guitar Cabinet

New Eminence 2x12

I bought an Eminence XTC212-BT cabinet to house a Celestion Vintage 30 and a Mojotone BV-30H speaker. It looks and feels like a well made Baltic birch plywood cabinet. It is an adjustable back, front-loaded cabinet. The cabinet is wired to be as an 8 ohm cabinet.

All of its dimensions are a bit smaller than some of the more popular 2x12 cabinets: 27.5"L x 11.4"W x 18.1"H. Some of the larger 2x12 cabinets are about 30” wide, 12-14” deep, and 20” tall. The Eminence cab probably does not sound as big as some other 2x12 cabinets.

The cabinet was $199 + shipping + no sales tax from Kentucky to NY. I had originally thought about purchasing a Harley Benton 2x12 or Palmer 2x12 cabinet from Thomann, but the increased shipping costs due to the pandemic no longer made it an economical solution.

Front view.

Front grill removed.

Rear of the cabinet with removable back panel.

The workmanship around the joints inside the cabinet is neatly done inside the Eminence cabinet. The speaker bolts come with lock washers, which get mounted onto T-Nuts. The leather handle has a nice feel. I couldn't spot any indications about where it was made.

Cabinet jack options.

The cabinet comes with 16AWG wire to hook up to speakers.

The cabinet did not come with a manual to define the jack functions. A copy of the directions from Eminence was eventually posted on The Gear Page.

Celestion Vintage 30 from earlier in 2020.

The Vintage 30 needs to be broken in. I will try running 30Hz and 60Hz tones when I get the time. I will take IRs of the speaker as it ages to see how breaking affects frequency response. This cabinet setup doesn't have the big low end resonance of a 4x12 cabinet. I have to turn up the bass or resonance controls of my amps or modelers to get where I want to with the Vintage 30 in this cabinet.

Mojotone BV-30H from 2018.

Specs for the BV-30H.

I am more on the fence with the BV-30H speaker. I like how the speaker sounds in person, but it is more finicky with microphone position than my other speakers. I may end up swapping in a differently voiced speaker in the future. I don't think I've found the sweet spot yet, so I will experiment with more mics and off axis captures.

Both V30 and BV-30H speakers installed.

Edit - 1/14/22 - I finally installed the CL80 in place of the BV-30H. I finally gave up on using the BV-30H in this cabinet. It sounded too different from all other recorded examples of a G12H30 that I’ve encountered.

 

2021 Celestion Classic Lead 80

The dust cap of the CL80 is much bigger than on any of my other 12” speakers. The sound of the speaker is definitely in the Celestion family. It’s not a voice that is as commonly demonstrated like the V30 or Greenback, but still somewhat familiar.

V30 on the left, CL80 on the right.

Edit - 4/27/24 - The latest IRs of the Celestion Vintage 30 are here:

https://app.box.com/s/e7e9bbd2hoc4om17oo46tn58wp2orxyc

CL80 IRs are here:

https://app.box.com/s/l7dwyyglttqbsvol69ojpd5czsxqy20s

And a video to demonstrate some of the sounds:

Jet City Vertical 2x12

Jet City 24SVe 2x12.

My Jet City JCA24SVe Vertical 2x12 cabinet is now loaded with a Celestion G12M25 Greenback and a V-Type, as their sensitivity ratings are similar. I had put the V-Type in storage in favor of the BV-30H in the Jet City cab. The V-Type is now loaded in the top position. These two cabinets are different enough that I expect to have a variety of tones between them.  

Celestion Greenback G12M25 from 2017

The bottom half of the 24SVe cabinet is deeper than the slanted upper half. I think I get a little more low end out of the Greenback in this position. The Greenback is my favorite out of all the speakers that I own. I generally like to place a microphone close to where the dustcap meets the cone.

IRs of the Greenback can be found here: Link to Greenback IRs

Celestion G12V70 V-Type from 2017

The V-Type does remind me of a mix between the Greenback and the Vintage 30.  The sweet spot for mic'ing the V-Type is closer to the middle of the cone, further away from the dustcap edge than a Greenback. In isolation, I prefer the V-Type for higher gain tones, and the Greenback for Plexi-type tones.

IRs of the V-Type can be found here: Link to V-Type IRs (older)

Edit - 8/24/22 - I swapped out the V-Type for a Creamback H75. I still wanted to get a feel for the H-style speaker and was able to get it for a good price. I immediately gravitated towards its voicing upon making the change. The speaker doesn’t have the high end that pushed me away from the Mojotone BV30H. I wanted the opposite of an ice-picky speaker, and this speaker fits me well. It does overpower the Greenback in the same cab, but this is fine for recording.

2022 Celestion Creamback H75

Link to Creamback H75 IRs

Edit - 9/10/24 - I moved the Vintage 30 from the Eminence 2x12 to the bottom of the Jet City cab. The sound filled out quite a bit. The 14" depth of the Jet City provided some more thickness, which works better with high gain. The Jet City cab also mellowed out the high end under a microphone.

Alvarez ABT610E Baritone Acoustic Electric

Alvarez ABT610E Acoustic-Electric Guitar.

I bought an Alvarez ABT610E off of Musician’s Friend in 2017 as a cheaper alternative to the Alvarez ABT60 baritone acoustic guitar. It is a Musician's Friend special from Alvarez that occasionally gets sold as the Stupid Deal of the Day.

I have left the guitar in the factory B-standard tuning. The guitar handles single notes and arpeggios better than chords in the lower register. I had to adjust the truss rod a bit, as I was fretting out on the higher strings. The onboard pickup isn't particularly inspiring to play, but I don't mind having it.

I used a Little Blondie microphone to record the guitar. I intend to try some LDC mics to record the guitar to see if the low end can be captured better. My tests with omni microphones do not capture the low end on chords as well as I would like.