My verdict on Gibson Firebird pickup in a Fender Jazzmaster.
Greetings once again fellow offsetters.
So I bought this Gibson Firebird pickup off a guy in Oslo who had swapped his set for a set of PAF’s.
I had it laying around for some time before trying it out as I didn’t know much about them and thought they were just like regular mini humbuckers.
Boy was I wrong, and positively amazed.
As many of you already may know — the Firebird pickup is pretty unique in it’s own way. Construction wise it has two alnico bar magnets placed like rails on a hotrail, and probably some more mojo I don’t know about cause man, those rumours are true …
It sounds like a Telecaster on steroids.
(BRIDGE PICKUP) SOUND:
With the traditional set of 1MEG pots in my favourite JM it shines and chimes beautifully when you pick lightly, but snarls and twangs when you dig in. The highs are crisp and metallic, the lows are boxy(?) I know, all these weird ways of describing sounds, right? Boxy in a good way, like the acoustics of a wooden box — but sharp and clear, very articulate.
It’s a very clean sounding pickup, but not transparent sounding like a lipstick pickup. Way more in the ballpark of a Tele bridge pu. Not microphonic at all. Quiet, no squealing on high gain.
SERIES/PARALEL SWITCHING:
Middle position paired with the Curtis Novak JM-V does not deviate much from a traditional middle-position JM sound. Very much in the same ballpark, maybe just a tiny bit louder. Very sparkly and and clean. In series — it’s a whole other beast. (Wiring two pickups in series produces a longer path with increased resistance, adding volume while preventing the highest frequencies from getting through. With series wiring, the output of one pickup goes into the input of another pickup, while with standard parallel wiring, each pickup takes its own path to the output. Besides being noticeably louder, series wiring emphasizes low and midrange tones). The Firebird pickup is noticeably louder and hotter than your standard single coil pickup, even a bit louder than my loudest Tele pickup. Series switching really brings this to the front, so now you have a really loud guitar that can easily be compared to a more Cobain-esque sound ala SuperDistortion pickups and alike. Those sparkly highs are now gone, and in it’s place you’ve got more of a big humbucker sound. It’s actually comparable to a hot neck pickup in a hollowbody guitar. But if you dial down that bass on the PTB (passive treble and bass) system it sounds more like a Les Paul. Either that or with tone controls/EQ.
GAIN/OVERDRIVE/FUZZ:
Played through high gain Fender Amp and/or Boss BD2– Sounding like a cross between a P90 and a Telecaster pickup, but as expected— no hum.
It has more body than a Tele but more sparkle than a P90. Good sustain, mid range is just perfect, meaning it’s very balanced. Lots of character when you strum open chords, those highs really shine. Less spiky than your traditional JM-pickup. Single-notes sounds very Tele-ish. Big Muff at 10 sounds just as’ you’d expect it to — big and wooly but with clear note definition, quite trebly even when drenched in that good ol’ shoegaze.
10/10 score, perfect sound for my rig and personal preference.