Where to find pickups

[mandofiddle]

Howdy folks,
I've been mulling over the thought of building my own electric 5-string mandolin, and am curious where I may find the pickups. I've played on a couple that had Bill Lawrence blade pickups, thereby negating the fact that there are only 5 strings and there are a ton of pickups built for 6 string guitars... I'm wondering what any of you folks who have bought electrics think about this? And where you might have gotten your pickups.

Thanks,
Dave

[arbarnhart]

You might try a 5 string bass pickup. They are easy to find. I have read mixed reviews of using bass pickups. I have wired a 4 string bass pickup as a soundhole pickup for my oval hole and it seems fine to me, but I am not using it to record or play professionally and really haven't used it much yet. I got a pair and then tried one by itself wired through a pot to a jack. Nice and clean unless I overdrive it. pretty much sounds like an electric guitar.

[Jim Hilburn]

Bass pickup. Right number of strings but wrong string spacing.

Dave, are you thinking solid body or archtop? For my solid body I used a Carvin stacked humbucking Strat style with blades that was only $36. The beauty of this was since I wasn't really looking for a specific electric guitar tone I ended up with a medium output that's dead silent and I wired it series/parralel so you get 2 different tones from the same pickup.
For an archtop, I think that's something I'll be looking for myself at some point. You could use a Bennedetto or Kent Armstrong guitar but I think there are several custom winders who can make one for mandolin. Maybe Lindy Fralin.

[mandroid]

Blade pickups work nicely, Stratocaster type dont occupy much room on the top.

Lawrence is another one ,I bought an EMG select, worked well, stack humbucker under $30.
retrofitted an 8 string with it. angled underthe strings.

[arbarnhart]

You can put the pickup at a slight angle to correct spacing/size issues. I have seen that done on a few and it looks okay to me (designed and cut that way). Using the "regular" 4 string bass pickup in the soundhole of my acoustic 8 string mounted straight across, the poles are not perfectly centered under the string pairs, but they are under well enough to work fine. However, Jim's alternative is probably worth the extra $ (I have less than $10 total in mine).

[testore]

I put Kent Armstrong mini hums in my Tele influenced E mando.It screams.I spoke to Kent about wiring stuff since I'm not an electric guy and he spent a ton of time with me and faxed me a diagram for a 5 way switch. He was a great guy to have help me out and VERY knowledgable. I can't remember the name of the company where I bought them but they were not very expensive and they worked out great.
Gary

[markishandsome]

You can also build your own pretty easily with parts from Stew-Mac. Then you get to chose the spacing etc.

[amowry]

Kent Armstrong told me he will build custom pickups for mandolins fairly reasonably. If you email me I'll give you his contact info.

[arbarnhart]

I had a chance to play my sound hole pickup (using a bass pickup) through a better amp tonight. It didn't sound as good as my little practice amp, then I noticed a solder joint (ground on the pot) that had minimal contact on the terminal and corrected that and it sounded really good. So I am upgrading my opinion from okay to very good. My buddy, who has a better ear as well as a better amp, concurred.

[wayfaringstranger]

I bought a GFS twin-blade humbucker for a project I'm building right now. It's a 4-string mando, but it would fit a 5-string mando (or a 6-string guitar, of course) just fine. They're cheap ($24), sized like a strat or tele pickup, and seem to have gotten good reviews.

I haven't strung mine up yet, but I'll post some results when I do.

[Jim Hilburn]

That looks identical to the Carvin.