*NPD* New Hand-Wound Pickup Day

[FrankenFretter***]

I ordered some Sin pickups from Evilbay recently, and they came today. These are PAF clones, A2 magnets, vintage wind (8k bridge, 7k neck), with nickel covers. These are going in the Lemon Drop project in this thread. From what I've heard on Youtube, these should be right up my alley. Ah yes, you'll be wanting to see some pictures...





I'm hoping to get these installed today, along with my new Keystone tuners and some CTS pots. Report on tone to follow.

[Tig***]

Wow, I really like the brushed covers. Nice attention to detail.
Can't comment on the sound of course. That will be your lucky job!

Sin pickups... You may need a Hell Guitar!

[FrankenFretter***]

Well, they're in. I won't be able to string it up tonight, I need to bring my cordless drill home from work tomorrow in order to drill the extra holes for the Keystone tuners. Gratuitous photo here, but I'll post more in the Lemon Drop project thread.

[bcdon***]

That looks really great! Nice work!

[FrankenFretter***]

Thanks Full On! I'm not sure I'll get the rest of the guitar done tonight...it's family movie night. Family comes first, but I should have it done sometime this week.

[Duffy]

Are they locking keystone tuners?

Nice looking pups.

[FrankenFretter***]

Are they locking keystone tuners?

Nice looking pups.

Nope, I've gone old school on this guitar. Just regular green keystones.

I actually strung her up last night. Apparently I'll have to re-solder the neck pickup (I left the control cavity cover off, just because I had a feeling...), but through headphones and a solid state amph, the bridge pickup seems to sound pretty dang good. I'll have a proper listen through tubes and speakers after work tonight.

[FrankenFretter***]

Both the pickups are working now, after I sorted things out in the control cavity. Great pickups, nicely rounded tone with great articulation and note bloom (I actually don't know what note bloom is. It sure sounds cool though!). Even with the tone controls turned all the way down, both pickups still have great clarity without even a hint of muddiness. They overdrive well, and although they seem to feedback a little bit easier than most of my other guitars, it's not anything that I would consider a real problem. Overall I'm very happy with these pickups, and would definitely buy another set in the future, if I have need of another set. Sin pickups gets a big "Thumbs Up" from me!

[FrankenFretter***]

An update: I can no longer recommend Sin pickups until the builder, Chris Carter, does business in a more professional manner. I gave fellow Fretter Mapka my endorsement of these pickups after being very impressed with the craftsmanship and the excellent tone. He ordered some custom-wound mini-hums some time ago, and hasn't received them yet. Mr. Carter hasn't been good about communicating either, and Mark hasn't heard from him in quite a while. On the Agile forum, a member there is having the same problem.

Not that my personal endorsement should mean anything anyway, but I officially withdraw it for the time being. I think Chris Carter makes a great pickup, and I hope he's able to get things on an even keel soon. Until that time, I would advise against buying any Sin pickups.

[Duffy]

I hope that Mr. Carter and Sin Pickups didn't already collect your friend's money and then fail to produce his product or adequately communicate with him. As long as he didn't collect the money from your friend's account already and hasn't refused to provide a requested refund, he should be okay. A lot of companies I deal with don't take the money out until the product actually ships out from them to me. This keeps them out of a potential legal jam that could compound very rapidly in the event of unpredicted circumstances.

That could have legal, of course, and - criminal implications.

I have seen businessmen get in over their head and attempt to get out by spending the money they get for orders, on back logs and other bills, instead of filling the order for which they received the money in the first place. Sometimes things snowball fast when they try to make ends meet, by digging themselves in even deeper.

I'm sure Mr. Carter doesn't want the FBI on his case; interstate commerce, using the internet for the purpose of commiting fraud, etc. If they get enough complaints about him they Will investigate. If you and your friend are unhappy I would suspect that there are others out there equally unhappy. Unhappy people will complain. Agents will investigate complaints.

I wouldn't want to see a little pickup winder wind up in a big slammer.

Good luck to your friend. I hope he gets his order asap. You are doing a good thing by letting us know that there "might" be reason to be cautious when potentially dealing with this guy.

[mapka]

Felt since it was me communicating with Sin it is time for me to chime in here. As FrankenFretter mentioned I ordered the pup after contacting Sin. Chris seemed knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the project.... until it came time to do the actual build. First excuse was that he had family obligations, OK I can understand. He still provided me with a completion date and I paid him. Completion date came and went as did the communication. Finally threatened him with reporting him to Ebay and PayPal and magically communication came back! latest is the pups are suppose to ship today. We'll see... I just hope they do and that they are what we had discussed

[Duffy]

Yeah Mapka. I know the feeling. I hope you get the pickups as discussed within the next couple days. Please let us know.

Sometimes guys operate these home brew businesses and get in over their heads. They run out of money. The generate operational ability by taking new orders that they don't have the materials to fill. They try to fill the back orders with the money from the new orders - there is a legal term for this business scam. I am not saying that this is what he is doing. A lot of times guys that get in too deep and try to get out using this method, wind up getting even deeper in and then they aggressively take new orders in an effort to get back out. Because they multiply their number of unsatisfied customers, they get a significant number of complaints.

Because this is interstate commerce and uses the telecommunications system, the internet, phone system, etc., to carry out the scam it entails breaking federal laws. This can result very easily in being prosecuted in federal court and consequently being put in a federal prison to carry out the sentence. The feds don't get into a lot of plea bargaining and sentence reductions and the people wind up doing close to the entire sentence in prison, unlike in the state prisons where they might do way less than half the sentence or even not get sentenced to prison and be allowed to plea bargain to something very minor. People can wind up in federal prison when relatively small amounts of money are involved, but they can wind up doing less, even, than one year in prison plus a lot of probabion and court imposed post release conditions of supervision.

I suppose that these unscrupulous businessmen are aware of the possible consequences of the federal laws pertaining to internet and interstate sales.

If you don't get your stuff shortly, you may want to mention to him the interstate commerce laws and the FCC violations and tell him that if you don't see your stuff asap that you are going to call the FBI regional office. I would think that would spray some starter fluid onto the apparatus.

Good luck and I hope you don't need to get blunt with the guy. A lot of these small time operators are good guys and musicians and do great jobs with whatever they are into. It is always the few that ruin it for the rest of the well meaning guys. This is one reason why I like to buy from well established places, but I know what you mean about trying to buy real nice specialty items from places you can't really check out.

[mapka]

Quick update. Got a tracking number today, so we will see what arrives. Keep you posted

[NWBasser]

I hope this turns out well for you Mapka.

I've played Sean's Agile with the Sin pickups and it sounds awesome. I'm very impressed with the product at least.

In the bass world, there was guy building cabs called Dr.Bass and after making them for a few years he continued taking orders and payments but stopped making and shipping cabs. Like Duffy said, he broke some laws and may have went to jail. I'm not totally sure if he make it to the klink or not.