Very interesting! The singles sounds great!
I have a radical set of of neodymium pups currently in production at Aescher Europa.
What originally started as a resonator install, ended up with a complete pickup changeout.
The Tonezone bridge and Dimetime neck are out and replaced with low profile neodymium pups. My guitar will end up having 3 X divided pickups, D1i sensor/resonator, and 2 X pickups in series. That's a total of 5 pups plus the resonator!
From Aescher:
"The X pickups (neos) do not generate any frequencies of it's own,
it only senses and transduces the fundamental frequency and harmonics of each string,
it's just that it does this more accurately than other pickups.
So you will hear the true sound of your strings, like cleaning a filthy mirror
and seeing one's self clearly for the first time. Then you can properly groom the sound.
The X Series sensors sound like no pickup you have ever known, they are the most precisely made coils in the industry.
No other manufacturer makes coils this way, or with such advanced materials.
The strings are the source of 'the sound' so you have direct control over the sound
by selecting the type, age, gauge, tension and winding of the strings.
Light gauge strings have a thinner tone than heavy gauge.
Heavy gauge increases string tension, which increases loudness.
Round wound strings have a more edgy gritty sound than flatwound strings, which have a smooth round warm tone.
New strings sound brighter than old strings, a plain steel strings have much less mass than wound strings
therefore they require more gain. These individual characteristics can only be fully exploited (or corrected)
with a divided pickup. o be honest..
(re: humbuckers) this is a very old-school 1950's way of doing things.
Complicated wiring schemes are completely redundant these days, and are really just a marketing device
for manufacturers who cater to vintage rock-n-roll traditionalists.
The X series coils are completely noise-free out of the box.
there is no hum - no RFI - no noise of any kind.
Double coil Humbucking pickups were a crude solution to the problem of Hum
which was common in vintage valve amps with huge leeky transformers.
Those leeky transformers are history now, and 50 / 60 Hz hum is practically unknown in modern amps.
wiring coils 180° out of phase results in a Huge loss of signal and voltage
which is why humbuckers have such a weak output.
It really makes no sense to install double coil humbuckers in the 21st century,
and I see no reason to manufacture them. Those who do.. are just doing so because there's a market for them.
The Roland GK3 cannot be used for normal audio signal output,
the impedence of the GK3 is only 300 Ohm, and the coils are very low inductance, only a few windings around very weak tiny steel plate magnets, so this weak signal is preamped before reaching the VG-99.
The XL6 divided pickup, on the other hand, is a very powerful passive divided pickup, with extremely inductive 3200 Ohm coils and N52 neodymium magnets, the highest existing flux density of any permanent magnet.
So the output voltage and tone are much better than any stock passive guitar pickup.
Compatibility with the Roland VSystem is just an added extra bonus."
One thing cool is that these pups are all "passive"!
