The Electra Forums

I was thinking these were MMK45s. I just assumed. Well, they are completely different.

I have an x950 now, and the first thing I noticed were that the neck and the bridge humbucker had poles with the same width spacing - MMK45s I have had were a different spacing depending on their position. I assumed they were equally as hot, but again, without any testing. I opened up and looked behind this pickup. It does not have MMK markings on it. It may be Maxon - not sure. It could be MMK without anything identifying it as MMK (not 45, no 53, or other numbers). They could be MMK too, but they don't have a stamped sequence of numbers not a large two digit number like the MMKs usually do. Then I tested both pickups. They measure between 7.7 and 7.9 on my meter. So both pickups have the same spacing, they are both black coils, with hex (allen) screws for posts (similar to most dimarzios). Plugged into my amp they sound fantastic. They definitely are not too hot for the neck position like my MMK45 is in some of my guitars. Another oddity, the poles don't like up under the strings on this guitar. But it is all stock. Wiring is stock wiring. The pickups don't appear to be potted. Despite all of this, they REALLY sound good in that guitar.

So, I suppose it is likely NONE of the MPC type guitars had the MMK pickups. Leads me to believe that they all were not likely made by Matsumoku as well. Did everyone grasp this but me? I just assumed all the open coil black humbuckers were made by MMK in that era. I was totally wrong. Despite it all, those pickups really do sound excellent. I put it through its paces using my bogner and it really was nice. I only managed to get feedback when I switched on the overdrive WITH the bogner high gain channel (howled a bit then as soon as I stopped playing). At that level of gain potted pickups would howl too.

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Thorny

Right on, I noticed that with my X930. I wonder when the first MMK pups began appearing in Electra's? Anyone know?

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"GREAT Googiley moogilie Jack...jumpin jehosephat, hot dang and all".
- jdwhealton

Don't quote me on this but I thought that Tom Presley had mentioned in one of his posts that most of the MPC's were from Kasuga or Terada. Damned if I can remember which.