I understand there's a lot of factors that come into play. I've never tried the pickup myself. But then, what is it that raises the output of that pickup so much as to reach "medium output" levels?
Because as far as I understand, that pickup is wound with the same type of wire (insulation included) as the 59 and WLH, correct? It's only roughly 15% more overwound than the WLH, and then, t's got a weaker magnet than the WLH. And the WLH is certainly not medium output. At least not IME.
But maybe there's something going on under the hood of the Brobucker that I'm missing? Maybe the winding pattern maximizes the output? Maybe it is that overwound?
I'm not assuring it is not medium out. How can I when I've never even tried it? I'm just saying I don't see how it can be. But maybe I am being too narrow sighted and missing something. Would love to be proven wrong.
Oh, good question.
Let me see how to answer this as simple as possible.
When you add more winds to the coil, into 'overwound' territory. there are a few things at play.
1) insulation. What kind of insulation are you using? For the brobucker it has to be a superthin insulation, how else can you get that much of that thick wire on the bobbin?
2) wind pattern matters, yes, as you add more copper to the bobbin, you don't just amp the millivoltage a coil can produce. You also change the EQ dramatically.
That last part is the most important thing. The Fletcher Munson curve comes into play
The human hearing does not experience frequency linearly, and the pickups don't produce frequency linearly either. By ramping up the amount of copper on a bobbin, you don't just create more millivolts but the curve shifts as well, often into a territory where we experience a huge increase in a frequency range we can already hear. Now, the danger of overwinding 42awg is that you get SO much of that EQ in the pickup's tone, that it starts to sound mushy, oversaturated, woofy. To combat that, a weaker magnet is used. The weaker magnet will, by default, create a weaker voltage. Take a look again at the Custom3 versus Custom5. The weaker magnet completely changed pick attack, the compression, the saturation, and shifted the EQ a bit as well, but was it 30% weaker than a Custom5?! Hell no. Alnico3 is I believe 30% weaker than Alnico5. No, the pickup had less output, sure, but didn't go into PAF territory of output, at all.
The voltage of the pickup is not just determinated by wire gauge, magnet type, magnet strength, etc. It is a friggin complicated situation
