gimmieinfo
New member
It seems they don't mention scatter winding in the product descriptions.Are any SD HBs scatter wound?
Are any SD humbuckers scatterwound?
- Thread starter gimmieinfo
- Start date
Chistopher
malapterurus electricus tonewood instigator
"Scatterwound" is one of those buzzwords that shouldn't mean anything to the consumer as it just tends to cause confusion.
You might have to contact the Custom Shop if that is your thing.
almost all duncan buckers are machine wound, just like every paf pup made by gibson.
scatter winding is such a bs marketing term these days. real scatterwinding is typically done by hand winding a coil with a random pattern. thats not really a great way to wind a pup because its random, its not repeatable. often when people say "scatter wound" they mean there are less turns per layer, which is a real thing and makes a difference in how a pup sounds, but doesnt have the same ring for marketing
scatter winding is such a bs marketing term these days. real scatterwinding is typically done by hand winding a coil with a random pattern. thats not really a great way to wind a pup because its random, its not repeatable. often when people say "scatter wound" they mean there are less turns per layer, which is a real thing and makes a difference in how a pup sounds, but doesnt have the same ring for marketing
Huh. I thought the point of scatterwinding was that keeping consecutive turns spaced out a little and introducing some irregularity would lower capacitance, which would increase the resonant peak and make the pickup sound brighter, and I thought that the overall pattern of the wind could stay the same and yield similar results even if there was some intentional randomization of individual turns. I've never wound a pickup so I don't have any first-hand knowledge. Is that all way off base?
freefrog
Well-known member
@ Seashore: what you wrote is not off of base at all to me...
+ 1 also about the idea that CNC machines can be programmed to add scatter.
And there's reasons to consider that all pickups are scatter wound to some extent. Some zoomed pics of coils on the Throbak website are pretty enlightning...
About the "repeatable" character: the patterns and typical TPL of hand wound coils are logically dictated by the gear and methods of hand winders... So there's a kind of "signature" in hand wound pickups, IME, with sonic differences depending on who wound the coils / on which lathe. That's why I've won a pair of Skatterbrane's during a shoot-out in 2012 on MLP... ;-)
To put in perspective the question, I'd just add that hand winding seems to often imply less tension or a varying tension. Logical to me, knowing how easily a thin wire can break between fingers and how tricky it is to feed the coil with a spool of wire placed on the floor...
When the tension is continuously or globally lower, coils have a lower capacitance but also a lower Q factor, making them brighter as well as more "open" sounding. That's something that many players seem to appreciate with single coils but giving mixed feeling with humbuckers, apparently. Hence the idea that HB's must be machine wound to sound right.
Where the pic gets blurry is that I know at least one hand builder able to wind coils with the specs of machine wound ones...
FWIW.
+ 1 also about the idea that CNC machines can be programmed to add scatter.
And there's reasons to consider that all pickups are scatter wound to some extent. Some zoomed pics of coils on the Throbak website are pretty enlightning...
About the "repeatable" character: the patterns and typical TPL of hand wound coils are logically dictated by the gear and methods of hand winders... So there's a kind of "signature" in hand wound pickups, IME, with sonic differences depending on who wound the coils / on which lathe. That's why I've won a pair of Skatterbrane's during a shoot-out in 2012 on MLP... ;-)
To put in perspective the question, I'd just add that hand winding seems to often imply less tension or a varying tension. Logical to me, knowing how easily a thin wire can break between fingers and how tricky it is to feed the coil with a spool of wire placed on the floor...
When the tension is continuously or globally lower, coils have a lower capacitance but also a lower Q factor, making them brighter as well as more "open" sounding. That's something that many players seem to appreciate with single coils but giving mixed feeling with humbuckers, apparently. Hence the idea that HB's must be machine wound to sound right.
Where the pic gets blurry is that I know at least one hand builder able to wind coils with the specs of machine wound ones...
FWIW.
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