Cool article from Premier Guitar about Maricela “MJ” Juarez!

From the article, here's MJ's take on the JB controversy:

“I don’t know magic, but it could be one of three things: We changed from the long-legged bottom plate to the short-legged one. [Ed. note. This was primarily to accommodate shallow pickup-cavity routes.] We also used to use butyrate bobbins like the ones in old PAFs, but at some point the vendor didn’t have the material anymore. Also, our old magnets used to be rough-cast, but then somebody switched vendors.” Standard JBs are now made with ground magnets, polycarbonate bobbins, and short-legged baseplates.

But Juarez is quick to add that those components might not even factor into the sound of those old JBJs. “It’s mainly how you wind those bobbins,” she says. “The trick might be in winding it kind of tight. That’s why we still have our handwinding machines in the Custom Shop. We have the scatterwinding machine, and we have one of the newer machines. We know that a pickup wound on the newer machine is going to sound different from a pickup with a scatterwound bobbin.”

Even allowing for those differences, Juarez insists there’s too much mythology surrounding the JBJs, and she plans to conduct a shootout between the three different versions. “We’re going to do a sound test,” she says. “I intend to compare one of the old JBs, one made the new MJ way, and a regular production model. It’s on my to-do list.”
 
She's a master at her craft and a sweetheart. I met her and Seymour at a Dallas Guitar Show a few years ago. She may not know magic, but she loves what she does and that makes it in to her pickups as mojo.
 
Clint 55 said:
SO MJ SAID THE JB WINDS CHANGED YOU FOOZ
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Didn't catch that. I'll have to read it again.

But she did mention that today's JB uses a polished magnet and old JBs used a roughcast magnet.

That's going to make a dramatic difference and I mention it frequently.
 
Lewguitar said:
Didn't catch that. I'll have to read it again.

But she did mention that today's JB uses a polished magnet and old JBs used a roughcast magnet.

That's going to make a dramatic difference and I mention it frequently.
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She mentioned they have a 'scatter wound' machine and newer 'production' machine and the tightness of the wind could change the sound.
 
While she did mention how the wind can affect a pickup, she did NOT say that the wind on the JB has changed, only the bobbin material and the magnet being ground vs. roughcast.
 
ErikH said:
While she did mention how the wind can affect a pickup, she did NOT say that the wind on the JB has changed, only the bobbin material and the magnet being ground vs. roughcast.
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Right. And the different winding machines. But she didn't mention the number of turns changing or anything like that. You know, they do keep some secrets. Or try too.
 
superpete said:
i wonder if that test ended up being the 3 JB shootout zenmindbeginner did for Duncan?
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That was a good test. All three sounded very similar. I remember liking the Antiquity with the roughcast magnet best. But I'm not a good judge because I'm not that crazy about the JB in the first place.
 
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yeah at the end of the day, like MJ says, it's the wind. So while there will be sonic differences out there between models/eras/etc, it's still gonna have that JB flavor. You might get vanilla, french vanilla, maybe even cherry vanilla...but you won't get chocolate, if that analogy makes any sense.
 
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