Does any in winder make consistently bad pickups? They all seem pretty good so far...

[PFDarkside]

Re: Does any in winder make consistently bad pickups? They all seem pretty good so fa

Basically anyone can buy a winder, bobbins, magnets, baseplates, etc. Just need practice and experience.

I’ve never tried pickups from the really small guys, I’m guessing they’re not better than Duncan CS, just different?

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: Does any in winder make consistently bad pickups? They all seem pretty good so fa

The CM Daugherty set turned out to be an outstanding set of pickups that now reside in my Gibson 57' RI. They are the best sounding PAF style pickups I've ever played.
...I still want to try a set of Zanguhlin Pure Handwound Pickups one day along with a few others that I can't think of right now. Oh, Brandonwound is one of them. Electric City.

Is CM Daugherty out of business? I went to revisit the website and got a screen saying that domain is for sale.

The Zhangbucker Pure Handwounds really do have something special going on. I have four of them, plus a couple of his regular ones. Hand-wrapping is very time-consuming; my advice is to grab some handwounds while David is still making them.

I also have a handful of great humbuckers from ReWind, as well as pickups by Wizz, VintageVibe, Jerry Sentell and D Allen. There's not a single "meh" pickup in the bunch. Honorable mentions to RioGrande and BareKnuckle, who make very good stuff even though they might be too big to qualify as small boutique winders.

I've heard good things about Electric City too; they're on my one-of-these-days list.


I think the biggest bane of pickup quality lies mostly in mass production using crummy materials. I've never wound a pickup in my life, but given good components I bet even I could make a better pickup than the terrible ones you find on the really cheap import guitars.

Would I be able to target a specific tonality or era like a skilled pro with years of experience? Of course not. I probably wouldn't even be able to make two pickups that sound alike.

Just saying that any pickup made with care is likely to be better than meh. Certainly better than the ones that are cranked out by the thousands for pennies apiece.

 

[Jeff_H]

Re: Does any in winder make consistently bad pickups? They all seem pretty good so fa

CM Daugherty does business on Facebook Marketplace only now. Hit him up there and he will wind you whatever you want. I think the set I bought was based off his 50's PAF design, or maybe the 57' PAF design. I get confused now that his website is down. I has him make a few tweaks to whatever the "standard" set was that I started from. In all seriousness, they are an incredible set of pickups. It turned my 57' RI into the best sounding guitar I've ever heard or played in person. Something special.

If you can't find him on Facebook, PM me and I can get you hooked up. I messaged with him a couple of months ago on my wife's account.

 

[Ayrton]

Re: Does any in winder make consistently bad pickups? They all seem pretty good so fa

I picked up a set of Daugherty strat pickups off ebay that I have yet to build a guitar for.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Does any in winder make consistently bad pickups? They all seem pretty good so fa

As a luddite it's comforting to me when a pickup winder can quote off precise electrical specs of their pickups to you, and is able to wind to specific goals related to inductance or whatever given spec (Ken Currie at Rose pickups comes to mind.) Though I can't say that makes a definite impact on a better sounding product vs. the guy with the Multimeter on his couch.

Most of them can easily quote off the basic specs of their pickups - its not exactly rocket scientist to fire up a multimeter after all......however its something most don't bother to complete. Most players don't understand how anything but K readings relate to anything they have had before. James from ReWind used to publish a LOT of specs, everything but K readings. But when customers only wanted K (even though it is almost meaningless to tone or output) he relented and simply put K readings and mag type on the website instead.

And every winder I have dealt with has asked about the tone you want, many refusing to wind to a spec of output (or any single metric for that matter) because it is almost a sure recipe for disaster. It is no exaggeration to say that most customers know less than nothing about how to wind, and even less about how any individual winder operates. A pickup of a certain spec will sound different depending on who does the wind, as the way the wire is laid on the bobbins is way more important than a lone arbitrary specification.