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

[Dave Locher]

Semi-serious question: are there any hand winders who put out consistently bad product?
I have now purchased at least 4 different humbuckers from different small, independent makers and they were all good pickups that sounded or felt to my ears and fingers a bit special compared to most mass production pickups. (Not enough difference for any audience to perceive, though.) But no real differences between them.
I am thinking that unless someone is using unobtanium parts or some super-secret technique that no one else has discovered, a paf-style humbucker is a paf-style humbucker no matter who winds it. So I buy from the reasonably priced and avoid the really expensive ones.
Am I wrong? Are there really winders whose pickups are not good? Or whose are just clearly superior in tone?

(I'm talking sound only, not "authentic replica" stuff. I can see how that gets expensive and I understand paying a lot for it if that is important to someone.)

 

[Mincer]

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

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

I am of the mind that you get what you pay for, up to a point. Some cheaper Asian pickup companies (like, whomever makes EMG Select pickups) really do make crap.

 

[Dave Locher]

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

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

I should clarify that I mean small business hand-wind pickup builders. Some will happily wind you a paf-ish hummer for $75 and others want a couple hundred.
I have played PLENTY of gawd awful cheap-a$$ Asian pickups.
I am just starting to suspect the biggest difference between a reasonably-priced handwound pickup and a seriously expensive one is the price, determined entirely by the reputation, marketing savvy, and/or pure chutzpah of the expensive winder?

 

[Ayrton]

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

Short answer is no. Practically anyone these days can wind a quality pickup with the resources available. The talent is in the details and knowing how to tweak the sound to certain era.

 

[Mincer]

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

Well, it is like any artwork, really. Anyone can paint a landscape, but if you get someone who has been in the business a long time, paints pictures for famous people, and gets a lot of press and 'word on the street' is how wonderful they are, they can certainly charge more.

 

[AlexR]

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

^ And to a degree, if they've been at it awhile then they'll either have improved remarkably and/or improved consistency.

I've certainly had multiple pickups from several makers. There have certainly been a few companies that hit high and often on the 'meh' scale.

But a 'bad' pickup for you could be a winner for someone else and what they want. Its quite hard then to universally single any winder out.

 

[Dave Locher]

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

Can I ask who was "meh"? PM me if you don't wanna go public.
I had a Smit's that I loved and some seem to find them bland so maybe it really is just taste.

 

[Jeff_H]

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

I'm not a fan of Gibson pickups in general, though plenty like them very well. I'm not a Dimarzio fan, but I think they make good pickups, just not my sound profile.

I've only played or purchased aftermarket pickups from Seymour Duncan, Dimarzio, CM Daugherty and a set from James at ReWind. 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. Well, honestly it's a tie between them and the Greenie Set from MJ. Still, all of my other guitars have SD pickups in them.

I did buy a Low Output Set from James at ReWind Electric. They are one of his most popular sets. The neck pickup was great, but the bridge was too weak and it didn't balance. He's currently reworking them for me at no cost other than shipping, which is a testament to the kind of service you can get from the smaller winders. Of course, if you buy a set of pickups from the SD Custom Shop and you aren't happy, they will do them again or wind something different as well.

Both sets of pickups I've bought outside of SD were in the $300ish range. There are much more expensive sets out there, but I don't see the need to pay that much. For that money, you can get MJ to wind you a Custom Shop set and I've never had a bad set from MJ yet. I have a Greenie Set from her and a Brobucker. I am getting ready to send in an old Antiquity set to MJ, and have her rewind them into a set of Custom Shop Pearly Gates pickups.

I bought the CM Daugherty set just to try something different and I hadn't bought a set of any pickups in 9+ years. The ReWind set evolved out of a conversation I struck up with James while I was looking for some double cream pickups (by SD strangely enough).

There are some great small pickup winders out there. 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.

 

[Discharged]

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

"Bad" or "good", is in the ear of the beholder.

These blanket statement, absolut-prone kind of questions make no sense.

/Peter

 

[Adieu]

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

The chinese and korean staff supplying low and midtier ibanez and epiphone since late 80s / eaely 90s?

 

[dave74]

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

The chinese and korean staff supplying low and midtier ibanez and epiphone since late 80s / eaely 90s?

Very consistent in their fail.

 

[Adieu]

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

Very consistent in their fail.

Quality Control = strictly and rigidly adhering to a predetermined quality limit

Gibson shoulda sent their guys over there to learn modern manufacturing standards :scratchch

 

[Artie]

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

The chinese and korean staff supplying low and midtier ibanez and epiphone since late 80s / eaely 90s?

Very consistent in their fail.

Yup, and yup. Add to that the pups that came stock in my Squier Tele. Tinny, squeaky, lifeless.

 

[Golem]

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

Small boutique winders? No. There are some major import OEM companies who do consistently bad work.


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[Ayrton]

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

I am getting ready to send in an old Antiquity set to MJ, and have her rewind them into a set of Custom Shop Pearly Gates pickups.

Oh please don't. How about I buy the Ants and you have MJ wind you what you want?

 

[beaubrummels]

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

I’ve had stellar Duncan’s and meh Duncan’s, but they were meh for what I was looking for, not meh in absolute terms. They might have been awesome for someone else playing a completely different style of music. There’s no inherent good or bad in a pickup (it’s just a coil) other than suitability for purpose.

 

[Silence Kid]

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

So I wonder if it's possible to make a 'bad' pickup; there seems to always exist a consumer. For example - on other forums there are guys who claim to be 'boutique' and pretty obviously are just guys with their wife's sewing machine or a bunch of time to wind wire by hand without much electrical engineering experience, and there are people raving about those pickups.

Cheap import pickups often have pitiful amounts of wire on the bobbin, ridiculous high guage wire, thick plastic bobbins on single coils, other obvious deviations from the 'formula.' They also have a lot of stigma even if they lack those things. I've started to define 'good' or 'bad' pickups as far as the following questions: 1 - Can I imagine this pickup would be good for absolutely anything? 2 - Can I make it sound the way I want through any combination of knob-tweaking? If I take those definitions to heart, any given pickup I own could be a $200 pickup for someone.

Perhaps 'meh' is the absolute low bar. My favorite pickups at this very moment are Duncan SJAG-1s, an MJ-wound Demon, and G&L F100 stock pickups. Those are the ones that blow me away, most others fall into the category of 'I can work with this-' including everything from a JBJ to stock Mexican single coils.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

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

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

Some cheaper Asian pickup companies (like, whomever makes EMG Select pickups) really do make crap.

I was under the impression those are made by G&B, no? I dislike the stock pickups on PRS SE's, but many people seem to think they make OK pickups.

 

[AlexR]

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

So I wonder if it's possible to make a 'bad' pickup; there seems to always exist a consumer. For example - on other forums there are guys who claim to be 'boutique' and pretty obviously are just guys with their wife's sewing machine or a bunch of time to wind wire by hand without much electrical engineering experience, and there are people raving about those pickups.

Leo Fender was not a guitar player.......

It doesn't need electrical engineering, but maybe more mechanical understanding - especially with cloning the rare and valuable vintage pickups. You are not designing a circuit but learning how to physically get wire onto a bobbin. I know a lot of people like to rave over their huge and/or vintage machines, but if you don't set the thing up right then you'll be winding poor product.

 

[Silence Kid]

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

For sure Leo approached the guitar more from an engineer/radio designer's perspective than a guitarist's.

I follow the G&L Facebook page where a lot of Leo's experimentation is documented; they post & dig out a lot of his old breadboards, prototype of active preamps and pickups, patent diagrams etc. It at least creates the illusion of a lot of science and a lot more than random chance was involved in the design of such things; though I can't say I know how much of any of that applies to winding a pickup.

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.