Getting my head around resistance and tele bridge pickups

[conorsearl]

I know pickup resistance is only part of the equation, but I'm curious, and don't really have a frame of reference for these numbers.

How different would a tele bridge pickup measuring about 6.7k be to one that measures about 7.5k.

I know more resistance usually means a "hotter" pickup, but what are some other things a person might expect from more resistance. And how much of a difference does that .8k really make?

 

[AlexR]

Re: Getting my head around resistance and tele bridge pickups

If every part of the pickup was otherwise the same, then perhaps you'd notice a thickening of the mids and a slight rolloff in treble.

But rarely are 2 pickups wound by anyone to be identical save for a few turns. With Tele pickups of those readings, often you'll find them trying to recreate an era of Tele. So you'd probably find the lower turn count one being the real twang type. The 7.5k might be an attempt at the thicker toned Broadcaster era, with tweaks of the pattern to make it fatter than maybe the K reading would suggest.

 

[conorsearl]

Re: Getting my head around resistance and tele bridge pickups

If every part of the pickup was otherwise the same, then perhaps you'd notice a thickening of the mids and a slight rolloff in treble.

But rarely are 2 pickups wound by anyone to be identical save for a few turns. With Tele pickups of those readings, often you'll find them trying to recreate an era of Tele. So you'd probably find the lower turn count one being the real twang type. The 7.5k might be an attempt at the thicker toned Broadcaster era, with tweaks of the pattern to make it fatter than maybe the K reading would suggest.

Cool, I'm comparing a set of Fralin Blues specials (in the guitar currently) with what I remember a set of Lollar '52's sounding like (I know this is an unfair way to compare.) Both pickups sound incredible, the Lollar's definitely did the country twang thing, these blues specials are darker and more compressed than what I remember the Lollars sounding like. On top of not really knowing whether that difference in resistance was a lot or a little the other complicating factor is this is a brand new guitar I built from scratch, and has only ever had the Fralin's in it so I don't really have a baseline of what this guitar sounds like to know how much color the pickups are adding.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Getting my head around resistance and tele bridge pickups

Yep....hard to know what lifting the pickup or guitar is doing, as you can't hear them without the other.

The blues special would indeed seem to be more geared toward getting grit or breaking up the amp. But having 2 winders complicates things as they will each have their own signature tonality in the way their pickups sound.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Getting my head around resistance and tele bridge pickups

That's been my experience with Fralin. He's able to wind low resistance but still have them sound fat.