Hotter humbuckers and dynamics...discuss

[gimmieinfo]

I thought of something today and i'm not sure what to think about it. I was looking at the tonerider site to see what some specs are in an attempt to figure some things out. I looked at this A2 model who's bridge is wound pretty hot at 12.2k and the script said (paraphrasing) wound hot for dynamics. Now, I don't use hot pickups at all. I did many years ago but these days strat and tele pups i pretty much stay under 6.7k and usually close to 6, and humbuckers under about 8.4k. Mainly because dynamics both in how sensitive it is to my touch AND the volume control are extremely important to me.

So when i saw them mention this pickup is wound hot for dynamics my first thought was how could a pickup company say such a obviously wrong thing. But then i began to think about it and it made sense to me. It occurred to me that in order to have the same amount of drive with my guitar on 10 that i like (basic classic rock degree of drive) with a hot pickup, I would have to drop the gain knob on the amp to a lower setting. So then when i roll the volume down to clean up it might indeed get cleaner AND being overwound retain more of a full tone when rolled down to the lesser brightness of a overwound coil. What are our thoughts?

 

[Mincer]

I think it is marketing speak.

Most people using hotter pickups use them into some sort of distorted preamp which limits the dynamic range. A hot pickup tends to hit the preamp hard, so even with the gain turned to 0, you are already starting with a hot signal.

 

[Seashore]

It's gonna be different depending on your rig and the sounds you like. I play with a lot of amp distortion most of the time, so "dynamics" for me is not about differences in volume, it's about nuances of pick attack and being able to get more grit or more clarity depending on how I dig in. Pedals and pickups that obscure that kind of detail at high gain settings are not my cup of tea. Overall output level doesn't seem (IMO) to affect that; I have found that even supposedly more "dynamic" pickups with lower output can easily get muddy or lose their bite with lots of distortion (looking at you Pegasus), whereas some higher output pickups retain touch sensitivity and detail way better. That's what I love about Bare Knuckles. But the pickups I like for heavy stuff can also sound scratchy and less smooth for clean sounds. Horses for courses.

 

[ICTGoober]

Some people don't understand the meaning of words. The guy meant LOUD, when dynamics is the difference between soft and loud.

 

[gimmieinfo]

One thing i forgot to mention is that i have tried several bridge pickups in my recent standard, and the one in it now thats the best so far is also the hottest, and it cleans up better then the rest. Thats another reason why when i saw that comment it struck me that maybe they are right.

 

[gimmieinfo]

even with the gain turned to 0, you are already starting with a hot signal.

True, but it's only hot with respect to what amount of that signal the amp's gain knob is allowing. Its basically gain staging where more gain is coming from the guitar but you lower amp gain so the amp isn't allowing much of it in the gain stage. Vs the guitar being low and the amp ramping that weak signal up in the gain stage. The difference may be more about the way the result manifests as far as EQ and feel goes. Just different ways of accomplishing the same thing but with different results in the EQ and maybe dynamics. It sure seemed to work with the pickup in it now, tho thats only about 300-500 ohms more then my typical pup. Wonder how that tonerider at 12+k would do. I left the amp gain where it's always been when i put the current one in and it cleans up better but doesn't really seem hotter because 300-500 ohms aint much. But i just gotta wonder f lowering amp gain to where a 12k pup was at the same gain level i like would result in even better cleans since the amp gain would be set very low. Yes, it's made up for by the pup signal but like i said its different like gain staging from one direction to the other.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

To add the conversation, I don't think just because a pickup is higher output, it automatically means it's less dynamic. If you're getting more compression, a lot of the time, it's because of the amp not handling the output of the pickup, not because the pickup itself is less dynamic.

I can think of the (ceramic) Custom and the JB as an example. The JB is squishier than the Custom, it feels smoother and easier to play. The Custom is bolder, more immediate, with a more pronounced attack that feels drier and makes you want to dig in more. Yet the Custom puts out slightly more output than the JB even if the DCR is lower because of the stronger magnet. I know because I've tracked DI's with both on the same guitar.

JME.

 

[Chistopher]

Also, even in a system that doesn't compress or distort at all, certain EQs make the differences in your pick attack more or less obvious

 

[freefrog]

Below is my take. Without denying the influence of the whole signal path on dynamics, I'll talk about pickups only...


The idea behind the Tonerider ad. is probably that digging the strings gives a louder signal with a "hot" pickup.

But dynamics is not only a question of amplitude: if the hotness of the Tonerider HB is due to its coils, it presupposes they have a higher inductance. And all other factors being equal, more inductance gives a slower signal, apparently more compressed. I've already shared some slices of lab tests about that here...

[Parenthesis - That said, 12.2k is not necessarily synonymous of higher inductance : a pickup wound with AWG44 would have this DCR with the same number of turns than a 8.28k HB wound with AWG42... this same number of turns would give the same inductance to both... but the one with the higher DCR would actually be LESS loud than the other. ]

Hotness due to magnetism ispotentially a safer road to dynamics, as long as eddy currents are not too strong. Which supposes the use of ceramic mags if the pickup has a conventional structure...

Beside all this, parasitic capacitance remains a key. Low capacitance coils are inherently more dynamics. But it's normally not in the nature of overwound coils to have a low stray capacitance. ;-)

To sum it up, obtaining dynamics from a hot pickup would require it to have a strong magnetism but not too high inductance / DCR / Foucault currents / parasitic capacitance. I would consider some ceramic loaded hand wound humbucker for this. YMMV.

 

[Juanhanglo]

Technically, the dynamic range is greater on a high output pickup.

Take a vintage and a hotter humbucker.
now pluck them with the same force.

One will produce a higher volume than the other, right?

That is the is one with the highest db reading. Therefore, its dynamics are greater.

 

[Chistopher]

Technically, the dynamic range is greater on a high output pickup.

Take a vintage and a hotter humbucker.
now pluck them with the same force.

One will produce a higher volume than the other, right?

That is the is one with the highest db reading. Therefore, its dynamics are greater.

Yeah but it's harder to play quieter on a louder pickup.

 

[gimmieinfo]

Yeah but it's harder to play quieter on a louder pickup.

BUT the point i was getting at is that what u said is true, but if you adjust the amp's gain with that hotter pickup so that the result is the same amount of gain as you used with the lower pickup, maybe the hotter one will get cleaner when you roll of the guitar volume. Because the amp gain is lower and it;s as i was discussing above..gain staging. For example, there are 2 ways to do it.....raise the 1st stage up high, in this case the pickup is the first stage, then lowering the second stage, that being the amp's input level. The 2nd way is opposite....low gain pickup into cranked up amp stage. The 2 ways are going to give a different result as far as tone and dynamics even tho in both cases the final result is adjusted so the amount of distortion is the same. The question really is, which way gives the widest range of clean to drive. My real life experience after throwing that 8.7k in there is that the higher wind DID clean up better. So tonite i popped one of the A2 probuckers in my other epi in it and sure enough it doesn't clean u quite as well as the higher wind.

One reason for posting this was to see if maybe i've been barking up the wrong tree in looking for a bridge pickup with a wide dynamic range by trying pickups that are on the lower side of PAF DCR. On a side note, the 8.2k Epiphone probucker i threw in it tonite is sounding REALLY fat and rich with a squishy attack and seemed even hotter, more then that 8.7k pickup, both with A2. That was an eye opener. I would have expected the exact opposite. I'm sure they are both 42AWG so guess this is where wire type, tension and things like that come into play?

 

[AdrianSD]

Yeah but it's harder to play quieter on a louder pickup.

Not even split and with the volume rolled back?

 

[freefrog]

BUT the point i was getting at is that what u said is true, but if you adjust the amp's gain with that hotter pickup so that the result is the same amount of gain as you used with the lower pickup, maybe the hotter one will get cleaner when you roll of the guitar volume. Because the amp gain is lower and it;s as i was discussing above..gain staging. For example, there are 2 ways to do it.....raise the 1st stage up high, in this case the pickup is the first stage, then lowering the second stage, that being the amp's input level. The 2nd way is opposite....low gain pickup into cranked up amp stage. The 2 ways are going to give a different result as far as tone and dynamics even tho in both cases the final result is adjusted so the amount of distortion is the same. The question really is, which way gives the widest range of clean to drive. My real life experience after throwing that 8.7k in there is that the higher wind DID clean up better. So tonite i popped one of the A2 probuckers in my other epi in it and sure enough it doesn't clean u quite as well as the higher wind.

Having both hot and underwound PU's, I do the same than you when it comes to gain staging...

...but again, a hot pickup + lower amp gain and a low wound PU + higher amp gain differ for other reasons than gain staging and output.

I've tried to share above about the factors at play on the pickup side : a hotter one is not just louder. It has different LRC specs locating its resonant peak elsewhere and affecting the attack.

In my own sonic landscape, hotter pickups at full volume often feel slower, as if they had a built in compressor (albeit an underwound PU can do the same because of eddy currents: that's the case with a Burns Tri-Sonic single coil, for instance). Alternative take: hot vs underwound PUs are a bit like bass drums vs snare drums to me... the sharp transients of a snare do have more dynamics (reason why a sound engineer might struggle when it comes to make them fit in a mix).


In past topics, I've also tried to share about why a pickup cleans up or not when the volume is lowered.

IME, it's not a property that we can attribute to pickups alone nor even to pots taper.

At which upper frequency did the resonant peak shift when the volume pot is at 6/10? That's a question whose answer will largely decide if the sound "cleans up" or not. IME, this answer largely depends on stray capacitance of coils and.... pickup cables. Devil is in the details, subject to change without notice from one concrete PU to the other.

On a side note, the 8.2k Epiphone probucker i threw in it tonite is sounding REALLY fat and rich with a squishy attack and seemed even hotter, more then that 8.7k pickup, both with A2. That was an eye opener. I would have expected the exact opposite. I'm sure they are both 42AWG so guess this is where wire type, tension and things like that come into play?

There's a tolerance in diameter. A given lenght of 42AWG can be closer to 41 or to 43, depending on the roll of wire used and even on the place of this lenght in a roll of wire.

So, again, DCR isn't that meaningful.

But I agree, tension is to consider: it can stretch the wire while winding a coil and increase its resistance.

 

[Supernautilus]

This is an interesting subject because I've been starting to change the way I think about pickup output and tone lately. It began when I started to really get into the post-rock and post-metal sound. Turns out, some of the artists in the genre are not using super high output pickups. And yet, they can get absolutely crushing metal tones. At the same, they can also get great clean tones with more clarity. So while I love pickups like my JB and Custom 5, I've recently been trying to use lower output pickups to get heavy tones as well. With good preamps and some careful setup, I can get some monster metal tones with plenty of dyamics, all from vintage output humbuckers.

 

[Securb]

The most interesting hot pickup I have fallen in love with lately is the Schecter Heretics. They combine a ceramic and an A5 giving me the power and punch I love while retaining that alinco bloom and dynamics. I would love to have MJ wind me a Black Winter set replacing one of the ceramics with an A5. You can have it all.

 

[Mincer]

Honestly, I have yet to try a hot pickup I like the 'feel' of. The tones can be cool. But it seems the hotter they are, the more specialized the tone is.

 

[Artie]

Honestly, I have yet to try a hot pickup I like the 'feel' of. The tones can be cool. But it seems the hotter they are, the more specialized the tone is.

I tend to agree, but I did like the Distortion set. They were warm and clean, almost like "tube" pups, if you tread lightly. But they opened up like the secondary's of a Holley 4-barrel when you wailed on them.

 

[gimmieinfo]

Honestly, I have yet to try a hot pickup I like the 'feel' of. The tones can be cool. But it seems the hotter they are, the more specialized the tone is.

I agree depending on how hot. But the crazy thing is as i said earlier, the 8.2k A2 probucker i tried after having tried a 8.7k tonerider A2 was nite and day....but in favor of the hotter one for clarity and cleans ! The probucker was as u said sorta specialized in that it has a big fat rich distortion tone but at the price of clarity/articulation and clean tones. It just does that one thing great but even when doing that it's a lot harder to play and get every note to be heard clearly because of the loss or articulate clear tone. BUT, the probucker is the lower wind ! And look at the pearly gates....also A2 and the same DCR as the probucker but no two A2 humbuckers with the same DCR has probably ever sounded this different ! It was the polar opposite of the probucker. So u never know what to expect really.

 

[Mincer]

Yeah, I was talking more like higher than 15k or so. They tend to get specialized or sound good for One Specific Thing.