MJ-wound pickups...

[Zhangliqun]

Re: MJ-wound pickups...

So based on this, MJ apparently has skills that make for a better tone by soldering lead wires onto the coils wires and assembling the pickup? :smack:

I'm not sure how you would take what I said and arrive at such a conclusion.

If a machine is turning the bobbin, it is machine wound. From there it's a matter of whether the traverse is hand-guided or not. If hand-guided, once again for the uninitiated, that is what is nearly always meant by "handwound".

But even if machine-guided, that doesn't prevent great pickups from being wound. The wire doesn't care HOW it got on the bobbin. If it's laid on in a pattern and tension it likes, it will sound great, whether entirely handwrapped or wound by the winder equivalent of a CNC. It's all in the vision and application of the winder.

 

[lepard]

Re: MJ-wound pickups...

Old thread I know, but I found it doing a Yahoo search on Seymour Duncan pickups would by MJ.

Anyway, 1st post here and this is something I've been wondering about for over 20 years. Back in the 80's I had several USA Kramer's and Charvel's that had Duncan JB's in them. They all sounded hot, well balanced and just a good all-around rock pickup. Over the years as I developed an insanely serious case of G.A.S.(Guitar Acquisition Syndrome, probably have about 150 now) I began to find that pretty much all the Duncan JB's in USA and Japanese Jackson's and Charvel's made from the late 90's forward were horribly inconsistent, usually very muddy and weaker in output. I got to the point where I pretty much hated JB's as they usually just sounded like mud.

Fast forward to this week when I was out pawnshop trekking and I came across a strange single-pickup Charvel with a zebra cream/black Seymour Duncan pickup. It had the "Seymour Duncan" logo on the face so I knew it wasn't an 80's pickup. I ended up buying the guitar, got home, disassembled it and found the pickup to be a "JBJ" stickered JB. And sure enough, it sounds great ! It sounds just like the 80's JB's I remember, hot, well balanced, no mud.

So this brings me to 2 questions:

1. Why do 80's JB's sound so much better than current JB's

and

2. Does my later Seymour Duncan "JBJ" pickup sound great because MJ would it ?