Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

M

MichaelScottPerkins

New member
I have watched every video there is on YouTube on making your own pickups, and I have researched the crap out of the electromagnetic transduction of guitar pickups. I have a pickup winder, and all the necessary gear to start making pickups, but I still just have a ton of questions. Can anyone of you tell me of where I might be able to find like "The Absolute Bible" of pickup design and construction? I saw a book by Dave Hunter called the Guitar Handbook, but it seems to be out of print, and is selling for $200+ used. F-that!.
I love a good internet forum as much as the next guy, but I really like to do as much homework as I can myself, before I just start clackin' out base level questions, like the one's I have right now. Anybody got any resourses they can share?
 
Re: Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

jeremy said:
ive never read it but the internet says this is good

http://www.lollarguitars.com/jason-lollar/winder-book

there is a guitar pickup handbook by dave hunter which ive seen around as well. again, havent actually read it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the Dave Hunter book is out of print it seems, and is selling used for $200! (f-that noise.)
Lollar's book is a bit pricey too, at $60. I would more than likely gladly pay the $60 if I were able to see some basic spec of the book. But I don't know if it is 300 pages, or 10 pages long. It also seems to have building your own pickup winder as 50% of the selling-point, but I already have a pickup winder. So I am hesitant to buy $60 book that I can't flip through or even really read about first. Not to mention the fact that it is written by a guy that makes boutique pickups for a living. Seems a bit suspect as far as hoping it to be a resource that tells me everything the autor knows about the subject.

That is one thing about the DIY pickup "scene" that I very much dislike. I have abzolutely zero plans to start selling guitar pickups. I do not have even a slight ambition to copy someone's killer wrapping technique that they are convinced makes their pickups so much more [INSERT VAGUE ADJECTIVE] than anyone else's. I am just a very curious tinkerer that would like to try new iedeas and make some pickups for my own home-made project guitars. But the pickup community seems to get down-right weird about the sharing of knowledge.

Pardon the rant. I'm sure this all sounds more sassy and twirpy in print. I'm not even a little bit aggrevated, just... a slight waddage of panties. Thats all.
 
Re: Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

i started winding by re-winding dead pups my friends and i had laying around. 8000 turns on one, then 9000 turns on another then compare them. 8000 turns with 100 tpl, then 8000 turns with 200 tpl then compare them. i dont know if you will find what you are looking for since its a pretty small group of people that are interested enough to buy a book and the people who have a deep understanding of it are trying to make a living at it and are less apt to give away their secrets.
 
Re: Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

The bible of pickup winding is called '5 years of practical experience continually making every mistake there is to make and gradually figuring out for yourself what works for you'........and I'm not kidding either.

The key to pickup winding is figuring out what part of the way wire is wound onto the bobbin affects what final tonal outcomes. Its the 'paying your dues' part of the equation as much as anything else. As well as being a bit of an individual thing, its where the 'magic' of the pickup lies, and as such I cannot think of 1 winder who would divulge such info willingly.
I do know there are several guys who will give you mechanical tips on how to get to your first completed bobbin, and how to get the best consistency out of your motor skills. But beyond that you are on your own.
Plus you are likely to wind in a different way to everyone else anyhow - meaning that to make a change based on someone elses recommendations is probably going to give a different outcome to what you want......meaning you'd have to come up with your own methods in any case.
 
Re: Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

AlexR said:
The bible of pickup winding is called '5 years of practical experience continually making every mistake there is to make and gradually figuring out for yourself what works for you'........and I'm not kidding either.

The key to pickup winding is figuring out what part of the way wire is wound onto the bobbin affects what final tonal outcomes. Its the 'paying your dues' part of the equation as much as anything else. As well as being a bit of an individual thing, its where the 'magic' of the pickup lies, and as such I cannot think of 1 winder who would divulge such info willingly.
I do know there are several guys who will give you mechanical tips on how to get to your first completed bobbin, and how to get the best consistency out of your motor skills. But beyond that you are on your own.
Plus you are likely to wind in a different way to everyone else anyhow - meaning that to make a change based on someone elses recommendations is probably going to give a different outcome to what you want......meaning you'd have to come up with your own methods in any case.
Click to expand...

No, I totally get that. There are some things in life that honestly just cannot be learned about by reading and watching videos. Dancing, for example... One could read every book, and watch every video on how to dance, but you never will be able to even "kinda dance" until you get out of your computer chair and... well... dance.

Guitar pickups, however, and i genuinely mean this with total respect and not to be a smart-ass... is not dancing. Once can read a book about things like...
8000 turns of 42 AWG poly-coated wire, around .671" alnico-5 pole pieces, with 100 tpl.
9000 turns of 42 AWG poly-coated wire, around .671" alnico-5 pole pieces, with 100 tpl.
8000 turns of 42 AWG poly-coated wire, around .671" alnico-5 pole pieces, with 200 tpl.
9000 turns of 42 AWG poly-coated wire, around .671" alnico-5 pole pieces, with 200 tpl.
Then the same, but with 43 AWG... then with enamel wire... then with...

Do you see what I'm saying? I am a software developer, so I work all day everyday with benchmarking, testing, repeatability, sharing results, open source, I stand all day on the shoulders of absolute giants. And believe it or not, I do get nuance. I do believe in "magic," with regards to guitar pickups. I do believe that one person could complete the above pickup builds and get their results, and then some other guy could come along and duplicate the exact same specifications, and the end results would be nuanced and different.

BUT... it still should not mean that every people that ever wants to learn to make pickups should invest the $2,500 in materials, and 2 years trying different numbers of turns or wire coatings, when it's all be done... a gazillion times before, by someone else.

Am I alone on that one?

Again... please... know that I am aware that this is an internet forum, and people can easily get rubbed the wrong way. I come here quite humbly ask for assistance. Not come off like a lazy prick that wants everyone to just "tell me what you know!" I think you guys who have built dozens/hundreds of pickups are awesome. I'd probably even buy one of your pickups if you're selling em. ............ as long as you'd tell me how you made 'em :naughty:
 
Re: Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

If there were formulas, then I'd happily point you in the right direction. But there just aren't. Its the same as carbon fibre technology, everybody knows the ingredients but there is just no way you're ever going to get an instructional from those in the biz about the finer points of layup as that is the industry right there.

I do know that approx 5000 turns +/- on a humbucker bobbin is enough to give you approx PAF strength with 2 coils worth. This is easily researched and indeed I did so whilst writing this post. You should be able to extrapolate from there with 42 gauge for strats if thats what you're after.
The way you lay the wire down on the bobbin.....either neat or a bit messy makes a difference. TPL is one of the 'special recipe' aspects, as is tension and the final shape of the coil.

If you want the most that any PAF winder will ever give you, this this is part of the Throbak site: https://www.pafhumbucker.com/paf-pickups-wire.html

Look around there, there is a lot of info.......
 
Re: Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

The only advice I can give you is, unless you have a precision CNC winder with automatic traverse and regulated tension, you'll take a really long time and waste a lot of wire until you "get it" and come up with your own recipe that works for the intended task.

If you handwind, then there's no way to know how long it will take, if ever.

/Peter
 
Re: Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

Maybe this is a better way for me to approach this question...

Can anyone tell me what devices and what techniques a pickup company might use to measure a guitar pickup's output? I bought a B&K Precision 388B Digital Multi-Meter.

  1. DC resistance is a constant variable and can easily be measured using a multi-meter
  2. Current flows through the copper wire and can also be measured using the multi-meter's glavanometer, however current is not a constant as it only flows due to a change in the magnetic flux.I guess I could use something like an eBow that can discupt mag flux at a constant rate. Otherwise, the values for current would always be varried depending on how hard I hit the string, how much tension is on the string, how old the string is , etc etc.
  3. Voltage can also be meatured using a MM, or even Ohm's law since I'd have Current and Resistance. But again, this would always vary.

You know how when you buy high end microphones or nearfield studio monitors, those are all just electromagnetic transduction devices. They come with a datasheet that show their frequency response and which frequencies are represented, and to what degree. How are those measurements taken, and I do mean specifically? I am sure they use some mega-expensive osciliscope or digital wave form analyzer. But I can imagine that there must be SOME form of poor man's wave-form analysis tool(s). What would that be?

The point I'm working towards overcoming, is being confined to discussing electronic pickups using adjectives that are better suited to a kitchen... "Smooth... Buttery... Chunky... Hot... Warm... Rounded... Sharp..." I want to be able to say... the pickups in Keith Richards guitar when he recorded Satisfaction were 196x tele-something pickups which were made in the Somewhere California factory, so they have X,ooo winds of X wire, and probably had a DC res. of --Oms, and a resonant freq of --, so I built a pickup for my tele that has...

See what I mean? Sure... I can do all this and still never nail exactly what I am after. But since you guys do not know me personally, I just have to put it out there that the rack'em n` wrap'em route is not for me. Way to OCD. (*You guys like my little play on words?) Maybe... "Bind'em n` Wind'em" (???) :-)
 
Re: Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

I don't think anyone has usefully measured output in a relateable sense for pickups. Both speakers and mics can have a generic signal applied and the response measured. Pickups are not like that, their input is a lot different and more variable in nature - nothing anyone has done really has captured what pickups do.

The reason why such terms are used to describe pickups is the people discussing them are players. If you want to sit there using all technical terms to describe how pickups sound thats fine - you wont relate to other people playing them thats for sure. But it is a useful skill for a winder to be able to translate those terms into how to wind a pickup. But yet again we are into a winder knowing via experience how their patterns of laying down wire translates to a final sound.


What it all sounds like is you want an easy path, and are stubbornly holding out for an easy path and simply cannot accept that some things in life just don't happen that way.
 
Re: Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

with a microphone i assume they use a white/pink noise generator and a scope to come up with the frequency response. a pup is a different animal. i dont know if the info you are looking for is easily available.

I want to be able to say... the pickups in Keith Richards guitar when he recorded Satisfaction were 196x tele-something pickups which were made in the Somewhere California factory, so they have X,ooo winds of X wire, and probably had a DC res. of --Oms, and a resonant freq of --, so I built a pickup for my tele that has...
Click to expand...

there were no turn counters in the early days so coil winding was done by either time or "till the bobbin was full" hand guided single coil pups (like early fender) could have a wide variety of patterns. at least with early gibson they were machine wound bobbins which makes things a little easier in theory.
 
Re: Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

jeremy said:
there were no turn counters in the early days so coil winding was done by either time or "till the bobbin was full" hand guided single coil pups (like early fender) could have a wide variety of patterns. at least with early gibson they were machine wound bobbins which makes things a little easier in theory.
Click to expand...

Yep, good lesson there.........all of the most iconic vintage pickups in history were wound with no specific set of goals in mind. Something to think about for sure.
 
Re: Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

i believe most of the reason they were iconic is because talented people used the instruments they came in to make amazing music. vintage strat + vintage fender amp = decades of great recorded music that we have all absorbed even if it was unconsciously
 
Re: Resources on learning the specifics of pickup making/design...?

^ Well there is the chicken and egg thing going on of course. But the old guitars and pickups (and amps too) are actually hard to replicate.....the amount of people trying to get clones to sound like originals and falling short is a testament to the lucky accident that brought loose manufacturing tolerances to something artistic.
 
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