some questions about wire

[GoldenVulture]

Re: some questions about wire

You don't actually know that anything I said is incorrect. You don't know that what Frank Falbo says is correct. If rather than hit the books and learn this stuff for yourself, you'd rather decide which know-it-all does the best song-and-dance, more power to you. Even if you learn this stuff just to prove my statements wrong, you will still have learned something. Maybe I just make lots of fallacious statements just to motivate people like yourself.

You mean like this crap...
- https://forum.seymourduncan.com/sho...me-is-GROUND&p=4037195&viewfull=1#post4037195 -
Your just a troll.

 

[RogerMexiko]

Re: some questions about wire

There are two ways to do it. Buy a suitable LCR meter, such as an Extech 380193, set it to series resistance, 120Hz test frequency, hook it up to the pickup and see what it says. Note while you're at it that you can't use an LCR meter to measure the capacitance of a pickup, because it is an closed circuit to direct current, while an actual capacitor is not.

The other way is to measures the resonant peak with an oscilloscope and a function generator. Add a capacitor of a known value value, such as 2nF, in parallel with the pickup, measure the peak again, then solve for L, from C and f.

The higher the inductance value, the higher lower the resonant peak will be, and the darker the pickup will sound, all other things being equal, which they often are.

" hook it up to the pickup and see what it says" - how can it say anything if the magnetic field has not been driven by string vibration to generate a signal? What would be the best string and at what position on the neck would serve as a good baseline? What is it going to say, what values? What dos that data mean?

"The higher the inductance value, the higher lower the resonant peak will be[/U][/SIZE][/B], and the darker the pickup will sound" isn't this circular logic? You are taking your theory that the higher the Higher Inductance cause lower Resonant peak and apply it as a way to test Inductance.

The point of all this was to prove that higher Inductance results in a darker pickup (the p-rail was the exception I thought) i.e. lower resonant peak.

You may be correct in your assertion but you have yet to provide a practical test that will prove that point.

However, I do thank you for what information you did provide, maybe I did not understand it properly...going buy the dots kinda person am I.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: some questions about wire

I had a simple question: tell me how to measure the inductance on 4 pickups; what data will I get; haw do I interpret the data? .

I almost answered this when you first asked. But I figured it would just be another opportunity for someone to find another means to argue a pointless case from a book more than experience.

You will need a LCR meter. I have one, as do a few others. They are not cheap, but more moderate in price for a basic one. You can chase them to your wallet's wildest reaches of you want to go super hard core.

You can get DCR. You can inductance, presented in henries. And you can get capacitance.

Some people set for 120, some set for 1000. When I was researching how people use them for Pickup readings, many people wrote about the difference being largely insignificant. I keep mine at 1000.

Inductance can give an idea into how heavy or beefy a pickups character might be, or not be.

Some say the capacitance readings aren't always "perfect" but if you do all your readings the same way under the same conditions, you will have your own baseline to compare your findings. Capacitance will help give an idea of how open sounding it can be or how compressed or congested or can be.

I've been providing inductance readings with my reviews for some time now and you can find them on my site with the respective Pickup Review. I've been avoiding publishing capacitance findings so as to not produce any confusion. But maybe some of what you're looking for might already be published there.

Best way I've found to interpret the data is to just keep on building data. Mine, for example, will interface with a PC and export the readings, as well as a basic graph, to Excel. Some do more. Some less. Just shop around, start recording your findings, and build a knowledge base.

Frank Falbo's experience in this area is well documented, we don't know who the heck you are or where you come up with this snake oil pontificates. Put up or shut up as they say.

^^^ this ^^^

 

[RogerMexiko]

Re: some questions about wire

data: in every case bridge pickup has higher inductance than neck or middle and yet bridge pickups are always brighter in my experience. What am I missing?
http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=technical-info

 

[Dave Locher]

Re: some questions about wire

data: in every case bridge pickup has higher inductance than neck or middle and yet bridge pickups are always brighter in my experience. What am I missing?
http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=technical-info

Because the bridge pickup is in the bridge position, close to the bridge and not the middle of the strings.
I put a JB in the neck position of a Gibson once and it was hilarious with gain: pure mush, no clarity or definition, and muffled sounding. That exact same pickup sounded bright and clear in the bridge position. Of the same guitar.

 

[AlexR]

Re: some questions about wire

^^ Its to do with the position of the pickup physically. The way the string vibrates and the strength of the various harmonics present. You can hear this physically too....strum near the bridge and its surf city. Pluck near the neck and you get much more muted bassy tones. The pickup itself senses the string in a narrow window, and the balance of frequency present is based on this.
Not only this, but the shape of the coil(s) matter too. You can wind a hot minihumbucker for example with wire and wind like a full one, but even the "same" coils wound onto a full size humbucker will sound different as the 'window' of string sensed by the mini is narrower than the full sized.

There are almost more aspects of pickup making and tone not covered by 'meaningless specs' than are covered by them.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: some questions about wire

data: in every case bridge pickup has higher inductance than neck or middle and yet bridge pickups are always brighter in my experience. What am I missing?
http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=technical-info

In the instances on that link, it appears the bridge positions are also higher in resistance. Generally, perhaps not always, but generally, higher resistance and a higher inductance go hand in hand.

"Brightness" has a little more to do with the position of the pickup. Take the exact same Pickup and put it in all positions on the guitar and it will sound bright at the bridge slot and thicker at the neck slot.

Once again, best to pick up a meter and experiment. Testing your own pickups and dealing with it in a practical application helps a lot.

And as with magnets and wire and so on, the more you learn about specs, the more you'll see it has a LOT to do with the artistry/creativity of the person the designs/winds/engineers the pickup.

I've yet to speak to anyone on that end of it that winds to meet a certain inductance or capacitance. They wind for the tone. One winder I know that ghost builds for a few guitar companies says the only meter he even owns is a multimeter.

 

[thanaton]

Re: some questions about wire

" hook it up to the pickup and see what it says" - how can it say anything if the magnetic field has not been driven by string vibration to generate a signal? What would be the best string and at what position on the neck would serve as a good baseline? What is it going to say, what values? What dos that data mean?

You have to take it upon yourself at some point to learn what inductance is, and what an LCR meter does. The LCR meter feeds the pickup a test current of 120Hz, as mentioned above. That's just how they all work. Most of them let you choose a test frequency, lower is better in this case.

"The higher the inductance value, the higher lower the resonant peak will be[/U][/SIZE][/B], and the darker the pickup will sound" isn't this circular logic? You are taking your theory that the higher the Higher Inductance cause lower Resonant peak and apply it as a way to test Inductance.

Parallel LC resonance.

Notice that L (stands for inductance) is in the denominator. L gets bigger, frequency gets smaller.

The point of all this was to prove that higher Inductance results in a darker pickup (the p-rail was the exception I thought) i.e. lower resonant peak.

You may be correct in your assertion but you have yet to provide a practical test that will prove that point.

It's common knowledge that adding more winds to any given pickup will make it louder and darker. Inductance is what is being increased due to the added wind count. There's no mystery, it's basic stuff, and I don't mean that to be condescending, I mean it's thoroughly indisputable.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: some questions about wire

You mean like this crap...
- https://forum.seymourduncan.com/sho...me-is-GROUND&p=4037195&viewfull=1#post4037195 -
Your just a troll.

Thanaton is hilarious.

And what happened to my ground thread!? A good poop storm was developing and I was about to learn something but then the thread got shut down.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: some questions about wire

In addition......comparing to 42 gauge used for vintage fender/gibson pickups, 43 gauge is 17% more in resistance per unit length, and 44 about 18% more than 43.

Not only does the signal induced alter slightly with each gauge, but there are other aspects involved to do with the way the wire can be laid down on the bobbin. the thickest wire packs down nowhere near as well as the really thin stuff, so there can be large gaps in the layers where the wire is messily laid down. You can get all sorts of tonal differences too with the way the wire was laid down on the bobbins - the scatter effect. Its one of the reasons (as well as the final shape of the coil on the bobbin) why PAF's have such a tonal variance.
The thinner wire packs down really tightly, so you can make pickups that have a really tight tonal focus should you choose to. There are other aspects of the note that can be tweaked too.

Frank Falbo is by far THE best guy who regularly posts here for this type of info. David Plummer from Zhangbucker is also really good at these sort of explanantions. These two are the guys who have done the testing and have the real hands on experience.

[citation needed]

It's common knowledge that the way the wire was laid down on the bobbins, scatterwinding, variation in tension, looseness or air in the winds, affects tone of pickups. There's no mystery, it's basic stuff, and I don't mean that to be condescending, I mean it's thoroughly indisputable. Try using the search feature.

 

[thanaton]

Re: some questions about wire

I've yet to speak to anyone on that end of it that winds to meet a certain inductance or capacitance. They wind for the tone. One winder I know that ghost builds for a few guitar companies says the only meter he even owns is a multimeter.

I don't know where this assumptions comes from that you would set out to design a pickup of a target inductance or capacitance. The point is to know and understand your own product, or the pickups you have bought, if you're the curious type. If all you know is DC resistances, then you really don't know a whole lot.

Even Jason Lollar acknowledges that inductance is the correct method of quality testing a pickup. If a pickup reads high or low DC resistance, that means virtually nothing. If it reads high or low inductance, you have a problem on your hands. Something is actually wrong and the pickup will not sounds as intended.

 

[thanaton]

Re: some questions about wire

It's common knowledge that the way the wire was laid down on the bobbins, scatterwinding, variation in tension, looseness or air in the winds, affects tone of pickups.

"affects the tone" is pretty vague. Generally speaking, I'd have more faith that people have a good grip on the subject matter if they could do better than "affects the tone".

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: some questions about wire

If it reads high or low inductance, you have a problem on your hands. Something is actually wrong and the pickup will not sounds as intended.

"affects the tone" is pretty vague. Generally speaking, I'd have more faith that people have a good grip on the subject matter if they could do better than "affects the tone".

"sounds as intended" is pretty vague. Generally speaking, I'd have more faith that people have a good grip on the subject matter if they could do better than "sounds as intended".

 

[thanaton]

Re: some questions about wire

"sounds as intended" is pretty vague. Generally speaking, I'd have more faith that people have a good grip on the subject matter if they could do better than "sounds as intended".

The *low pass filter with resonance* will have a higher or lower cut-off frequency. There ya go.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: some questions about wire

The *low pass filter with resonance* will have a higher or lower cut-off frequency. There ya go.

If you meant the "low pass filter with resonance will have a higher or lower cut-off frequency", you could have said from the very beginning.

So, where do you lecture? (Other than the Seymour Duncan forum)

 

[freefrog]

Re: some questions about wire

way over my head.
I have 4 pickups, I want to measure the inductance. How do I do it, what data will I get and how do I interpret the data?

Several members have answered above about how the measure the inductance. Now, if you feel it "over your head", did you read that? http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/inductance-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters

[BTW, I'm not suggesting that the posts above were bad explanations: simply, more explanations = more chances to understand... ) ]

There's also the section named "Factors affecting inductance" in this page: https://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/DC/DC_15.html

Last but not least, this tool might be useful for those who want to know more preciseliy the relation between number of turns and DCR in common guitar pickups: http://www.salvarsan.org/pickups/Coil_Estimator.html


SIDE NOTE

I know that pickups are commonly seen as low pass filters with a flat response until their resonant frequency.

I personally prefer to think of them as crude LRC filters giving a curve like that: http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/accircuits/acp204.gif?x98918

In my experience, what makes them evenly sounding is the variable influence of strings and their metallic mass on the magnetic field... A thick wound string “troubles” it much more than a thin plain one. It induces more voltage in the coil. That’s what appears to give a comparable output level to low and high strings. But the pickup itself hasn’t a flat response IME.

Measured curves with a flat response until the resonant peak are due to an integrator circuit: they don't reflect what pickups do. They somehow emulate artificially the decreasing strength of strings according to their thickness.

That being said in a necessarily “schematized” way: we are not on music-electronics and I’ve not enough free time to wonder if each of my words is the best choice. Thx for your understanding...

 

[thanaton]

Re: some questions about wire

SIDE NOTE

I know that pickups are commonly seen as low pass filters with a flat response until their resonant frequency.

I personally prefer to think of them as crude LRC filters giving a curve like that: http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/accircuits/acp204.gif?x98918

In my experience, what makes them evenly sounding is the variable influence of strings and their metallic mass on the magnetic field... A thick wound string “troubles” it much more than a thin plain one. It induces more voltage in the coil. That’s what appears to give a comparable output level to low and high strings. But the pickup itself hasn’t a flat response IME.

Measured curves with a flat response until the resonant peak are due to an integrator circuit: they don't reflect what pickups do. They somehow emulate artificially the decreasing strength of strings according to their thickness.

That being said in a necessarily “schematized” way: we are not on music-electronics and I’ve not enough free time to wonder if each of my words is the best choice. Thx for your understanding...

That's all correct, and to be a bit more specific, inductive reactance increases with frequency:

The rise is 20dB per decade.

That means that pickups are more sensitive to higher frequencies than lower ones. This is the reason why the high E string is about as loud as the low E, despite the fact that the low E string has far more mass, far more flux, than the high E.

Here is an actual pickup impedence plot:

 

[Jacew]

Re: some questions about wire

I don't understand why you're bashing thanaton here? His posts here have been by far the best material about physics behind pickup i've read. Based on what I know about electronics, everything he's said is sound.

When talking about equipment like guitar pickups, people always tend to speak from their own experience, not caring to tell, (or without knowing) why it is so, which is really annoying. There's always a reason, why something sounds like it does, and thanatons posts here make a great job opening up why different winding sounds different.

 

[AlexR]

Re: some questions about wire

His electronics might be sound......outside the sphere of pickups. Just go through the various threads on what influences pickup tone, and he is wrong in practically EVERY one.
What is worse is that he cannot acknowledge people know more than him, he cannot learn, and spends time meaninglessly arguing points.

The good side is that, more often than not, Frank Falbo or Freefrog dips into these threads and gives some accurate info to make sure the beginner is not lead astray.

 

[Archer250]

Re: some questions about wire

Aaaaaand this thread is gonna end up like countless others complete with pointless bickering.

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