I started this older thread to ask if anyone else ever tried to wind their own pickups. I linked to a very informative Stew-Mac webpage that I followed in rewinding an old (1975) pickup.

I have thought about experimenting with removing some winds from Mexican "standard" ceramic pickups (to reduce the DC resistance about 15%). It might mellow them out and yield a nice pickup.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Here's one:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Books,_plan ... gnets.html

I haven't read it. I wonder if it tells us how a pickup is designed to give a scooped midrange, like the fabled John Mayer pickups? Never understood how a pickup can be wound to achieve that sort of effect, but apparently it's true...

Cheers - C

I really want to try one if my hand can stand it the winding but how do you magnitise it ?

Its not a closely guarded secret. The general info is pretty much all you need. It takes a little trial and error, but after you try it out, its fairly intuitive.

You need to understand the general info on amount of winds, and the general info on stuff like wire gauges, wire composition, the difference between the electrical fields generated when winding on a tall bobbin, and getting a thinner wrap, and winding on a short bobbin and getting a fat wrap, and stuff like that. But really all you need to know is out there.

Pickup manufacturers make their bones by mystifying the process. They all have some 'magic formula' but if that's the case, why do they devote so much time and money to developing copies of the originals?

I found an old sewing machine for 5 bucks at a yard sale. This winter I am going to convert it to a pick up winder. I'll try hook up a counter of some sort, though really I think measuring the output is probably good enough. The mystical magical number of winds were just a way of trying to standardize the output, and measure it without having to stop and hook up a meter. the real target was the output range, using standardized materials meant that counting the winds for the output you wanted was the easiest way of trying to control consistant output.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

You need to experiment with different types of magnets(materials /mixture) and poles(heights etc.).

Go for it Vinny!!

The magnets are really the wild card in all of this pickup building.

We can really keep track of the wiring. We can count how many turns; we can measure the inductance; we can measure the DC resistance. Not many of us can measure the strength of the magnets. Not many of us can manipulate that strength.

As ceri said, when I did my winding, I would stop periodically and make a DC resistance measurement to decide whether I had enough wound enough wire. I came extremely close to my target: 5.7 K ohms and 2.2 H inductance (which was the average of other '70s pickups I had).

The rewound pickup is currently in my doubleneck.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Look here vinny:

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Electro ... -5967.html

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

http://www.physlink.com/Education/askexperts/ae331.cfm

basics here vin.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Have you ever come across any specs for these JM Big Dipper pickups?

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

There's some "vintage" info at http://www.provide.net/~cfh/pickups.html
that was gathered by Duncan (averages across the years).
It's too bad we don't have any information on the variability of the specs.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Nope. I've just seen people discussing them here a great deal.

I heard him play live last year. Actually very nice, to my ear, but I couldn't detect this scooped thing - and the sound system was up there with the best.

And frankly, I doubt a scooped sound would be my taste anyhow. (If anything, the opposite.) Just curious about what voodoo goes into a pickup to achieve it...

Cheers - C

If I were forced to guess, I would say they get that scooping by underwinding.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

With a fully loaded, licenced by vinny pickgaurd.