Luthier Quick Tip 26 How To Make Guitar Pickups Part 2: Inductance

[@LevitatorMusic]

BRO!!! I've been watching your videos for years along with a few others like Ben Crow from Crimson and I just took the plunge last night and ordered a band saw, table saw, sander, router, drill press, a few hand tools like files, saws, rasps and such, and I'm finally gonna build a guitar!!! (among other things) after obsessing about it for like 20 years!! we're finally in a good enough place financially (thank you stimulus) and have the space. They're not the top of the line tools but they're not bottom rung either. Just wanted to show my gratitude to you for giving all of us so much great insight and information. I probably wouldn't have thought I could do it without your videos

[@MayorMcCheese2000]

your videos are seriously some of the best reference material for luthiers on all of the internet. I always respect your opinions and tastes but objectively you present so much great data in a very easy to consume fashion with videos that are specific to so many different facets of design and construction. thank you so much for all of these!

[@HighlineGuitars]

Glad you like them!

[@bevinmodrak4997]

Excellent! That's why Bill Lawrence/Wilde pickups gives you the inductance for the pickups they sell.

[@HighlineGuitars]

Bingo!

[@voodoocustompickups2547]

I do as well

[@zsujsk]

Thank you so much!

[@bobsiburton861]

You are a true teacher. Much appreciated.

[@deanallen927]

So glad I stumbled onto your videos. During unemployed covid times I've built four partscasters, and I tuned in to your boiled linseed oil video; I'd been having trouble getting desired results in "popping the grain" on Birdseye maple and giving hue on straight grain maple (too white and plain out of the box) before finishing. But the pickup videos are really in-depth and easy to understand; stuff I've wanted to know for years beyond the differences of winding impedance in relation to power and high end. VERY COOL. Keep up the good work.

[@markgrimm3564]

well presented thanks for your time in sharing i have the highest respect for you as a luthier

[@hillbillygeorg]

Great information ! Thankyou!

[@handwoundpickups6555]

Brilliant video thanks

[@tameromari2102]

This is great! Looking forward for the next episode :)

[@HighlineGuitars]

More to come!

[@Strumbum01]

Excellent! Thank you!

[@gstube1]

Awesome series/parallel! A big help to dial in my tones! 😊

[@TomH_YT]

Most excellent episode. Curious to learn about magnet charging. Is that degaussing and its opposite?

[@moonshot1999]

Great Guide BUT No Mention of HOW to wind for lower inductance apart from type of pickups ?

[@oldrrocr]

Thanks for this! Finally someone who knows and can explain the science. Now, Can you make me a better player?

[@yobentley7274]

Whew.....Right over my head...

[@HighlineGuitars]

Sorry about that. In the next video, I will try to clarify my approach. Designing pickup tone can get very complicated if you let it.

[@JeffDunsmore1]

Thank you for covering Inductance. Can you also measure the inductance of a whole circuit at the guitar jack? Thanks!

[@HighlineGuitars]

Yes I can.

[@JeffDunsmore1]

@@HighlineGuitars If you have time someday and could cover that I would greatly appreciate it. It would be interesting to see the results after the circuit.

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@JeffDunsmore1 You'll get the same reading at the jack as you would at the pickup.

[@JeffDunsmore1]

@@HighlineGuitars Thank you so much. That is good to know. I thought the circuit and everything that might be in it would change it.

[@Mixa_742]

Do i need to buy multimeter or just lcr is enough for making guitar pickup ?

[@HighlineGuitars]

Yes, an LCR meter is all you really need. It will measure inductance (L), capacitance (C), and resistance (R).

[@Mixa_742]

@@HighlineGuitars Thank you

[@alga1309]

Hello. Is posible to change the inducatance with small inductors to fine tune a Pickup. I haven't tried it but its an idea that comes to my mind

[@TomL-]

Great video, this information is helpful to someone just starting to figure this stuff out. As a beginner, it's very difficult to make sense of what these numbers mean without anything to reference them to. Can you recommend any data list with numbers of known pickups to reference from? Thanks!

[@HighlineGuitars]

I am not aware of such a list. I just go by the rule of thumb I described in the video.

[@pallecla]

There are many lists from various sources on the internet, with number of winds, AWG, resistance, magnet type, etc... However, they never list the inductance.

[@fatfro1]

My strat, made in Mexico, has a bar magnet going across the lugs. What does that mean? And thanks for another great video.

[@HighlineGuitars]

It's a cheap way of making single coils. However, they do work.

[@jonathankvex]

Does the affect of asymmetrically wound bobbins on humbuckers show up with inductance readings? From what I’ve read, asymmetrical humbuckers can scoop mids out to make the pickup sound brighter. Is this true, and does it show up measurably with inductance?

[@HighlineGuitars]

I've made custom asymmetrical humbuckers myself (7 string multiscale). I don't see how the offset would affect the inductance reading.

[@jonathankvex]

@@HighlineGuitars thanks for the response. Would you agree that asymmetrical bobbins do in fact scoop out mids, or is there a better way to describe its function?

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@jonathankvex I don't know. I would have to compare asymmetrical with non-asymmetrical in the same guitar. That's never going to happen.

[@nicoreynders2880]

Amazing video like always. 1 question : how is it possible to increase or decrease inductance, but keeping the same resistance, without change magnet ? Just in changing the way to round the coil ? What is the movemente ? Ex: i tried to achieve a strat pickup, 5.3 khm resistance, and 2,13 henry. I m ending with resistance ok, 5.3 khm, but only 1.9 henry. How can i change my way to round the coil for increase the inductance and reach and higher number like 2.13 ????? I m trying and trying, a lot of differentes ways, but i don t understand 😢😢

[@HighlineGuitars]

You can't change the inductance of the coil without changing the resistance. You can only change the inductance without affecting the resistance by switching to a magnet with a different level of iron composition. The presence of iron is what affects inductance. If you don't want to change the resistance or the magnet, you can place a small piece of steel on the back of the pickup to raise the inductance to the level you want.

[@nicoreynders2880]

@@HighlineGuitars oook thank you a lot for your answer 🙏🙏🙏 So the only thing i can change with the way to round the coil, is going to be the proportion of the capacitance ?

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@nicoreynders2880 Capacitance is affected by the number of turns which also determines the resistance. You cannot change one without changing the other.

[@U2BER2012]

Try using a lower gauge (thicker) magnet wire like 41 or even 40. The final resistance will of course read lower but the inductance should read higher. At least, that has been my experience.

[@nicoreynders2880]

@@U2BER2012 thank you. I ll try 👍🙏

[@marxvino]

Chris, You're an awesome teacher! Can you please share where you get your pickup supplies from? Thank you for sharing all your knowledge with us! Much appreciated!

[@HighlineGuitars]

CE Distribution, Mojotone, and AddictionFX.

[@marxvino]

@@HighlineGuitars thank you so much Chris! Very much appreciated!

[@chillpillology]

@@HighlineGuitars exactly why i watch your channel. thx!

[@voxpathfinder15r]

I have read about bypassing the 2nd coil of a humbucker pickup with a “bright cap”. So as the highest frequency content doesn’t have to fight through the 2nd half. Any experience doing this?

[@HighlineGuitars]

No.

[@voxpathfinder15r]

@@HighlineGuitars does it seem like an interesting thing to try from your point of view? Or does it defeat the purpose of a humbucker?

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@voxpathfinder15r It sounds like a solution looking for a problem.

[@voxpathfinder15r]

@@HighlineGuitars I kind of want someone else to try it and report back before I break out the soldering iron

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@voxpathfinder15r Post a link to what you've read and I'll look into it.

[@a2lguitar]

Hi, first thank you for the explanation. Very good video! I have a question, to reduce the inductance of a ceramic capacitor to something around 2.5 Henry, what kind of slug(material) should I use?

[@HighlineGuitars]

No idea. You’ll have to experiment.

[@a2lguitar]

Could you suggest me pickups with this configuration (2.5H)? I saw that fenders 59's have this feature, but here in Brazil they are extremely expensive! Thank you very much.

[@HighlineGuitars]

Sorry, I don’t know. I don’t pay attention to what’s available commercially.

[@justinpaquette224]

I'm looking forward to the next episode. What do you think about different potting techniques to effect tone, as in heavy potting, light potting, potting the bobbin and magnet but not the coil...?

[@HighlineGuitars]

How on earth do you pot a bobbin, but not the coil? The whole point of wax potting is to saturate the coil windings with wax so they won't vibrate.

[@justinpaquette224]

@@HighlineGuitars For example dipping the unwound tele bobbin in wax so that the bobbin and magnets wont vibrate against the base plate or the neck cover. But the pickup would still sound like an unpotted pickup, but with less out of control microphonics. I've heard a few pickup makers talk about stuff like that with the potting process, or a way of "lightly" potting a pickup

[@bluwng]

So is the Inductance directly proportional to the Gaussian measurement?

[@HighlineGuitars]

No.

[@matthewfanning3350]

It's hard to understand the nominal differences in bar magnets when it relates to inductance. Is there any chance you could do an episode where we can hear the difference?

[@HighlineGuitars]

No. But this guy has one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iqquhGuNfMh9aZY

[@benoitdufresne3288]

Here is my question: why can't humbuckers use magnetic slugs instead of a bar magnet? Would the fields fight with one another? Thanks.

[@HighlineGuitars]

They can and in some cases (stacked single coil-sized humbuckers) do.

[@tenlittleindians]

Why don't you just shoot for the winding with the brightest signal and add a choke coil down stream to shape the tone? Various choke coils could be switched in or out of the circuit with push/pull switches built into the volume and tone control potentiometers.

[@HighlineGuitars]

I don't want to scare off my customers.

[@gregholmberg2]

Les Paul did this with his "Recording" guitar. It had a low-impedance pickup with very few winds and an AC inductance of 0.008 Henries (DC resistance 10.8 ohms), resonant peak over 200 kHz (human hearing maxes out at 20). So, completely flat frequency response in the range of human hearing. He then added a "decade" switch with a series of 11 capacitors to lower the resonant peak, so he could get any tone he wanted. The extremely low output (closer to that of a microphone) could be plugged directly into the XLR input of a recording console. To be used with a regular guitar amp, the signal had to be transformed to a higher impedance. Here's an article about the guitar: drive.google.com/file/d/1Kb0Zti8vrHQ4prxpmiqOWoR88K2QaSie/view?usp=sharing

[@pallecla]

@@gregholmberg2 There is a reason they don't make it anymore...

[@ESANANIKONE]

The paradox of guitarist (I am one). I want the ultimate tone, I can try thousands of guitars to find it, but I don't want one guitar with thousands pots to find it.

[@gregholmberg2]

@@ESANANIKONE The Decade switch was a single tone knob. It just had greater effect than the usual tone knob.

[@andycowell608]

Counterintuitive! I would have expected the association of tone and inductance otherwise-- we use capacitors in tone circuits because they pass AC easier than DC, or highs easier than lowers, and bleed off highs. Inductors work the opposite, passing DC easier than AC-- or, I would expect, passing lows easier than highs. However, in this case, we're not passing current through the inductor, we're changing the magnetic field around the inductor. I suppose the proper analog would be changing the static charge of a capacitor directly to generate current. If I am incorrect, please let me know!

[@HighlineGuitars]

Heck if I know. I try to keep it simple since it's easy to fall down a rabbit hole and start obsessing over factors that have no noticeable impact on tone.

[@farzaanpavri]

Will it be the end of the world if I wind my tele pickups the other way round? The neck pickup having more turns and DC resistance than the bridge pickup?

[@HighlineGuitars]

The neck may overpower the bridge. However, that could yield a desirable result. There are no rules. Go for it!

[@farzaanpavri]

So a neck pickup with 7.6 kohm resistance and a bridge pickup with with 6.6 kohm resistance (all other components are same, i.e. wire gauge, magnets) won't land me in a pickle later?

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@farzaanpavri Probably not. However, it depends on you and how you feel it sounds. I may do a video on this topic. Perhaps in a few weeks.

[@farzaanpavri]

Thank you for answering my questions. You really have helped me now and in the past

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@farzaanpavri You're welcome and be sure to let me know here how your experiment turns out.

[@amitsapir2]

will a fully charged alnico II give us the same tone of alnico 5 that is charged so produce the inductance of the alnico 2 magnet?

[@ilmars24]

This is a good question ... my thoughts are no (although I have not done this) as the particular Alnico "recipes" impart certain characteristics as well ... anyone done this sort of experiment (exact same inductance by manipulating the magnet's charge)???

[@HighlineGuitars]

No, because the shape of the magnetic field will not be the same.

[@rootvalue]

Does anyone have a link to part one? I couldn’t find it in the cards nor in the description.

[@HighlineGuitars]

It's at the end of the video.

[@waynegram8907]

Does the Volume pot value and tone pot value affect the "series & parallel inductance"? you have to get an inductance meter that measures series LCR & parallel LCR

[@scottakam]

There are 3 components of impedance. Chris has talked about 2 so far, resistance and inductance. The third is capacitance. Inductance resists changes in current. Capacitance resists changes in voltage. These 2 attenuate higher frequencies more than lower frequencies. In Chris' example higher inductance attenuates high frequencies more making a pickup sound darker. The third component is DC resistance which affects all frequencies the same. Your volume pot attenuates the entire frequency range. The tone pot controls how much of the high frequency signal flows through the tome cap to ground. All components in the guitar circuit have inductance (L), capacitance (C) and resistance (R). The sum total of all the components determines the tone. The pickup is the most variable in construction and therefore impactful to the tone. I know lots of other things make up the tone like the player, wood, scale length etc. but this discussion is electrical.

[@waynegram8907]

@@scottakam when you put a 250K pots for the volume pot and tone pot the LCR + parallel 250K pots are going to give a different LCR value which has changed the frequency response of the guitar pickup. The volume pot and tone pots resistance values will change the Inductance of the guitar pickup. If you wired NO load pots the guitar pickup LCR is at different value compared to LOADED with Vol and Tone pots. Both LCR values are different which changes the frequency response of the guitar pickup.

[@scottakam]

@@waynegram8907 Rotating the pots changes the resistance of the pot which changes the impedance of the circuit. Different pots, no pots or position of the pots does not change the inductance of the pickup. Only the construction of the pickup determines the inductance of the pickup.

[@waynegram8907]

@@scottakam not sure if that is true the inductance is wire which has DC resistance in the inductor coil of wire. When a vol pot and tone pot 250K are in parallel with the inductors DC resistance it changes the DC resistance of the L inductance. There is series LCR and parallel LCR. The AC impedance and DC impedance has changed when using pots when LOAD the pickups LCR and NO load pots will unload the pickups LCR.

[@vw9659]

Not sure that particular LCR meter has sufficient test frequency to measure pickup inductance as accurately as one like the DE-5000. It also seems to get pickup capacitance measurements wrong. They should be in 50-300 pF range.

[@HighlineGuitars]

The DE-5000 has been discontinued. You can buy them used, but the one I use works fine for DIYers.

[@vw9659]

@@HighlineGuitars DE-5000 not discontinued as far as I know. Widely available for around $100. www.deree.com.tw/de-5000-lcr-meter.html Inductance measures may be "close" with some other meters (despite too low test frequencies), although pickup capacitance is way out with the Proster (gets nF when should be getting pF).

[@nisterror]

Not sure why you are talking about capacitance, when the video is about inductance lol

[@vw9659]

@@nisterror Because of two important measurements on pickups, inductance and capacitance, the Proster meter gets both wrong. Inductance possibly only slightly wrong (so maybe "near enough"), but capacitance by a lot.

[@CraigsWorkshop]

Highest note on a 24 fret guitar is about 1.3Khz. Wouldn't a cheapy 1Khz test freqency LCR meter be ideal for measuring inductance in a guitar pickup? I realise you can get the peak designs 200Khz and other nicer units, but they cost quite a bit more.

[@kevindick7485]

How about a pick up wound for that sweet jazz sound ?