Complete Guitar Pickup Testing: Step by Step Guide (LCR Meter, Gauss Meter, Oscilloscope)

Physics of the Electric Guitar by Manfred Zollner:
drive.google.com/drive/folder...
Pickup Spreadsheet with Ongoing Updates:
drive.google.com/drive/folder...
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Chapters:
0:23 Gauss Test
0:43 Inductance, Capacitance, DCR
1:56 Oscilloscope Cabling Components + Instructions
4:26 PCLab 2000 Software Download and Installation
4:56 Setting up the software to make a Bode Plot
5:54 Bode Plot + Resonant Frequency
8:03 Spreadsheets + Resonant Peak
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My Complete Single Coil Pickup Assembly video:
• Making a Single Coil P...
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Huge thanks to “Antigua Tele” from TDPRI, as well as members of Guitar Nutz 2 for all the correspondence and guidance. I never would have even figured out how to use an LCR meter without his help. Another big thanks to Ken Willmott, inventor of the Integrator, who’s been just as helpful in e-mail correspondences, answering any and all questions I had about using the Integrator, and what the numbers mean. And huge thanks to Steve Kubica and Rob DiStefano for getting me started on my guitar tech journey over 17 years ago, and my pickup winding journey over 5 years ago, respectively.
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CAPACITANCE TESTING ACCURACY:
Antigua’s thoughts, and a meter I currently don’t own that may be superior for testing capacitance:
guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thr...
guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thr...
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VRMS and dBV MEANING:
guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thr...
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LINKS AND RESOURCES:
Measured Electrical Values of Various Telecaster Pickups:
www.tdpri.com/threads/measure...
Finding a Pickup’s Resonant Peak with a USB Oscilloscope:
guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thr...
Ken Willmott (Inventor of the “Integrator”) homepage:
kenwillmott.com/blog/
Integrator “Wiki” Page:
github.com/KenWillmott/integr...
Guitar Pickup Measurement Revisited:
kenwillmott.com/blog/archives/284
Ken Willmott’s Github for the Integrator and Exciter Coil (free instructions to build your own):
github.com/KenWillmott/integr...

[@tyronewarren6944]

Thank you for putting the time and energy into such an informative video for such a niche topic!

[@guitar_md]

Thank you for the comment, and you're welcome!

[@DougHinVA]

'niche' is right ... and very few players or performers will care...

[@ssplintergirl]

Subscribed. Well well earned. Looking forward to seeing what you make.

[@lunachicks6665]

Glad you finally put this button in. Good job keep up the great work!

[@guitar_md]

Thank you so much! Made my entire day. Stay tuned, I have a lot more content on the way!

[@nabilmohammad5076]

Awesome job man!

[@guitar_md]

Thanks so much for the support!

[@killroy123]

I love this video and thank you for putting this all together since it tickles my brain in a good way. I wanted to ask if you are able to test pickups like Alumitones from lace with this setup? Additionally, have you tried looking at flat eq pickups like the XR-Spectra by Cycfi Research? Would love to see what you find since you have all this to hand and are knowledgeable

[@guitar_md]

I haven't tested Alumitones, but I should be able to with this setup. I've made some interesting pickups, like my own version of Bill Lawrence's Micro Coils. I've used up to 48AWG, which is extremely difficult to work with. I don't think I could go any finer than that. But I've been able to fit a lot of wire into a very small (1/8") winding space. With interesting results. My friend Andrew who has measured Alumitones said the Micro Coil I made looked a lot like an Alumitone, which was very interesting. It's in my notes somewhere. I haven't made any Micro Coils in a long time. The CyFi research stuff looks awesome. Completely. I'd love to try one of their pickups, particularly in my multiscale 7 string. I never heard of the XR-Spectra, only the Nu-Modular. So I appreciate you mentioning that. I see they also have a sustainer unit. I'd love to use that in my fretless Epiphone SG. I have a lot of things I'd really like to try. CyFi research seems to be on the cutting edge of all this stuff. I've been recording direct-in almost exclusively these days. For now, my live gig and playing in a band days are over, and I've just been a recluse making KZbin videos and recording guitar tracks in my room through my interface. The CyFi stuff seems perfect for that. I will say traditional pickups *do* still have great convenience, despite their lack of flexibility. In some ways I think having limited options can be a good thing. But they're definitely onto something. And by "onto something" I mean I think they've cracked the code. Really, a totally flat EQ makes the most sense in this day and age. And just make it sound like whatever you want. *However,* I myself have a lot to learn with how to adjust frequency response accurately in such a way. I'd assume there's a significant learning curve to that. I'd love to try it though, for sure. Might try an XR-SPECTRA 70 for my 7 string. I only wanted one pickup for it anyway. That could be very interesting.

[@raserucort]

nice!!

[@Savan_Triveda]

Wow, very interesting.

[@guitar_md]

Thank you!

[@theNextProject]

Guitar MD, if you don’t mind, I need to pick your brain a bit. I have the Velleman PCSGU250 analyzer with software loaded, a (home made) exciter coil, the Ken Willmott v5.9 integrator… all leads set up as you show and as Antigua has promoted on various forums. Settings on the software as you and Antigua have described (there were some variation, I’ve tried a bunch of options). The issue I’m having is the bode traces all seem to start in the lower left, ramp up to the peak then taper off as expected. Issue being the starting point of the lower left plots, rather than a more central horizontal start to the plot as I’ve seen - everywhere. I’ve tried a couple different exciter coils which results in a slight offset of the plot, but all start from the low left. It doesn’t seem to matter what pickup I’m testing, all have the same low left plot starts. I’ve attempted to find the answer on the forums, but nothing is jumping out at me. Without you actually seeing my set up, what is you knee-jerk explanation for such plots. I’m no doubt missing - the obvious. My exciter coil(s) are 200 wind, +/- 30 ga wire, Strat bobbin style. No magnets, not nothin. Pretty much what Antigua was showing in his forum post relating to this type of testing. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Take care!

[@guitar_md]

Is the test range 100Hz increments? Times I've accidentally set it to 10Hz increments, I've had it start on the low left. The other thing is Ken's exciter coil uses a 100 ohm resistor in series with itself. I make my own pickups but just got one of his exciter coils to be on the safe side. I actually am going to make my own 7 string exciter coil for testing 7 string pickups so maybe I'll see if I run into similar issues you're having. I've been meaning to experiment more myself, such as using an actual wiring harness instead of the integrator, to see if that changes anything. But immediate suspects are the test range and that 100 ohm resistor in line with the exciter coil. Make sure it's 100Hz increments, not 10Hz, and try wiring a resistor in line with the coil. I remember being confused about that and I still don't know the purpose of the resistor but it could play a part. I also set the test amplitude to 1 now, every single time, just to keep things consistent. Let me know if you try anything or are still having issues.

[@theNextProject]

@@guitar_md Thanks for the reply. Pretty sure I had run at 100Hz, then tried other setting as well. I'll double check , use amplitude of 1, and add the resistor as you mention. It is all a bit of black magic to me. Thanks again for your videos and the reply. It all helps. Take care!

[@guitar_md]

@@theNextProject Sure thing. And trust me, I get it. I had to correspond extensively with Ken, and a member of TDPRI, to get this sorted out. The instructions for the exciter coil are here: github.com/KenWillmott/integrator/blob/master/Test%20Coil%20Assembly%202021-03-27.pdf He explains there exactly why it's important to use the 100 ohm resistor. I think that might solve your issue. Let me know if it works!

[@theNextProject]

@@guitar_md excellent, I'll read through the link and now I know what I'm doing tonight. Many thanks!

[@theNextProject]

@@guitar_md ah yes, a good read! Definitely a different exciter build than I found in Antigua's info. Thank you again!

[@sempercompellis]

with all this knowledge and all these tools, you are poised to give the guitar world a deep dive on what truly does what vis a vis magnets, wire etc and guitar pickups. There is too much "mojo" nonsense out there, you could finally answer the question "how do i get a mid (scooped/forward) pickup?" " what type of magnet will soften this KLANGY (my word) top end?" "what are the tonal differences with A2, A3 A5?" ( i have literally heard 2 different expert winders say the opposite things about A5 -Novak mid scooped .....Thro back mid forward)

[@guitar_md]

I'd love to do some videos on this. Antigua Tele on TDPRI and Guitar Nuts 2 has a plethora of posts analyzing hundreds of different pickups. The advantage I have is that I regularly assemble and wind my own pickups, so I can control for variables -- such as magnet type. Sometimes the differences aren't very obvious. What shows up on a bode plot is subjective when it comes to how much of an impact it truly makes. Plus, there is some natural variety between pickups of the same make and model. The resonant frequency might vary by a couple hundred Hertz depending on the winding pattern/tension, etc. I currently don't have any way to control those variables -- tension and pattern can be controlled by a CNC machine, but when hand winding, I don't know of any methods that reliably produce particular results. The formula seems to be the most important: all the components and then the turn count of the wire. I've been swamped with work, especially new videos I'm working on, and since I cover such a broad range of topics it gets quite hectic. A video going over the effects of turn count and magnet type would be great. The easiest way is to control for each variable individually. For a truly accurate test it would require my LCR meter, oscilloscope, and then audio tests on top of that with A/B comparisons. There may be other things I can add to the test that would increase the accuracy. I've been winding pickups for over 5 years now and have gone through over 30 pounds of wire. And I still never know what I'm going to find when I experiment with something new. I do think there are parameters that may exist that my test equipment is not able to capture. Another consideration I haven't seen anyone tackle is measuring two pickups together. The in-between positions, series/parallel and in phase/out of phase are all very interesting, and for my tone, are a primary part of my sound. My preferred setup is two single coils with a three way switch and two push/pull pots so I can go between series/parallel and in phase/out of phase in the inbetween positions. I've found a super overwound bridge pickup with an underwound neck pickup work beautifully together. I have no idea why, on a technical level. But you get six different pickup combinations with two pickups. And individually, they're very different sounding. I'll see what I can come up with in time. Another video I wanted to do was demonstrating the change in tone of a pickup as you add, say, 500 or 1,000 turns at a time. Complete with bode plots, LCR meter measurements and audio tests. So many ideas, and so little time. I do hope that for now, at least by putting this information out there, I can inspire some other people and empower them to run their own tests. Also, send me an e-mail at [e-mail] if you'd like. I can add you to my Google Drive pickup testing spreadsheet file. I try to upload everything there, and any new pickup I test gets logged into the spreadsheet. I have a small but decent collection of different pickups so far and am always adding to it. Many of them are my own but I do have a fair amount of commercial pickups as well. Any time I have someone bring me something to work on I throw it on the meter whenever possible and add it to the list.

[@sempercompellis]

@@guitar_md I wind some myself- I have noticed 41awg wire nailing the tone of a 62 strat (which i don't own but have access to from time to time). It was a fluke thing but i acquired some 41awg from Remington and wound to about the mid 5ks. I suspect the rating system back in the day wasn't as precise as it is now and what was once considered 42 was closer to our 41. (it makes quite a difference). I know the old Charlie Christians were wound with 38 and read in the low 3ks today (perhaps a p90 would with 40/41 could capture those 1940 era models

[@maxenielsen]

Very well done! Informative! How do you account for the frequency response of the exciter coil?

[@guitar_md]

Thanks! I don't think the exciter coil has a frequency response. It's very few turns of wire, and has no magnets in it, so there is no current generated via electromagnetic induction like there is in a pickup. My understanding is it's just a conduit for the signal generator. No frequency response of its own, but transmits the one from the signal generator

[@kmcrafting4837]

Awesome! For BODE plot do think using REQW to output a sweep to an exciter coil and input through PC line-in would yield comparable results?

[@guitar_md]

I have no idea, but you can check this out from Helmut Keller. www.gitec-forum-eng.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Pickup-Wizard-V1.0-.pdf And this: gitec-forum-eng.de/getting-to-know-you-pickup-a-tool-for-measuring-the-frequency-response-of-the-impedance/ And a thread discussing it here: guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/10045/gitec-software-impedance-frequency-response Let me know if that helps!

[@kmcrafting4837]

@@guitar_md I will get back to you in 1-5 business months!

[@ShiftingDrifter]

Great video, but I wish you included the steps for constructing your exciter - just for clarification.

[@guitar_md]

I bought the test coil from Ken Willmott and did not build it myself, but the process is pretty easy. The instructions are here, on Ken Willmott's Integrator Github page: github.com/KenWillmott/integrator/blob/master/Test%20Coil%20Assembly%202021-03-27.pdf Humbucker bobbin + 50 turns of 30AWG + 100 Ohm resistor (start lead of the coil goes to one leg of the resistor, finish lead goes to the other leg) + lead wires to connect to the signal generator. As shown in the video, I simply soldered the leads to a BNC connector for ease of use. Ken's test coil just came with bare lead wires so you can attach them to whatever you want. I might make my own for more accurately testing things like 7 and 8 string pickups that are a bit longer. Hope that helps

[@ilarioiuso4971]

Thanks a lot for the valuable information. I bought everything I needed to do the tests as described by you. I would like to ask for some information. In the case of the following types of pickups, how should the drive coil be positioned? 1) Precision bass 2) Split coil Jazz bass 3) Dual rail pickups A thousand thanks

[@guitar_md]

Dual Rail pickups are measured the same way humbuckers are, with the exciter coil on its side instead of flat down on its face. As for P-Bass and split coils, let me get back to you. Great question and I'm actually not sure. I'll see if I can message my friend Andrew, who got me started on this path of measuring pickups, and see if he knows. Thanks for asking, and again great question

[@ilarioiuso4971]

​@@guitar_md thanks a lot. In the case of precision bass I don't know if the bobbins need to be aligned side by side orizzontally or vertically. In the case of jazz bass split coil i put the drive coil upside the bobbin like single coil and they seems too low level of decibel respect normal single coil. Same situation in the case of stacked single coil.

[@guitar_md]

@ilarioiuso4971 For the P Bass, it probably should be just like a humbucker. Put the coils side by side like a PAF pickup or any other humbucker. The exciter coil should go between them standing on its side, the same way as in the video for normal humbuckers. Of course, you could always test both ways, one with the exciter coil face down like it's used for testing single coil pickups, and see how that works. The P bass pickups will be much farther apart than a humbucker due to the flatwork so maybe face down will actually work better. I'll have to try this myself soon. Maybe even aligning them slightly offset (like they are when they're installed) would also work best. I'd try multiple arrangements and look at the bode plots. Probably the most normal looking one will be correct, just a guess. For stacked coils, like noiseless pickups, just put the exciter coil face down, same way for single coils. For split coils, I'd also do it face down, same as for single coils. That may or may not work because of the opposing polarity on a single plane. I'll get back to you as soon as I can after getting a response from my friend regarding these testing methods

[@ilarioiuso4971]

​@@guitar_md thank you very much. If you have more news please let me know.

[@lavh93]

how can you tell the pickup eq or tone spectrum from the plot?? could you explain that or make a video on it. Also I understand the res freq is in the 1.7k hz but all the notes on the guitar don't even get to that. How does the resonant freq affects the tone ??

[@guitar_md]

I'd love to make a video on it, and I intend to once I have the time. I'm very excited to. The answer is much simpler than it seems. Though I'm going to go into a long-winded explanation here, so bear with me. The resonant frequency -- or more accurately, the 'resonance curve' or 'EQ curve' affects the tone by telling us *which frequencies it's filtering out, and how much.* The way the oscilloscope test works is it uses a signal generator to emit frequencies at various intervals -- 100Hz, 200Hz, 300Hz, etc., up to 10kHz or 30kHz depending on your testing parameters -- -- and the bode plot is simply telling us *how much of a particular frequency the pickup is filtering out.* CLIFF NOTES VERSION: A lower resonant peak means *the pickup is filtering out more high end frequencies.* A higher resonant peak means *the pickup is filtering out less high end frequencies.* The resonant peak is only one aspect, the peak of the curve -- but the entire curve matters. That being said, the location of the peak of the curve is a good general indicator of what a pickup will sound like. 4.4kHz, think classic Stratocaster or Telecaster. Bright, spanky, trebly, sparkly, twangy, all that. 1.7kHz, think P90. Fat, bold, not much high end, aggressive lows and midrange. The high end treble response is greatly reduced. Some may call this a "smooth" high end, or "darker, powerful" high end. Pickups with lower resonant frequencies generally have more turns of wire and/or more steel parts, which both increases the output the pickup (raw power in the form of Alternating Current electricity, generated by electromagnetic induction -- more turns of wire = more AC generated = more output)..... ...and lowers the resonant frequency, which means the pickup is filtering out more high end frequencies, leaving more and *emphasizing* more of the midrange and low end frequencies. Less turns of wire and less steel parts translates to more high end frequencies left in tact, and a greater emphasis on high end frequencies. Think bright, spanky, sparkly, clear, and on the extreme end: tinny, shrill, harsh, ear-piercing. This may be tough to understand at first. The first principle is understanding that a guitar pickup is both an electrical current generator and, effectively, a low pass filter. Also, the frequency of the notes being played is different from the frequency of the overtones/timbre. Think about it like this: Play a note on the guitar. Any note, any string. Pick the string near the last fret. Now play the same note, but pick the string right next to the saddle. You get a smooth, buttery tone by the neck, but picking where the string is tighter by the saddle, you get a trebly, tinny sound. It's the same note, but the frequency response is completely different. So remember that the overtones/timbre are not the same as the frequency of the notes themselves. Ear-piercing tone, like some old Fender Telecasters, can emit frequencies in quite a high range, say around 4kHz or possibly even 5kHz. It isn't the frequency of the actual notes being played, but the overtones/timbre, for lack of a better term. A pickup affects *all* notes on the guitar equally, as they're effecting the overall timbre of the instrument, and all the overtones, and some of those frequencies are quite high and quite low. I'm making an educated guess about all this by the way! It's a very good question but I do want to clarify that it isn't about the frequency of the notes, though it isn't something I've thought about before until answering your question right now. Anyway: The practical takeaway for someone like me is actually extremely simple. Most of the time I manipulate resonant frequency merely by changing the number of turns of wire I use on a given pickup. You can also affect it by the choice of magnets. A2 and A3 are darker sounding, given the same number of turns, while A5 is brighter, and A8 is the brightest. For the same number of turns, A8 has the highest resonant frequency, then A5, and A2 and A3 seem to be very similar. Different magnets may have different properties that don't show up on a bode plot and I have yet to explore into that territory. But the takeaway is simple. Turn count is a *very large part* of building pickups. And it's all up to experimentation. One of my favorite pickups that I make is a Stratocaster bridge pickup that uses 18,000 to 18,500 turns of 46AWG. Super powerful midrange and no shrillness on the high end at all. Things get a bit more complicated when experimenting with different bobbin designs. Bobbin height combined with wire gauge can make for some interesting variations in bode plots/frequency responses. Bill Lawrence Micro Coils come to mind. I've made my own version of those several times with interesting results. The bode plot reveals a lot. My experience is that thinner wire in a small winding space tends to result in a disproportional retention of more high end frequencies. It's very hard to explain this in terms of what it sounds like. That's the beauty of the plots -- it's all numbers. When you see the plot, you can see which frequencies are filtered out more or less. Sometimes tone can be extremely difficult to explain with words. But it all comes down to which frequencies are being filtered out more or less. The resonant peak is merely the point of greatest emphasis: the 'voice' of the pickup, so to speak. The rest of the curve is like the 'character' of the voice. If you think about it, it's almost like trying to describe the difference between human voices. Pretty much impossible without numbers/frequency response plots. The emphasis of certain frequencies, and the attenuation of others, is what it's all about. I'd love to make a video about this but as you can see it gets quite complicated. It will take me some time to condense this comment down into a short video that would be much easier to understand. I do appreciate you bearing with me if you were able to read through this. And hopefully you're not more confused than before! If you are, I have a lot more work to do on my explaining and clarification. I'd love to get a video going but translating my knowledge and experience into words can be extremely difficult! Hopefully this helps at least a little with answering your question.

[@guitar_md]

One more simpler reply: A standard of comparison helps a *lot*. For this reason, think of a single coil like a Fender Strat or Tele pickup. Alnico 5 mags with about 8,000 turns of wire is standard. This nets a pickup of about 2 Henries inductance, and a resonant frequency in the 4.0kHz range, roughly speaking. Other single coil pickups can be compared to this as a 'standard.' Sometimes it helps to understand one thing via comparison to a 'standard,' so having a 'standard' single coil sound gives us a frame of reference. You can do this for other single coils too, like P90 pickups, Filtertrons, etc. Deviation from the standard is what makes the differences understandable. A P90 that uses Alnico polepieces, for example, instead of steel polepieces with an Alnico bar magnet, will -- for the same number of turns -- be brighter and clearer sounding, due to the higher resonant frequency. That means more high end, and more emphasis on the high end. A Strat pickup that uses a bar magnet and steel poles -- like most MIM or other non-USA Fenders -- will tend to have a darker sound, owing to the lower resonant frequency, which emphasizes more midrange and low end frequencies. Inductance can be used as a solitary measurement but it's nowhere near as useful as a bode plot / resonant curve plot. All things considered, changing the turns of wire and the magnet type is probably 95% of the pickup modifications you see on the market. It's some variation of the magnet and polepieces, and some variation of wire turn count / insulation type, etc. The differences can be extreme or subtle. I like going for more extreme differences. Most of this is reflected in the bode plots. But again, standards of comparison are most helpful. If you see a plot for a known pickup that you're very familiar with, like a run of the mill Strat pickup, Tele pickup, P90 or PAF humbucker -- then when you compare the plots of *other* pickups against *those" -- it becomes much easier to interpret the differences visually. The bode plot information can be copied from Microsoft Excel into Notepad, saved as a txt file, then uploaded into the Vellemann or other Bode Plot software to create a visual plot comparing the two pickups. Very handy. The visual references are great for getting a general interpretation of the tonal characteristics. The left side of the chart is lower frequencies. The right side is higher. Once you get used to the grid markers and what frequencies they correspond to, interpreting the plots becomes second nature. I'd love to make a video on this to simplify it and demonstrate it visually.

[@lavh93]

@@guitar_md man this is gold!

[@bobibobik5903]

I have to make here new comment and to clear that my pervious comments or any future comments has nothing to do with person who make this educative videos, i actually like them. When i write something it's in general, and if i don't think that OP is an OK i wouldn't post any comments.

[@MrKenstar2]

It all comes down if you can tell the micro differences between winding techniques and the answer is you cant. Regular wind vs scatterwound . And the answer is you cant.

[@guitar_md]

This is what tests are for. I'm also mostly in the camp that believes winding pattern and tension is irrelevant, but arguments one way or the other are irrelevant without data. To really test that you'd need a CNC setup that could control both wire tension *and* winding pattern individually. Then you'd test both of those variables independently as well as together against a control, which has a standardized tension and winding pattern. My latest confusion is the variation in pickups I'm winding lately with a new spool of 42AWG. Maybe it's the purity of the copper. But the same 7600 turn neck pickups I've been making for years suddenly are coming out around 3.0dB @ 3.9kHz instead of 6.0dB @ 4.4kHz. That's a huge difference, and I've changed nothing about the way I wind, the bobbin construction, or how I wind the pickups. So what's up with that? I currently have no explanation for why this is happening, and nobody else does either. But the numbers don't lie. Again: this is what testing is for. Evidence is the loudest voice in the room. My current fixation is Q factor, or the degree of amplitude at the resonant frequency. You can think of this as how "peaky" the resonant peak is. I'm very curious about exactly what influences Q factor and why currently I'm getting such a low Q factor compared to what I'm used to for the exact same build of pickup. My current guess is that it's got something to do with the spool of wire and the quality/purity of the copper used to wind it. That being said, this is why I've chosen novel designs for pickups. I like pickups that fall outside the norm, and sometimes very far outside the norm. I like making pickups that get sounds you can't get from commercial pickups. There is no other Strat pickup on the market wound with 18,500 turns of 46AWG, for example. And most neck pickups are wound with more than the 7,600 turns I typically use. I also like making novelty pickups like the recent Fender style P90 I made with flatwork and alnico polepieces for someone. It's like a Seymour Duncan Phat Cat but with alnico rods instead of steel poles and a bar magnet. It's essentially a Fender pickup in a humbucker housing. I had to trim the flatwork down to fit on the baseplate but the end result was a very unique sounding pickup in a unique form factor. I do think the winding pattern thing is very tired. So to be clear, I'm not saying you're wrong, or even that I disagree, but to bring attention to the importance of testing. If someone runs tests and can definitively say that winding tension and winding pattern have no measurable impact on resonant frequency, Q factor, or the frequency response curve at all -- and they have the data to back it up -- that's an argument with some real weight behind it. For me, I like sticking to novel designs that fall so far outside the norm, that the differences are undeniable and obvious. It's also more fun for me to be creative and offer stuff you can't get elsewhere rather than relying on using winding pattern as a selling point. The novelty and creativity is what's fun for me. Same with my two-pickup pickguard and top loading jack plate I designed/made for my own Strats, with an underwound neck pickup, ridiculously overwound bridge pickup, and a series/parallel and in phase/out of phase series of switches, and a 3 way box switch on the jack plate. I like doing things my way and in ways that are markedly different from the norm. I'd go nuts if I was just winding sets of 8,000 turn Strat pickups day in and day out. For me, I need the feeling that I'm bringing something new and novel into the world. I'd simply go nuts otherwise.

[@DougHinVA]

Checking pickup measurement is NOT like playing and performing. Do not confuse the 2 things!

[@guitar_md]

I've been playing for 20 years and have performed many times. For me, they're linked together. The way I set up my guitars and build my pickups is tied to how I play/perform/record. But, that's just me personally. I have the unique experience of doing all my own work and also being an avid player. I only know what I like, personally, and what my experience is. The goal of this video though is to clear up confusion with pickups. Checking pickup measurement is something 99% of people have no idea how to do. My goal is to change that and to help people better understand what they're looking for when it comes to tone, and how to make clearer decisions with less confusion. It's made a big difference for me. Took me some years of winding pickups and a ton of help from other people way smarter than me to figure all this out. But I'm happier than ever with how my guitar feels and sounds as a result, and it's been hugely inspiring to my playing. All about having as much fun as you can, at the end of the day. If you're not having fun, what's the point?

[@smollande]

​@@guitar_mddavinci made his own paint in order to fully express himself through his art. Ain't nothing wrong with a guitarist trying to tweak his or her own pups. I love it here doc your videos rock

[@smollande]

Rocket science ... mind blown. Can you use the equipment to measure the frequency response of wooden guitar necks and bodies using pressure sensors

[@guitar_md]

Good question! I have no idea. I don't think so because this depends on the signal generator, which depends on the electromagnetic induction of the magnetic pickup to work. For something like a piezo, I'm not sure how a frequency response curve could be formed. I wish I was smarter! I agree this is rocket science...and all I know how to do is solder the wires and push the buttons. I have been installing piezo disc pickups in neck pockets though, with interesting results. Not the first to do it but it's an uncommon practice. Maybe using a spectogram in a DAW and tapping on a body with a contact microphone / piezo installed (like the Metal Marshmallow) would provide some insight. That and a pure listening test. That would be great to find some way to test those things. Wood to wood contact, the species of wood, the quality of the individual piece -- all could play a role. And especially if combining magnetic pickups with piezo pickups mounted on the body in interesting locations. I heard one of Frank Zappa's Strats had a piezo neck pocket pickup *and* a strip of piezo film in the nut slot. I've seen them mounted on the headstock with the wires routed under the fingerboard as well. My current experiment has been a Cozart 12 string with a piezo neck pocket pickup and a low impedance noiseless magnetic pickup I made for it in the neck position. My goal being to emulate the tone of a real acoustic 12 string more closely. Very interesting results so far, even though I'm a simpleton and don't even know how to buffer a piezo. Currently looking into making my own buffer but I've had circuit boards blow up and light on fire before. I know how to solder but the resistor/capacitor/transistor/diode/op-amp thing gets lost on me!

[@smollande]

@@guitar_md I hear u. Op amps can be crazy to solder their feet are tiny. I have a les paul with 3 hb cavities and I basically gutted the thing of all electronics, put some strings on and gosh it sounds amazing now. I can feel the bass and midrange vibrating through my body when I strum those power chords. No amp just playing it like an acoustic. That's the tone I want! I think the pup cavities have transformed into sound holes... noe that you've mentioned piezo I might give it a shot. Neck pocket? Or in the pup cavity? Or do both with a 3 way toggle switch ... Oh and why I brought up the wood was because I have an old tone generator but no app. I kinda wish I could send a frequency through a piece of wood and stick sensors on the surface and plot the data to see how the wood behaves . Heres an idea. Run your pup test on pups suspended in air. Then run it again this time with pups installed on a suspended guitar. Subtract results of the first test from the second, and whatever is left must be caused by the wood. Right? So do tone woods create an effect that can be picked up by the coils? Or should we just use any regular wood? 😃but be careful lots of people who have invested their live savings in guitars will put a price on your head. 😃

[@bobibobik5903]

1st that Antigua Copy Paste work of Helmuth Leme ( he used knowledge from science - physic), actually lot of people copy his gadgets and don't gave him a credit at all. 2nd- that way of measuring is incorrect, 3rd amount of error is huge 4th problem with today wonna be guitar scientists is that people think that they measure at home with highly changeable variations of pressure, temperature etc and above all conditions at home are not control that is a sound lab. 5th sine guitar is the source of the sound all those measuring don't mean much without a guitar 6th values will change even depending from a player. When to put guitar on your body it behave difrent. So all measuring's with lot of error's is IMHO only hype to sell pickups to ''sound smart'' Milan -Mike Dj. electronic Engineer ( guitar player, pickup winder blah blah ☺)

[@guitar_md]

1) Antigua has given credit endlessly to Helmuth Lemme. I actually only heard about him through Antigua, who has recommended his work many, many times and has made *many* threads about it. Antigua is the main person who has even made people aware of Helmuth Lemme over here in the USA and is *constantly* referring to, and quoting his work. I own his book as well - Electric Guitar: Sound Secrets and Technology. Manfred Zollner, author of Physics of the Electric Guitar, is another person I was turned onto by Antigua, and I own his book as well. The only reason I didn't mention them is because it slipped my mind, though in my video on winding noiseless pickups, I do quote Helmuth Lemme/Manfred Zollner and refer to information from their books on stacked humbuckers. I actually use a direct quote to explain the science behind how stacked humbuckers work as their books are the premier source of information on these things. 2) I'm curious as to why you say the method of measuring is incorrect. I would love to know what the correct method is and also how to perform it. I'm not married to any methods. Only interested in the ones that work. However, I will argue that I have gotten excellent and repeatable results with these methods. I've used them *extensively* with repeatable, reliable results, and I have a hard time seeing how these methods would be incorrect, given that they've proven themselves useful many, many times in the real-world applications of my rewinding of vintage and modern pickups, and designing new pickups for people with very specific demands. These test methods have been indispensable to me. If there *is* a better method, I would be very curious to try it and to see how it compares to these methods that I have been using -- and have been very successful with so far. 3) Which error rate is huge? I've built, wound and tested many, many hundreds of pickups and my results are always within very tight paramters, as measured by the LCR meter and USB oscilloscope. Pickups I wind to the same specifications are *always* within tight parameters. I am not seeing a huge error rate at all with these methods. With any pickup I make, it is always *very reliably* within tight parameters for L, C, and resonant peak. If these testing methods had a huge error rate, I would not expect that I'd be seeing virtually identical results every single time I make a pickup according to a particular recipe. 4) I agree that tight control parameters are best. This would also come down to having a CNC winding machine that would actually be capable of doing a specific winding pattern -- and also a tension meter, to regulate the tension on the wire. All variables have to be controlled for *building* the pickup, and all variables have to be controlled for *testing* the pickup as well. However, I disagree that a highly advanced laboratory with state of the art equipment and everything controlled for as highly as possible is the only relevant testing. Home testing with a good LCR meter and an Integrator + Oscilloscope setup can provide relevant insights. I'd argue that extreme accuracy is not necessary because everything is relative. In other words, testing a stock Fender pickup, and getting certain parameters, will set a decent enough metric by which to compare another pickup. I can and have made pickups to fit specific tonal specifications based on measurements I've taken of pickups that were in the guitar -- and used the information I tested to create a pickup with a different profile that suited what people have wanted -- including myself, and my own desired sounds. These methods of testing have been very useful for me as someone who has built and wound a *lot* of pickups over the years, and I've used these methods for my own builds in my own guitars many, many times with great success. 5) Ken Willmott's integrator device is not perfect, but it *is* constructed to put a similar load on the pickup that would be put on a pickup mounted in a guitar, including capacitance from a normal guitar cable, and load from volume and tone pots. There is a "loaded" and "unloaded" feature on Ken Willmott's Integrator device, to simulate the pickup being loaded into an actual guitar circuit. 6) I completely disagree that this is all hype to sell pickups by sounding smart. This could not be further from the truth. Antigua does not sell pickups at all and *every single one of his posts* is just a result of his hobby of measuring pickups and being curious about what makes them sound the way they do. You can find this easily online in any of his posts. He is not selling anything, and never has. As for me, I only sell pickups infrequently, and I've *never* used these test methods to *sound smart* and hype up my pickups. I firmly believe, and can very easily demonstrate, that these measurements are accurate, and only serve to help people understand what they're actually getting when they buy a pickup. I would argue, actually, that saying that these tests are all "hype to sound smart" is actually hype to sell *handwound pickups,* by claiming that these tests are junk, and that handwound pickups have some particular 'magic' to them that cannot be measured -- so buy my pickups, because they're doing something magical that will not show up on an LCR meter or oscilloscope -- trust me! Because I will tell you: neither I nor Antigua is using these measurements to "hype anything up." There is absolutely no reason for me to post this aside from a labor of love and a desire to get information out there -- for free. So all else aside, that assumption is 100% completely false as I know my motivations, and they are not to hype anything up or to "sound smart." It's to use a practical method to evaluate pickups and to better understand how they work and why they sound the way they do. 6) I would love to know more accurate test methods that account for the dynamic changes in sound *while playing a guitar.* What you say is true -- the *way* you play will change the tone. However, while this is true, it *grossly overcomplicates* what pickups are doing. High impedance pickups, specifically, have a "baked in" EQ response, which is represented visually as a bode plot. The decibel voltage at a particular frequency, plotted from 100Hz to 10 or 30kHz in 100Hz frequencies, will produce a reliable representation of what frequencies the pickup is emphasizing, and how much, compared to other frequencies. And I can very confidently tell you that a pickup with a resonant peak around 1.5kHz will sound much darker than a pickup with a resonant peak around 4kHz, and generally speaking the inductance will be much higher in the lower resonant frequency pickup -- leading to dramatically increased output, which will dramatically affect tube breakup. You look at enough bode plots and you can predict how a pickup is going to sound based on nothing but the bode plot alone. They absolutely have value. One other point: Look into Cyfi research and their modular pickups. This is all open source by the way. They do sell pickups but freely share their plans on Github so anybody can recreate what they've done for very little cost. And they use bode plots to illustrate exactly why low impedance pickups are so flexible: it's because they have a very flat EQ. On a bode plot the line is virtually straight. Compared to a normal high impedance pickup, which has a peak at a particular frequency -- a rise up before it, and a slope down after it, like a roller coaster. There are real practical applications of this in the real world, and I've used these methods *extensively* when doing rewinds, and for planning out pickup 'recipes' for people -- including designing pickups from scratch. I am more than open to criticism and feedback. But I would need to see a very clear argument with very clear evidence, including the exact testing equipment used, and the results that were achieved, to convince me that the methods I've illustrated in this video are useless. They have been anything but useless for me, and in the most real world practical application: pickup rewinds, and custom pickup builds and winds. I'm not saying this is the be-all end-all of testing. And again, I'm open to criticism and feedback. The only thing that rubbed me the wrong way here was the accusation that this was to hype up sales by sounding smart. Absolutely not true -- demonstrably false. And again, I would say the opposite is much more likely to be true: People saying that testing like this is BS, and there is not a test in the world that could possibly show the magic of handwound pickups, because what makes the pickups sound the way they do simply can't be measured. Home tests are not laboratory quality, for sure, but we're talking about passive, high impedance transducers for musical instruments -- not aerospace technology. Home testing equipment is certainly "good enough" for hobbyists and it *does* provide very valuable, repeatable, predictable information. I'd be curious what the team at Seymour Duncan or other major pickup manufacturers use. Like when designing new pickups. There actually was a post from the guy who invented the P-Rail pickup at Seymour Duncan. Frank Falbo I think his name was. Someone posted a question on my noiseless pickup build video about it. The Guitar Nutz 2 board has a lot of smart people there and I would not be so quick to write them all off. Everyone there is well aware of Helmuth Lemme and Manfred Zollner and the people there are *way* smarter than me. I just wanted something to measure pickups more accurately, and this definitely fit the bill. If there is something truly wrong with this testing setup, I would love to know so I could use something more accurate.

[@qddk9545]

@@guitar_md I am excited to see what the über troll will answer to this 🙂 🙂 But he will probably not answer at all.

[@guitar_md]

@@qddk9545 No offense taken from him! I believe he's being genuine and sounds like he has a lot of experience with winding pickups, and probably has been doing it much longer than I have. I have no problem as long as people are respectful. The only thing he said that rubbed me the wrong way was insinuating I posted this to hype up sales for pickups and to sound smart -- however, in another comment he left on an older version of this video, he clarified that he was not accusing me of that directly or saying that I was doing that, just was a general commentary. Overall, no issue at all. I don't ever want anyone to think I'm not open to criticism. I always am -- as long as it's respectful. I took his comment as a respectful disagreement/criticism. Sometimes my super long replies might come off as me trying to be a know-it-all -- I hope it didn't come off that way as well. I'm always open to new ways of doing things and someone pointing out that I'm wrong if they truly know more than me. But I do value being thorough and I will make a case for myself and my current methods respectfully -- for debate/criticism/etc. I appreciate your support for me and my channel as well! I do my best to be as thorough as possible and one of my biggest fears is that I've missed something and am posting inaccurate information. So I'm always up for learning more. Plus, debate is good for my channel as it gets the comment section going. If you haven't seen my epoxying an acoustic bridge video....that blew up! And many of the comments are very negative! You will notice how I only get short with people who directly insult me, but respectful criticisms, I am more than open.

[@bobibobik5903]

@@qddk9545 Trolls' never sign with their name. I don't understand why some people think it's trolling if you say something that is from your education - profession, something that is based on what did you study for can't be ''trolling''? Everything I am writing like my first comment has nothing to do with this man directly, I saw his video and praised him in another comment because he is OK, but what is shown about the measurements and some conclusions, sorry, is not correct if you wish to observe it from scientific point. But video is great, it help out people to wind a pickup. So my comment regarding pickups has nothing to do with me, but with Thales of Miletus, Tesla, Newton, Faraday, Gauss, Maxwell and other scientists who laid the foundations of physics - magnetism, induction, sound, etc. I did not write anywhere that what was said refers to OP specifically nor the video, because he picks data on the net + his experience+ people were he learned to wind pickup etc. so if you understand me well - it's not his fault nor it's personal critique. Imagine how I feel as an engineer ☺ and thousands of other engineers in the world when people who are not trained in electronic and physics - talk about it and pretended they are ''scientists'', so certainly We don't call them "trolls" , no matters that some of them make money by selling products for which they use quasi-science. There are hundreds of them who have made millions of dollars through various hypes. Because it is 'fraud' ( maybe not the best word) if you convince people of something that is not true with the intention of making a profit. (Pls once again to underline i aim on some other brands not on a video nor OP) Unfortunately, there are no laws against advertising and false claims. There is a law on consumer protection, but the guitarists are calm people who don't even try to ''fight'' for their rights. Afterwards, some guitar Gurus in Magazines and on Forums wonder: "Oh, why are fewer and fewer people playing the guitar. Why guitar music isn't popular is it used to be"? Well, because they brainwash teenager's and younger generations that they need a $3000+ guitar, that they need a set of pickups that costs at least $200- 500$ ''hand wound'' with machine or made by some ''magic CNC'' (which will never do same job as humans when it comes to winding), a $3500 amp, and that it has to have the "Made in ....." mark and be under a specific brand name. Pls tell me what is % of teenager's who can afford that? IMHO less then 1%. So i have nothing against the video nor person who made it, and why on earth would i? IMHO honesty is OK when We share what We know and think, people can agree or disagree and that is all OK.

[@milandjordjevic7952]

@@qddk9545 ( and @guitar_md) This is how I look, if it's easier for you ☺, and as you can see I wrote my name in the first comment so you can compare it, I didn't write my last name.. but the 1st is correct. Simply i use 2 accounts, one is for one and this one i used maybe 30 times in my life max ( to post some comment). So much for who the "troll" is. I also praised the video in some comment because he shared how he makes pickups and that will help some people, but hey i told what i think about measuring process. Will you or another person accept that opinion as a bit difrent comment or ''trolling'' is not up to me, but i won't lie or say that something is correct when it ain't. nor will I go by what I learned in school for 4+ years or by physics (methods of measurement, research, testing, etc.). Multimeter, Gaussmeters and ''the gadget'' are OK for personal use + needs that with a certain percentage of error you can roughly give some value, but they are not something you can use as serious data for any research. If you measure the pickup in a bright sunny day + high heat + with a certain pressure, moisture = Result A (no matter that you sit at home in your workshop) , When you you measure that same pickup during the day winter when is cold, raining + difrent pressure+ moisture again no matter that you are in the same workshop = Results B; *Results A =/= Result B* *aka they are not the same, due to you'll get a significantly difrent values.* So when you put n your sire that your pickup is YXZ values and sent it to another part of the world and dude get it out and measure it there will be some difference. These are the facts, no matter how much one likes them or not. I don't like it because it would be easier if there were devices that automatically worked the same regardless of the existing environment and conditions. Plus for sure it will be degaussed a bit because of transport Let me make a joke if you wish to make yourself a ''Vintage slightly degusted Alnico 5 '' or ''AGED super fancy pickups'' just drop it on ground a few times ☺ i'm not joking, like that you can save few 100'$ of $ maybe. I once wrote on the internet, even in one group about pickup winding on FB (I deleted a lot of it, but something remained), where there are a lot of good people, but there are also those who see pickup winding only as a business and abuse whatever is given to them regding science. I stopped because I got sick (I'm OK today) and because I saw that some people only wish to make money fast and won't pass on what they've learned. One dude even stole my scientific work from 20 years ago, more precisely I explained to him how something is measured and why waxing will have impact on a pickups that the will behave difrent. I wrote there that it is a wrong attitude to think that waxing does not change the characteristics of pickups. Instead of some helping people, a lot of it ended up in places where pickups are sold for quite a lot of money. Anyhow that is another topic..... BUT ☺ I also met three super people who were happy to share their works, we exchanged literature. One is from the US. The second from the UK and the third from South America. So my comment has nothing to do with the person who made the video ( and @guitar_md) , I think it's good that He have helped people with the video. Now, the fact that I think that those measurements are not very accurate and that there are some problems does not change the fact that he helped people and vide is informative and for sure will save a lot of $ to some hard working musician. I have respect for that and IMHO that is GREAT. BTW another reason why i stooped sharing know how was that i instead of helping guitarists - i saw some people that were asking pickups asking for $200-$300 for a set of pickups and they started winding 10 days ago. Some ask for more money, and they've only been rolling pickups for 3-4 weeks. That's their right, of course, but it's ugly when they say that what they made is superior to some product from Asia ( that is well build), while they themselves use parts from Asia as well. *** The fact that a big company imports something and cuts it does not mean that it was 100% made in Europe, America or somewhere else. All wire products and parts come from Asia, including Magnets. Not even 3% of pickup parts are made in the US and Europe where I live. A large amount of wire is imported and repackaged into smaller ones or pickups to. Well, companies like ''Brocott'', ''MWS'' import wire. The most famous Elektroisola has factories for the wire used for pickups in Asia. When people claim that their ''made in'' is superior due to some parts were ''made'' in a specific place that is hype and far from the truth. *That's the reality in the music industry* , it's easy to get 'rich', but I think it's ruining guitar music. I was able to buy a US guitar that was made by hand in the late 1980s for around $1000, which in today's money is less than $2000. But you often need twice as much for a CNC guitar, and the parts for it are much cheaper than 40 years ago. To cut long story short - I'll answer as soon as I can on your detailed comment. M

[@21Guitars_]

This is the best video on the subject matter that I could find so far. I am curious if you've shared your measurements somewhere on a blog or website or made a video where you walk through the differences between certain pickup types. For instance, I would be very curious to see how the resonance frequency graphs compare between say a strat type sc and a seth lover type HB. I think you should be able to see their tone characteristics reflected in the plots coming off your measurements, no? Anyway, fascinating stuff

[@guitar_md]

Thank you! I haven't shared any measurements anywhere yet, but have some videos in the works. Antigua Tele on TDPRI, who I've corresponded a lot with over the years, has a ton of tests up all over TDPRI as well as the Guitar Nutz 2 forums. I highly recommend checking out some of his stuff, such as here: www.tdpri.com/threads/measured-electrical-values-of-various-telecaster-pickups.665808/ Humbuckers and single coils won't be a 1:1 comparison, even with the LCR meter, bode plots, etc., because of things that won't show up on a test, such as comb filtering, which is a result of two adjacent coils sensing the strings instead of one. Similar issues with noiseless stacked 'single' coils, which I have a video coming out about soon -- not measuring, but how I personally build them. Anyway, I've had some odd results, such as a humbucker I made with alnico slugs having about the same resonant frequency as a Duncan SH4, but mine sounds quite a bit brighter. The rabbit hole definitely goes deep. I have some videos planned to do some controlled experiments, as the main issue with these kinds of tests are that most of the people doing them don't wind their own pickups, and can't control for different variables. I'm not disappointed in the resonant frequency tests, but I will say that they are not the be-all end-all, and I'm always open to considering factors that could be at play that *don't* show up on tests. I did recently measure a set of Ron Ellis pickups, and that was interesting! The funny thing is when you use tests like this, no pickup really seems special -- just a collection of numbers, from which you can guestimate how it was built, e.g. magnet type, wire type, turn count. My only regret with the Ellis is I didn't measure the pickup with calipers so I have no idea what length the polepieces were. I'm usually much more thorough. I'd assume classic Fender, but you really have to mic stuff up to know for sure.

[@guitar_md]

A lot more experimenting lately. I just tested 6 pickups for someone and am going to start organizing things more clearly in a spreadsheet. As far as humbuckers go: anything around the 1.5 to 2.5kHz range will be much closer to a humbucker tone. Single coils I've wound, including my 32k "Super Heavyweight," are around 1.7kHz and very fat, dark and powerful sounding. An overwound single still sounds like a single though. But they can rival a humbucker in output if they're wound hot enough. I'm currently doing some exciting experiments using shorter coils and 48AWG, which I've never heard of anyone else using for pickups. The point there is that the closer the coil is to the strings, the better signal to noise ratio. More efficient. More output. With taller coils, the lower part of the coil doesn't contribute much to the output. Lots more. As usual I'm bogged down making videos and there's so much I want to cover. My next upcoming video is about the turn counter I use on my winding machine and how I set it up. Also working on a humbucker repair video. I'd love to do a comparison video explaining how to use inductance and resonance curves to understand what a pickup will sound like.

[@21Guitars_]

@@guitar_md that's very interesting to me. I want to go a similar route but using thick wire instead. Low profile, thin coils with almost no impedance and amplify the signal with a transformer or an op amp (or both). You know, getting the output of any humbucker is very easy if you use an op amp. You can fine tune the gain and put that on a potentiometer if desired. I've always wondered why guitarist limit themselves using passive circuits only and understanding the subject matter better more recently after studying up on it has just emphasized that thought. I don't do videos though but maybe I will if that stuff works, IDK. I do wonder what a thick wire low profile coil would look like measured in terms of resonance curve. Naively, I'd think it's more linear all the way in terms of response but that's merely a weakly held hypothesis that I have. No idea in the end...

[@AmerikkkaGuitars]

Thanks again. Doing some noiseless split coil jazz bass humbucker pickups. I just can't stand the 60 cycle hum. Trying to see if I can get the pbass sound out of a jazz bass. Ordered some thinner 43 awg trying to get it up to 10.5k ish.

[@guitar_md]

Absolutely! I'd like to try split coil Fender style pickups eventually. I've only made stacked noiseless coils, which also come out very good. A lot more work, but worth it. I've gotten a little more into humbuckers recently, kind of in a Magnetron/StagMag style, using Alnico polepieces instead of steel slugs, screws, and bar magnets. Even with higher inductance, they're quite bright sounding, very, very Fenderish, so much so that I think they work a lot better with 250k pots, and might be too bright with 500k pots. The more I play direct in to my computer, the more noise bothers me. I still have regular single coils in my Strat (1 neck, 1 bridge, with a 3 way switch and two push pulls -- series/parallel, in phase/out of phase for the in-between position). Really, really like these humbuckers so far. Also the first SG I've ever owned. I like the feel of a Strat more overall, but the SG is starting to grow on me. So much so that I might even make a two humbucker pickguard for my Strat and start using these in there too. My favorite setup is still a 3 way switch, with two switches: series/parallel and in phase/out of phase for the in-between position. It's a great setup. I'm also using three 28AWG lead wires for this humbucker. You can't split it of course, but man. Three separate leads (one for the baseplate ground, then a hot and a ground) works so much better than your standard single conductor braided wire, or the cheaper single conductor wire with the bare wire and single conductor inside that plastic insulation. I'm actually excited to start offering these. I don't think the lack of coil splitting will be a big deal, especially since these are so bright, splitting them would be pointless anyway, way too shrill. But man. Same way I do Tele pickups (as I learned from Rob DiStefano of Cavalier Pickups): separate ground for the baseplate, so you can switch the phase as you please. And do the series/parallel and in phase/out of phase mods as you please. A real game changer.

[@AmerikkkaGuitars]

​@@guitar_md Yeah the polepieces vs an alnico bar makes a huge difference. Always wanted to experiment with pole pieces and humbuckers. Pbass pickups uses the polepieces instead of the bar and the bass is very thumpy unlike jazz neck pickups. Really want to do a hum cancelling p90. The pole pieces would be a godsend instead of 2 expensive bar magnets. Split coil p90 humbucker. Only worried about phasing issues when bending D or G strings. Everyone says I'll have issues with phasing. Not sure though. The jazz bass split pickup I made sounded good but then again I don't bent those strings at all. Really excited though. We can now fine tune the guitar pickups and clone certain sounds and ultimately create original or innovative pickups. Yeah I like the 3 way switch best for guitar also. 5 way just too hard to quickly get the in between sounds. Need to experiment more with the phasing and series parallel switches. Cool that you are going to sell humbuckers now. The univox clone humbuckers had that extra ground to baseplate. It did affect the resonant peak a little bit. Seems like raising the inductance to drop the shrillness may help? I think the extended polepieces/baseplate of the early univox pickup gave it that beefy paf sound but has a super high resonant peak in-between a paf and strat.

[@guitar_md]

@@AmerikkkaGuitars They do make P90 fiberboard flatwork and center hole covers. I recently got some in and actually planned on making some noiseless P90s myself in a humbucker footprint, like a Seymour Duncan Phat Cat but with alnico poles. The original P90 pickup actually used alnico poles, which is interesting. I think a stacked noiseless design is the way I'll go as I've always done noiseless pickups by stacking as opposed to splitting the coils. I haven't tried making any split noiseless yet, so unsure about the alleged phase issues. The possibilities are very exciting for sure. For stacked coils, much thinner wire is excellent, but very expensive. Ultra Fine Copper Wire from China is the cheapest I've found. Otherwise specialty gauges like 46AWG from the USA are around 85 dollars a pound and up. Stacked designs leave you with barely 1/4" winding space per coil, which I've been able to manage with 44AWG, but if you want a fatter tone you need more turns. Recently did a Tele noiseless bridge pickup for someone with 11,300 turns per stacked coil, so 23,000 turns total, with 46AWG. With stacked it's important to remember that one coil is inert. I do want to try making a split noiseless to see the sonic differences vs. stacked.

[@AmerikkkaGuitars]

​@@guitar_md Yeah 44 awg is probably the lightest I'll go, Remington has 5 lbs for about $140. But we'll see how the 43 awg works. wow 46 awg is super expensive. Interesting, that the original p90s had magnetized pole pieces. P90s seem like they would stack easily. I tried stacking one prewind and all the parts seems to fit. Wilkinson sells some, but not sure how accurate they sound. Might be a tight fit on some guitars that may need more routing clearance. That Tele noiseless sounds interesting. Not sure I've seen any with 46 awg. LMAO I would sneeze and the wire wire would break. Too lazy to make a tensioner haha. Leo must've been on speed.