which coil hotter in PAFs?

[Possum]

I'd like to hear some opinions on which coil to wind hotter for neck and bridge positions with PAF style buckers. I mostly stick to winding the slug side hotter for both. Its interesting to note that if both coils are wound the same, the slug side will have hotter output because of a shorter, more efficient mangetic circuit than the screw side. You can visibly see this by hooking up an analog meter to ohms and pushing a steel bar down on the slug side then the screw side, the slug side will deflect the needle more, strong output, again because of the shorter magnetic circuit.

Using the Extech meter on a bucker with closely matched coils the slug side will have less midrange and the screw side slightly more. So the slug side wants to be more brighter. To me the more closely matched the two coils are the more sterile sounding the pickup can be, probably because there are more frequencies being cancelled than 60 cycle hum.

I remember reading that Eddie Van Halen talked about the two coils being like a bass and tweeter combination, only now from what I've seen its more like the screw side is the bassier side and the slug side is more treble. I haven't done much testing with having the screw side radically wound hotter than the slug side in neck position and wonder if any of you have messed with this and what conclusions you've arrived at. Humbuckers sure can be very complex the more you try different things with them, I find the Extech very useful here....

[Spence]

Always the screwside. This works well especially when using the screws for string balancing and coil tapping.

[Possum]

>>>>>>>

INterestingly, the bass response on both coils at 120hz test signal is almost identical, so both coils have the same bass thing going on. I listened to each coil seperately in neck position on a test rig and there's very little difference in tone, most of the difference is because the screws are higher than the slugs. So when players use a coil tape which coil do they usually use, the screw side? I personally don't like coil tapping, if you sold a pickup made like a single bucker bobbin's tone it wouldn't sell very well...

[mick]

Screw side hotter works for me Dave , I remember a similar discussion on the old forum ,
Mick

[twogeez]

The screw side is traditionally the one that's wound hotter if you are intentionally mismatching your coils. I know for sure this is the way Fralin does it. I think this is because when coils are intentionally mismatched, they're typically done so for the purpose of tapping. Since the screw side's orientation in the guitar (i.e. closer to the ncck, closer the bridge) is more like a traditonal strats neck and bridge pickups, it makes since to have these coils wound hotter for tapping purposes since tapping is essentially for producing strat tone out of a bucker. You want those "single-coils" to be as close to their traditional areas on the guitar if you're going to produce the strat tone.

[madialex]

Hi Possum

Man you sound like me in a lot of ways. I spent the better part of 2 years doing nothing but reseaeching old PAF's, a million winding techmiques, tension, wire, spacers, yada yada.... It almost drove me insane. I just got close to what I thought to my ears a PAF sounded like and left the whole thing alone. I sleep better at night these days, of course for you it would be you would sleep better during the day, LOL. If you ever get the secret spread the wealth.... HAHA like that would ever happen, cant blame ya though. I personally know you have been on this trail for a while now. Best of luck bro.

[twogeez]

Man you sound like me in a lot of ways. I spent the better part of 2 years doing nothing but reseaeching old PAF's, a million winding techmiques, tension, wire, spacers, yada yada.... It almost drove me insane. I just got close to what I thought to my ears a PAF sounded like and left the whole thing alone. I sleep better at night these days, of course for you it would be you would sleep better during the day, LOL. If you ever get the secret spread the wealth.... HAHA like that would ever happen, cant blame ya though. I personally know you have been on this trail for a while now. Best of luck bro.

The PAF tone is subjective, not objective -- that's why it's so hard to nail. Seriously, Gibson used whatever magnets were on discount any particular week to make those PAFs (it could've been II, III, IV, or V bar just depending on what was cheapest at any particular moment). The magnets were charged inconsistently. The winding was inaccurate, inconsistent, and done by folks who really didn't know what they were doing or how to properly operate the machinery. In reality, there really is no "PAF", it's just an illusion.

[Possum]

yeh but there is some magic going on.....

I played a friend's PAF last nite at the jam, well actually I got called up before I could set my stuff up so had to play his rig. His PAF is one of the good ones and there is some indefinable tone it has that is making me a bit nuts. Its almost like this kind of metallic tonal thing, this is a neck pickup in a tele BTW. You can hear this same kind of tone in Buddy Lend Me a Dime with Duane and Bozz Skaggs. I'm pretty sure he's playing his neck pickup there and it sounds like it could almost be a bridge pickup because of that metallic thingy I hear. I'm starting to think Duane's pickup was one of the low wind ones, my friend's neck pickup and a new test I did were not much above 7K and sounds great in the neck spot. My lastest one is just a few hairs away from sounding like his real deal one, so all this research does pay off eventually. But I sure don't know everything about them and this will be the first one I get to personally examine.

He is going to let me dissect it in about amonth and I'm making him a custom tele bridge in swap for being able to measure all its guts. So I'm jacked about that. Its all the little details like slug dimensions, bobbin height, every tiny little detail that I want to know.

Yes there isn't a standard for PAF tone but there are some general things that all the good sounding ones have in common, and for sure the term "PAF" is very loosely used in a bad way. I've always heard the slug side was wound the hottest on the good ones and have seen some makers do that, but in my testing doing it either way doesn't make a huge difference really, much to my surprise. the results I got back from a screw maker on what alloy the screws were was another surprise, its not what I thought either. I'm sure there's more surprises waiting for me inside that thing, and yeah I'll sleep better once I finally see all this in person in a good example that I've actually played. A good place to see the wide range of winds that happened in those years is on the LP forum in the gallery area. Worth checking out....

[JGundry]

My approach has been that for the bridge pickup a hotter slug coil is the best choice. My reasoning has been that making the screw coil dominant on the bridge pickup will emphasize the harsher treble overtones due to the closer proximity of the screw coil to the bridge. If you are winding a lower impedance PAF style humbucker I think it is especially useful to have the bridge slug coil hotter. If you just try picking over the bridge, slug and screw coils you can hear the difference string tone between the two positions. The sound quickly becomes more balanced the further you get from the bridge. With the neck pickup I don't think it is as much of a factor. But I do think that the same logic follows that the slug coil being hotter for the neck will help avoid getting a muddy sounding neck pickup.

[mick]

My approach is to wind the screw coil hotter as this cuts down on high end from the screw coil , doesn't a hotter wind have more mids and less treble , leaving the screw coil with less winds would emphasise treble , not reduce it.
JMHI
Mick

[JGundry]

Yes that does seem to make sense. But using the same logic an argument could be made that you will get more mid boost from the slug coil being wound hotter since there are more mids present to boost from string vibration in the slug coil position.

[mick]

And by using the same token an argument could also be made that if there are more mids present to start with why boost them ? why not boost where it's needed ?
Mick

[JGundry]

That certainly is another approach. But since there are fewer mids over the screw coil to boost then you are looking a larger mismatch for the same result. This is just my current approach. I don't think there is only one correct approach to any of this. Who knows I may agree with you about the screw coil in a month ot two. I'm just as prone to improved tone as the next guy.

[Luijo]

Why don't you guys try each other's approach and see what happens?
That would be deviating from your stablished standards but I guess we all would benefit from the experiment.
Of course, please report back if you decide to take on the challenge.

[Norcal_GIT_r]

Why don't you guys try each other's approach and see what happens?
That would be deviating from your stablished standards but I guess we all would benefit from the experiment.
Of course, please report back if you decide to take on the challenge.

Thats what I was thinking. I'm gonna try both approaches and see what I like better.