John Mayer's BIG DIPPER'S or klein S5's

[copperheadroads]

i got some local boys constantly asking me to make a set of strat pickups to sound like john mayer's pickups or like the klein s5's,i am fairly new to winding just a couple of years i probably only wound a couple dozen strat pickups some fantastic sounding pickups n some that sounded like crap . but anyway i was going to try to wind a set alnico 5 with heavy formvar 43 & or 42 . in this post which is very helpful says they are plain enamel wire not formvar
http://music-electronics-forum.com/t3490/
but i got the heavy formvar & poly also i not looking for any PE at the moment
so in this post i gives you a rough idea how the big dipper are .someone said 250 tpl loose winding . i know my first pickups i wound were loser than i wound now & i know they lack the bass not so boomy wound loose but im not sure if you would call it scooped .....so any info & anyone's opinion would certainly help .we all know fender don't stretch the truth HAHA

[voodoochild]

I've set up a few JM strats and took some specs of the pickups just to have. They definitely have 42 gauge plain enamel You should be able to use single build poly nylon and get the same tone as PE. My gauss meter shows the magnets to be Alnico 5. Neck 5.75k, RWRP Middle 6.31k, Bridge 7.51k. They sound pretty good. Nothing special though IMO.

[copperheadroads]

thanks i think its a bunch of bull about scooped mids ,i was thiinking heavy formvar has less mids kind of scooped i guess .i was going to try that wind them with HF to the same resistance as the dig dippers maybe a little lower ...

[voodoochild]

thanks i think its a bunch of bull about scooped mids ,i was thiinking heavy formvar has less mids kind of scooped i guess .i was going to try that wind them with HF to the same resistance as the dig dippers maybe a little lower ...

NP. You might be stretching it literally to get over 7k with heavy formvar though. Oh and the scooped mids must have come from some one who never heard them. They definitely have lots of clear mids.

[copperheadroads]

i got 43gauge heavy formvar for the bridge pickup , thanks id say its fender trying to make up stories again in there extremely large marketing scheme ..but i have heard that john mayer don't even use those big dipper's
just in hes signature strat his old black strat has some vintage pickups .i heard fender is going to recreate his black strat OMG now there doing relic's of relic's he had that made to look like that .at least Clapton's or Stevie ray's to a couple of decades or longer to show the wear n tear

[voodoochild]

I guess Fender is trying to do 2 things with the whole "Scooped Mids". Marketing BS and to confuse anyone who is trying to copy them.

[madialex]

Well just so happens I wound a Strat PU today with Heavy formvar, wound loose and high TPL, as close to each wind as possible and It does lack the pronounced mids usual in a strat PU. I have tried it in the bridge position and neck, in the neck it sounds good, bridge it is a bit lacking in the bass dept and brighter than most when picking, chords sound OK and add drive to them and they sound ok too.

[madialex]

BTW I personally hate Heavy formvar!!!

[copperheadroads]

i like it for certain things it makes a nice fat sounding strat bridge pickup & it pretty easy to flare when winding a overwound bridge pickup with 42 heavy formvar

[RedHouse]

...My gauss meter shows the magnets to be Alnico 5...

What was the reading? (Gauss)

[madialex]

Hey Copper, they are telling the truth but it's not scooped like you would think. It is scooped at a certain frequency. You can get that and from what I see in your first post you were there.

[copperheadroads]

i agree you can get it at a certain degree ..............hey that rhymes even Mayer himself say so
Guitarist Magazine (UK) cover feature (scans) - Musician Forum - All - John Mayer - Message Board
"the pickups are specially wound & only for this guitar .they are called "Big Dippers" & they sort of lack mid-range"-John Mayer
there's guys on YouTube saying there scooped a ton --i guess you could hit the gain & play "ride the lightning " lol

[madialex]

Nope not a ton lol. There is a certain Frequency that you lose by a certain way of winding but to get a ton scooped is poopy!! Hell if you think about it, a single coil anywhere in the range of up to around 6K is not going to have a ton of mids anyway. Fender kills me with some of the crap that gets put out to market something. Where is real truth in advertising?

BTW if you look at the specs on the pickups it's easy to see why they are like they are.

[David Schwab]

Go to heavier gauge wire, like 41. I suppose heavy insulation is similar sounding. I use some 42H. You get less mids and more lows and highs. It's a rounder, hollow sort of tone.