50s fender pickup

[JGundry]

I don't think Leo was too choosy about his magnets' diameter myself. Sure, he cared about the grade of magnet and maybe their length (or possibly he cut his own magnets to length?) but frankly there isn't too much difference pricewise between .195 or .192 to .187 diameter. He probably just bought whatever was readily available at the time he needed them.

Which, of course, could explain why 1950's magnets were beveled on the top edge... the better to force a .195 diameter magnet into a hole originally designed for a .187 one?



It is known that Fender at one time stopped signing initials in guitars. However, they still had to have some way to track exactly who made subassemblies like pickups. Who knows - maybe W-13 means 'human winder 13'? like on the old Hanes underwear ads with "inspector 13" I used to see on TV?

just my 2c

ken

Whatever it means the pickup is without a doubt machine wound 1964 Pre CBS Strat pickup.

[Rick Turner]

The basic problem is in thinking that there was or is a method to the madness. Get off of the idea that these things were designed and planned out to the degree to which you think about them. This was "slap anything on the guitar and get it out the door". If it was loud enough and it worked, it shipped.

There is a degree of anal compulsiveness in the pickup world that ignores the way it really was in the '50s, the '60s, the 70s, etc. NONE of the big guitar companies cared about this shit back then. It was wind it and ship it. Why do you think there is no definitive PAF specification? Why do you think the middle pickup on a Strat is wound hotter than the bridge or neck pickup? It has absolutely nothing to do with some overarching genius intent...it's all random. If the damned pickups were within plus and minus twenty percent of one another, they met spec. If you could hear the damned things, they went in and shipped. Think real world, folks...not Tesla brilliance...

[jonson]

The basic problem is in thinking that there was or is a method to the madness. Get off of the idea that these things were designed and planned out to the degree to which you think about them. This was "slap anything on the guitar and get it out the door". If it was loud enough and it worked, it shipped.

There is a degree of anal compulsiveness in the pickup world that ignores the way it really was in the '50s, the '60s, the 70s, etc. NONE of the big guitar companies cared about this shit back then. It was wind it and ship it. Why do you think there is no definitive PAF specification? Why do you think the middle pickup on a Strat is wound hotter than the bridge or neck pickup? It has absolutely nothing to do with some overarching genius intent...it's all random. If the damned pickups were within plus and minus twenty percent of one another, they met spec. If you could hear the damned things, they went in and shipped. Think real world, folks...not Tesla brilliance...

Amen.

[big_teee]

The basic problem is in thinking that there was or is a method to the madness. Get off of the idea that these things were designed and planned out to the degree to which you think about them. This was "slap anything on the guitar and get it out the door". If it was loud enough and it worked, it shipped.

There is a degree of anal compulsiveness in the pickup world that ignores the way it really was in the '50s, the '60s, the 70s, etc. NONE of the big guitar companies cared about this shit back then. It was wind it and ship it. Why do you think there is no definitive PAF specification? Why do you think the middle pickup on a Strat is wound hotter than the bridge or neck pickup? It has absolutely nothing to do with some overarching genius intent...it's all random. If the damned pickups were within plus and minus twenty percent of one another, they met spec. If you could hear the damned things, they went in and shipped. Think real world, folks...not Tesla brilliance...

Your Preaching to the Choir!
Rock on!
Terry

[JGundry]

The basic problem is in thinking that there was or is a method to the madness. Get off of the idea that these things were designed and planned out to the degree to which you think about them. This was "slap anything on the guitar and get it out the door". If it was loud enough and it worked, it shipped.

There is a degree of anal compulsiveness in the pickup world that ignores the way it really was in the '50s, the '60s, the 70s, etc. NONE of the big guitar companies cared about this shit back then. It was wind it and ship it. Why do you think there is no definitive PAF specification? Why do you think the middle pickup on a Strat is wound hotter than the bridge or neck pickup? It has absolutely nothing to do with some overarching genius intent...it's all random. If the damned pickups were within plus and minus twenty percent of one another, they met spec. If you could hear the damned things, they went in and shipped. Think real world, folks...not Tesla brilliance...

Your missing the point. The individual personality of these older instruments is partly due to this randomness and it a big part of the charm of vintage gear. Sure neither Fender or Gibson treated it as rocket science. But if you are making a clone and you want to address all of of the "random " variables of the originals then you can have a lot of tonal flexibility in what you make.

These Strat pickups may not be as slap dash as we would think. These pickups could all have the same number of turns. With the same number of turns,and a median reading of 6K, the other two pickups could fall within the wire tolerance if the wire was not sorted and purchased in Min.-Nom. or Nom.-Min. batches. Probably none of these pickups were wound from the same spool.

For something like a PAF you have wire that is not sorted within the tolerance. At least 4 different winding machines that each had a different TPL and multiple vendors for things magnet wire, screws and magnets. Gibson may not have cared about the details but a clone maker certainly can have fun with these details.

The investigative aspect of accurately duplicating vintage pickups is a big part of the fun for me. It is the same reason like making violins. It is a know framework that outwardly seems established. But like anything the closer you look at the details the more complicated it gets. The randomness of Fender pickups, PAF's etc.. is just another layer of detail that makes them a more interesting to look at.

[Rick Turner]

I have a very basic problem with the whole notion of "clone" pickups. "Clone" implies a dead nuts copy of an archetype...and there is no archetype. Anyone can claim "Best Clone" status and it's all utter balderdash as there's no one definitive holy grail pickup. This is tail chasing at best, and angels on a pin head counting at worst.

And sorry, but these tolerances are beyond the beyond from my perspective. I hold exact turns within one or two absolute, and easily hold plus or minus 2% DCR on my antique COWECO winder. Vintage Fender and Gibson pickup tolerances are completely out of control, and they just didn't care. Should we?

I only care about trying to duplicate what I design as well as possible...and it happens to be that I can get incredibly tight on tolerances without breaking a sweat. Back in the day, they really didn't care like we do now.

And from my perspective, there is no PAF definition other than a humbucker wound to sloppy tolerances with parts made from iffy specs with materials that were fairly easy to find. Same as Leo's choice of swamp ash for bodies and maple for necks...easy to get stuff available right down the street. You've got to understand the production guitar factory mentality...it's all about the bottom line and making payroll next Friday. There is little over-arching brilliance on the factory floor. Hell, you should see how much fret wire Fender wastes in a day. Last time I was there, I saw a minimum of 1/2" of excess fret wire on either side of every fret position on all the Strat necks that were being processed. And Gibson? Don't get me started. I used to work for them... When they wanted to know where all the hum was coming from with the unshielded Chet Atkins piezo equipped guitars, they did not want to know the real answer...

Like I've been saying, we too readily ascribe great intelligence to an entire organization that is not deserved. Many of the decisions and dare I even say what we take for designs are cost cutting expediencies born on the factory floor. It's not like this boutique world we inhabit at all, and it's very difficult to go into any of the big factories and trouble shoot processes. I've done that at more than one major factory and was thoroughly discouraged from making waves...

I don't buy into intent with sloppy Strat pickup tolerances...

[JGundry]

Rick obviously a clone, copy... etc.. is not what you do or want to do. No problem with that.

But is it sloppy Strat pickup tolerance if Fender had no realistic choice but to buy wire that was not sorted beyond the basic tolerance of the wire gauge? Again the above pickups may all have the same number of turns but were done from different spools. And actually I think these were done on a Coweco CS, I have one also. You are probably winding individual bobbins one at a time with min.-nom. sorted wire.

Of course there is not one archetype PAF... Is there one archetype Stradivari? No. Are all Stradivari's equal? No. So what does the maker do? He does a bench copy of a primo example. He studies the variables from originals and studies materials and methods of construction... Then execute and evaluate until you and your customer are satisfied. If you were restoring a Corvette would you restore it to the specs. of one that came off the line burning antifreeze with a Coke bottle rattling around in the door? No. You care about the original because it has a well deserved iconic status even though there may be some original lemons. Same goes for a PAF...

Call it a clone or a reproduction, whatever. But the very reason that vintage pickups like Strads are sought after is because great players love them and seek them out. They always have. The variable nature of them is what gives them personality. If they were all the same you could still buy a dead nuts copy from Gibson or Fender. But you can't.... From them that is.

There's too much anal retentive about the wrong things in the music biz. It's because too many people listen with their eyes...

[ken]

There's too much anal retentive about the wrong things in the music biz. It's because too many people listen with their eyes...

AMEN to this! What's even funnier to me is that most of my customers have never seen or played a 'real' PAF or Fender pickup yet have a laundry list of things they want on their pickups... none of which ever was on a real vintage pickup. Last week I had a customer who wanted a 'real' PAF with a rough cast Alnico 5 magnet, brass baseplate, steel bobbin mounting screws and "double wax potting". I wonder sometimes if people get more knowledge from web forums than actual playing time.

Call it a clone or a reproduction, whatever. But the very reason that vintage pickups like Strads are sought after is because great players love them and seek them out. They always have. The variable nature of them is what gives them personality. If they were all the same you could still buy a dead nuts copy from Gibson or Fender. But you can't.... From them that is

I myself just try to make the best sounding pickups I can within the parameters of 'what I know to be true' about the originals. I purposely try not to make perfect visual clones, I think this is possibly unethical since this would make my pickups easier to sell as 'real' parts. In fact, I actually indelibly mark every one of my pickups with my logo to keep this from happening. Can I make a 'dead nuts' copy? Yes, I passed that long ago. To me, the visual isn't the point - the sound is.

And from my perspective, there is no PAF definition other than a humbucker wound to sloppy tolerances with parts made from iffy specs with materials that were fairly easy to find. Same as Leo's choice of swamp ash for bodies and maple for necks...easy to get stuff available right down the street. You've got to understand the production guitar factory mentality...it's all about the bottom line and making payroll next Friday. There is little over-arching brilliance on the factory floor. Hell, you should see how much fret wire Fender wastes in a day. Last time I was there, I saw a minimum of 1/2" of excess fret wire on either side of every fret position on all the Strat necks that were being processed. And Gibson? Don't get me started. I used to work for them... When they wanted to know where all the hum was coming from with the unshielded Chet Atkins piezo equipped guitars, they did not want to know the real answer...

Rick is right here, the people making parts on the floor of most factories are thinking of anything and everything but their work. With corporate cultures like that, it's amazing that sometimes a great sounding instrument can sneak through. <G>

ken

[David Schwab]

No one wants to buy pickups that are hit-or-miss, so of course you finalize a design. And Fender and Gibson had a design, but obviously felt that the tolerance was not that important. The tones people used back then were very different, so maybe it didn't matter as much.

In fact we see today that even the materials were not thought of as being important. They used what was available at a good price. A screw was a screw, and if the magnets varied widely, they didn't seem to care. We probably either know more about pickups today, or are a lot fussier.

So you really can't defend the old pickups as having character if some of them were not so good. They should have all been as good as the best examples we find, and not have that happen by chance.

[big_teee]

That's why there were labeled good and bad guitars within a brand.
Duane Allman had a favorite pickup that he moved to several different guitars.
The musicians are the ones that have made us the pickup builders Picky!
Terry

[JGundry]

No one wants to buy pickups that are hit-or-miss, so of course you finalize a design. And Fender and Gibson had a design, but obviously felt that the tolerance was not that important. The tones people used back then were very different, so maybe it didn't matter as much.

In fact we see today that even the materials were not thought of as being important. They used what was available at a good price. A screw was a screw, and if the magnets varied widely, they didn't seem to care. We probably either know more about pickups today, or are a lot fussier.

So you really can't defend the old pickups as having character if some of them were not so good. They should have all been as good as the best examples we find, and not have that happen by chance.

Of course there is not one archetype PAF... Is there one archetype Stradivari? No. Are all Stradivari's equal? No. So what does the maker do? He does a bench copy of a primo example. He studies the variables from originals and studies materials and methods of construction... Then execute and evaluate until you and your customer are satisfied. If you were restoring a Corvette would you restore it to the specs. of one that came off the line burning antifreeze with a Coke bottle rattling around in the door? No. You care about the original because it has a well deserved iconic status even though there may be some original lemons. Same goes for a PAF...

[David Schwab]

Is there one archetype Stradivari? No. Are all Stradivari's equal? No.

And no one wants the bad ones. Only the good ones. The not so great ones were made by his students.

But we aren't taking about lutherie. We are talking about an electronic component.

So what does the maker do? He does a bench copy of a primo example. He studies the variables from originals and studies materials and methods of construction... Then execute and evaluate until you and your customer are satisfied. If you were restoring a Corvette would you restore it to the specs. of one that came off the line burning antifreeze with a Coke bottle rattling around in the door? No. You care about the original because it has a well deserved iconic status even though there may be some original lemons. Same goes for a PAF...

People don't care about the lemons, they care about the good examples. If you made pickups that were all over the map you would be labeled as having poor quality control and out of business in no time. Of course back then there were little choices in pickups besides what came on the guitar. If you didn't like them what was there to do?

Now people have many choices and will replace factory pickups because the modern versions are more consistent. You know this well, or you wouldn't have bothered to research PAFs like you did, and would have made them the way Gibson did, with what ever you had a available. I had some very early patent label pickups, and there was nothing special about them at all. They sounded like any other humbucker. I ended up with them because the owner replaced them (in his '55 LP, which had the P-90s replaced with humbuckers) with the original DiMarzio PAFs. The DiMarzios actually sounded better. If PAFs sounded like those patent labels, they wouldn't have been sought after.

So the fact is that Gibson got lucky with some pickups, and with others not so lucky. But it was by accident. To them they were all the same. That didn't change in the Shaw era either, as they wouldn't let him make them the right way. And the current Gibson is brain dead when it comes to inventing anything new.

[JGundry]

David you could just say you agree with me with far fewer words.

[David Schwab]

David you could just say you agree with me with far fewer words.

I was also kind of disagreeing with you, but you kind of contradicted yourself, so OK. I agree with most of it.

[RedHouse]

....Of course back then there were little choices in pickups besides what came on the guitar. If you didn't like them what was there to do?....

....I had some very early patent label pickups, and there was nothing special about them at all. They sounded like any other humbucker. I ended up with them because the owner replaced them (in his '55 LP, which had the P-90s replaced with humbuckers) with the original DiMarzio PAFs. The DiMarzios actually sounded better. ....

That's exactly how I remember the 60's/70's.

Buying a guitar was a real hit-and-miss thing, one had decent wood, another had decent pickups, another had a decent finish etc etc.

Back then pickup-swapping was the only answer, but it was a very limited thing because you had to either own the music store or be well-off enough to buy the guitars that sounded good and snag the pickups out, and sell off the carcass.

Then DiMarzio came along and we had a second chance at loading our wood with a decent pickup, I too remember those early DiMarzio PAF's pickups sounding really good compared to the Gibson stuff at the time. Specially when compared to those crappy epoxy-potted (Bill L "designed") Gibson pickups. Those buggers were soooo bad I never bothered to try BL's other products until years later (80's).

Funny how things change over time, history gets re-written. The same thing happens in the stompbox forums where people are touting the old Electro Harmonics (Bad Stone, Electric Mistress etc) stuff as the holy grail. Sheesh, I remember back in the day how bad the stuff sounded, hissing, snapping, popping, it was why MXR stuff was considered so good (before Ibanez and Boss came along) the MXR stuff was decent gear and you only bought the EH if you couldn't afford the MXR stuff.

But now-a-days they reminisce about history very differently, drooling about an original Small Stone or Big-Muff or whatever.

As I recall it, back in the 70's musicians and the music business was trying real hard to find/get/build better sounding equipment. In fact I was doing a little reminiscing of my own a while back, I was at a local Guitar Center standing very near one of those racks where they have a ton of pedals strapped-on and hooked up so you can try them out. I was faintly listening to a couple kids (17-20 yrs old) wanking away on the demo guitar and hearing them talk about how this pedal is crap and that pedal is great, and I was thinking "boy's, be glad you're alive today, life was different at the music store 30 years ago".