Minimum change in winds for perceivable change in tone

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

I'm starting this more as a survey than seeking specific advice... i.e. I hope it doesn't turn into a "I'm right, you're not only wrong but stupid" sort of thread!

How many winds does it take for you to add/take off from a given pickup design for there to be a noticeable difference? Obviously 2-3 winds won't make any real difference, and 1000 winds will dramatically change the pickup. But, where is that finer area where it will make subtle changes for you? For argument's sake we'll say we're dealing with a standard strat neck pickup with 7800 winds. I've found a little more than a hundred makes a noticeable difference (small), but I also don't have a perfectly replicating system for winding (yet), so it is hard to isolate it as the only factor. I haven't done a series of experiments specifically for this purpose either.

Fralin consistently talks about over winding and under winding in terms of 5% which is interesting. Order an "overwound" pickup with this example from him and it'll have 8190 winds instead, 390 wind difference. I think he offers 10% on some now, but since I don't have a huge interest in his line I haven't looked all that closely.

What do you think?

[LtKojak]

I'm starting this more as a survey than seeking specific advice... i.e. I hope it doesn't turn into a "I'm right, you're not only wrong but stupid" sort of thread!

How many winds does it take for you to add/take off from a given pickup design for there to be a noticeable difference? Obviously 2-3 winds won't make any real difference, and 1000 winds will dramatically change the pickup. But, where is that finer area where it will make subtle changes for you? For argument's sake we'll say we're dealing with a standard strat neck pickup with 7800 winds. I've found a little more than a hundred makes a noticeable difference (small), but I also don't have a perfectly replicating system for winding (yet), so it is hard to isolate it as the only factor. I haven't done a series of experiments specifically for this purpose either.

Fralin consistently talks about over winding and under winding in terms of 5% which is interesting. Order an "overwound" pickup with this example from him and it'll have 8190 winds instead, 390 wind difference. I think he offers 10% on some now, but since I don't have a huge interest in his line I haven't looked all that closely.

What do you think?

In my case, the smallest I've been able to hear is 2%. YMMV.

Anyway, the most dramatic changes are changing the baseplate from a brass one to a nickel silver one and magnet change.

I've experimented with bobbins from old asian p'ups made with the cheapest parts reassembling'em with good quality parts and most times than not the result was satisfactory.

I wouldn't replace the Duncans in my guitars with'em, though.

HTH,

[WolfeMacleod]

About 100 turns on each coil for me.

[frankfalbo]

Yngwie was hearing 50 turn increments toward the end of the development cycle. I was able to hear those differences under his high gain/miked cab/control room setup, but not really sitting in front of an amp. 100 turns, IMO is pretty much where most people would hear it at listenable levels.

[Joe Gwinn]

About 100 turns on each coil for me.

Out of ~5,000 turns per coil?

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

Thanks for the responses.

LtKojak - I agree on the parts. I figured out early on in pickup building that the biggest thing is form factor, the second is the quality/type of the components, and third is the winding. I won't go so far as to say that how you wind it is overrated, but it does seem that the talk of a lot of sellers out there is that it is the only place where the magic can happen. That is just my experience though, your mileage may vary...

[belwar]

About 100 turns for me with humbuckers at about 5000 turns. P-90's I think it was more like 75.

[Peter Naglitsch]

With my damaged ears I need to go a bit higher that 100 turns on a HB, say 150 up or down, if I'm doing a balanced wind (equal wind on both coils) but if I'm doing an offset wind 100 windings in difference between the coils is enough to make a noticable difference. SCs are not my speciality so I haven't done enough experimenting to be sure but 100-150 should make a difference that is possible to hear, even for me...

[CRU JONES]

The 5% overwind. Is that 5% more turns or 5% more inductance?
Just throwing that out there.

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

The 5% overwind. Is that 5% more turns or 5% more inductance?
Just throwing that out there.

It is Fralin's own term, and I assumed 5% more turns, though I'm not sure he specifically says; he just implies. I really doubt inductance, though DCR is a possibility.

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

It is Fralin's own term, and I assumed 5% more turns, though I'm not sure he specifically says; he just implies. I really doubt inductance, though DCR is a possibility.

Here is his description: Welcome to Lindy Fralin Pickups: Fralin Strat® Style Replacements - the Finest Guitar Pickups Available Today!

I'm loving his statement that Alnico III is "5% brighter and has 5% more lower mids" so perhaps it isn't as scientific as it seems. 5% more than what? To which measuring unit does this .05 belong? If he's communicating something emotional and personal he should indicate as such. I use percentages in an entirely unscientific way about 83% of the time, but it obvious from the context that it isn't really mathematical.

Looking at his DCR readings on the chart and assuming bridge pickups are 5% overwound, I'd say he's dealing with turns. Just a guess....

[Mark Hammer]

I'm not doubting anyone, and accept that people can vary in their hearing and ability to cue in on subtle details, but I know too much about hearing and perceptual judgments to simply accept it all at face value.

So....

Are these "I can hear a difference with THIS many turns" responses based on immediate comparisons of otherwise identical pickups in identical instruments, or based on something else? Since it is obviously less problematic to remove turns after a listen than it is to add them, are we talking about percentage unwinds only, or some % variation in either direction? (Keeping in mind that taking 200 turns away from 7800 turns is a greater % change than adding the same number of turns).

[salvarsan]

practical point:
Coil inductance, a major factor in pickup tonal balance, changes with the square of winds.
The output voltage change is approximately linear with winding changes.

100 more winds on a 5000 wind coil is 2% more winds but makes a 4% change in inductance.
500 more winds (10%) gives a 21% inductance increase.

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

Mark - all your points are excellent, but I think what is more interesting is how many turns it takes to be perceptible lacking a scientific comparison. Technically every single turn changes a coil, the same as every drop of water changes the volume of an ocean, so "perceivable" really is only determined by how good your system is for judging sound. I'm sure that it would take far fewer winds if we had good a/b comparisons, but knowing how many winds it takes to be noticeable despite that I think is valuable information as well. Perhaps Yngwie can hear the difference in 50 winds simply because he has a better memory for sounds than most people. Given that he is also reputed to have perfect pitch, I would believe that. I see it more as a psychological experiment than anything else. Although, it would be fun to take some data on how pickups change with winds, and reduce them down to the total impact per wind for every parameter... capacitance, inductance, resistance, tonal response...

And you're right - adding/removing 100 winds is of a varying percentage. So, changing 100 winds per bobbin on a humbucker is roughly 2%, while on a strat it is roughly 1.25%... so perhaps we are best not to mix discrete counts with relative percentages. That is a great point.

[Mark Hammer]

Like I said, I know enough about perceptual judgments (I'm a research psychologist by training) NOT to take claims at complete face value. Indeed, as much as knowing what to listen for can allow the expert to hear things that a novice would not, experts can also hear things that aren't there, largely because they have an expectation. Such "expert" effects are common across a variety of perceptual/cognitive/memory phenomena, and are widely treated as paradoxical effects of expertise, despite so many other well-documented benefits of being an expert in something.

That certainly doesn't mean that people can not hear differences of 100 turns. It simply means that one needs to be picky about the circumstances under which such perceptions occur. I'd be more than a little skeptical, too, if the Yngwies of the world get handed two ostensibly identical guitars, and are told "Yeah, I wound the neck pickup on this one to 7850 turns, and the neck on that one to 7900 turns." Is it the # turns, the pickup wind overall, or the guitar its on? Or alternatively, if the same guitar gets played and commented on, then goes back to the shop, where 50 turns are removed, set up again, and returned to the player a week later, what the heck are they hearing? Are smaller changes in # of turns more audible with wider-bandwidth pickups, or equivalently audible no matter what the pickup?

Basically, what I want to know more about are the conditions under which certain changes are more and less audible, such that we collectively have a sense of when it's worth our while to make changes, and what we can reliably and consistently expect out of those changes.