sidewinder wiring and winding....

[Possum]

I'm doing some experimenting with this design. Two magnets against a steel core, just like a P90 with like poles against core, coils wound around the magnets. I have a Gibson mudbucker sidewinder but can't quite figure out how the coils are wound and hooked together for humbucking. I have my two coils around the magnets both wound same direction but coil bottoms both against the core. Anyone made one of these before?

[Possum]

OKay I found my mudbucker bass pickup. Coil finishes are connected to eachother, coil starts are hot and ground, but the two coils are installed with bottoms both aimed in the same direction, not opposed like I did......

[David Schwab]

You'll know because it hums one way and not the other.

[rocket]

I think the Gibson sidewinders have the magnets N to S; not face to face. Otherwise they don't work just as humbuckers with both coils N up or S up wouldn't "buck" or be out of phase.



very rough sketch:

coppppper iii coppppper
nnnnsssss rr' nnnnsssss
coppppper nn coppppper

I am not 100% sure though, best to check the patent drawings or try.

[David Schwab]

The Gibson sidewinder has the poles in the center facing up. Then there is a steel bar that runs through both coils. On the outside of each coil are the magnets, so that the same pole is facing the center pole pieces.

So both coils would have the same pole facing in. Like this: S|///|N|°|N|\\\|S

[Possum]

The problem is that without being finally assembled and grounded its hard to tell when its humbucking or not, even humbuckers hum and buzz in my bench test rig. Anyway, I was right about copying the Gibson bass sidewinder wiring, it worked once it was all zipped up. Unfortunately this doesn't sound like a P90 at all and as far as I can tell what you end up hearing would be the same if the bobbins were like a regular humbucker, you only hear whats in the core of the coil, in my case alnico magnets. So it sounds alot like a cheap strat pickup, very bright and similar to Lindy Fralin's, basically its a unique pickup but has zero to do with P90 tone. I have another trick that helped it alot, will give it one more shot and either sell it or forget about it. Hum doesn't bother me but wanted to try this for those it does. I want to avoid using thinner wire because then the transparency of real P90's goes away, but I don't think I can match inductance of a real P90 with a sidewinder design in a soap bar space.

[soundmasterg]

The problem is that without being finally assembled and grounded its hard to tell when its humbucking or not, even humbuckers hum and buzz in my bench test rig. Anyway, I was right about copying the Gibson bass sidewinder wiring, it worked once it was all zipped up. Unfortunately this doesn't sound like a P90 at all and as far as I can tell what you end up hearing would be the same if the bobbins were like a regular humbucker, you only hear whats in the core of the coil, in my case alnico magnets. So it sounds alot like a cheap strat pickup, very bright and similar to Lindy Fralin's, basically its a unique pickup but has zero to do with P90 tone. I have another trick that helped it alot, will give it one more shot and either sell it or forget about it. Hum doesn't bother me but wanted to try this for those it does. I want to avoid using thinner wire because then the transparency of real P90's goes away, but I don't think I can match inductance of a real P90 with a sidewinder design in a soap bar space.

Maybe find a way to shoehorn more metal in there somewhere? That should make it less bright right?

Greg

[David Schwab]

The problem is that without being finally assembled and grounded its hard to tell when its humbucking or not, even humbuckers hum and buzz in my bench test rig. Anyway, I was right about copying the Gibson bass sidewinder wiring, it worked once it was all zipped up. Unfortunately this doesn't sound like a P90 at all and as far as I can tell what you end up hearing would be the same if the bobbins were like a regular humbucker, you only hear whats in the core of the coil, in my case alnico magnets. So it sounds alot like a cheap strat pickup, very bright and similar to Lindy Fralin's, basically its a unique pickup but has zero to do with P90 tone. I have another trick that helped it alot, will give it one more shot and either sell it or forget about it. Hum doesn't bother me but wanted to try this for those it does. I want to avoid using thinner wire because then the transparency of real P90's goes away, but I don't think I can match inductance of a real P90 with a sidewinder design in a soap bar space.

How tall (wide?) are your bobbins? You can fatten it up with more winds. Not as many as you probably think either. If you are trying to use P-90 type bobbins switch to something with more room.

You aren't hearing what you would hear with a humbucker because you are only picking up the strings at a single set of poles. That's why it sounds like a single coil.

I've been making sidewinders for a couple of years now. There's a lot of nuance to the design, and you can squeeze a variety of tones out of them.

[soundmasterg]

How tall (wide?) are your bobbins? You can fatten it up with more winds. Not as many as you probably think either. If you are trying to use P-90 type bobbins switch to something with more room.

You aren't hearing what you would hear with a humbucker because you are only picking up the strings at a single set of poles. That's why it sounds like a single coil.

I've been making sidewinders for a couple of years now. There's a lot of nuance to the design, and you can squeeze a variety of tones out of them.

I've always been interested in Sidewinders and plan to mess around with them whenever I start winding pickups. Got distracted with amps and now school, but one day....

Greg

[David King]

My first and only sidewider attempt with chinese C8s sounded like crap. I want to get some longer A8 bars for the next one and fabricate a steel comb for the poles like the Lace Sensors. I doubt I'll get to it in this lifetime. I'm glad to know someone is getting somewhere with this design, thanks for sharing Dave and Dave.

[LtKojak]

My first and only sidewider attempt with chinese C8s sounded like crap.

David, some time ago I had the opportunity to have a dozen C8 bars from different manufacturers from USA, Germany, Italy, and Korea.

It was impossible to distiguish one from the other soundwise in a blind test using a Duncan Custom. My guess is that the processes and the materials are very close indeed in the whole world. Not the same results at all in Alnico, though.

HTH,

[Possum]

Actually you can't just throw some more metal in there and darken it up. As I mentioned what you are majorly going to hear is only what the coils have as a core, I have quite a chunk of metal in there besides but I'm mostly just hearing the magnets in the coil cores and thats all. I won't go in to details but there is way around this but even then it may not get me where I want to go. Would be nice to get that big fat "whaaaaang" my P90 bridges have ;-) Yes, I'm going to put more winds on it but am already at 12,500 or so, will have to drop the magnet strength as I don't want a hot output ;-) I'll be farting around with it this weekend. If it flies I'll do a demo video, if it draws flies, it'll go into a box of prototypes not worth selling ;-) I did a prototype copy of a Valco pickup thats in that box, too much trouble to make and those things are soooo dark....

[David Schwab]

My first and only sidewider attempt with chinese C8s sounded like crap. I want to get some longer A8 bars for the next one and fabricate a steel comb for the poles like the Lace Sensors. I doubt I'll get to it in this lifetime. I'm glad to know someone is getting somewhere with this design, thanks for sharing Dave and Dave.

What didn't you like about the tone? I'm using C8s, and they sound fine to me.

[David Schwab]

Actually you can't just throw some more metal in there and darken it up. As I mentioned what you are majorly going to hear is only what the coils have as a core...

Don't be so sure about that! I've been messing with these for a couple of years now, and you can get a whole range of tones with small tweaks.

My biggest gripe about the design is some of the best tones are the loudest. But if you want a darker tone, or more mids, you can get that easily.

[Possum]

There's a limit to what you can do in a P90 soapbar cover, what you're doing isn't so confined probably. What I didn't like about it is it doesn't sound like a P90 even remotely, go to YouTube and search for Fralin hum cancelling P90 and you'll see what I mean. He only went so far in his design. It sounds way too much like a steel pole strat pickup. I did try things like a steel baseplate which gave a jump in AC resistance in the mids but you don't really hear it. Yeah, to darken it with more winds it gets too strong, even degaussing isn't going to quite save you from that. We'll see if I get some time this weekend for a revised version. If I can get it dark enough I may sell it, but it won't be cheap to build and I won't be calling it a noiseless P90 because it isn't ;-)

Somewhere I have a really odd old DeArmond big ass pickup I think is a sidewinder, but its not humcancelling, should dig it out, it has huge masses of steel in it and big thick pole screws, maybe some ideas in that...