Broken pickups that "work"

[Tom Phillips]

Output transformer designers, especially those designing for high end audio, go through lots of extra effort to minimize winding and inter-winding capacitance. There is a lot of information about this in the literature. One reference is section 5.3(v) of the Radiotron Designers handbook 4th Ed. It explains that there is lots of distributed capacitance in a coil winding. Therefore, the model is much more complex than just one equivalent capacitor formed by the proximity of the ends of two pieces of wire. The point is that there is plenty of opportunity and many factors contributing to the capacitance formed. Of course, you don't need to understand all this to make it work for you. The capacitance to make this Nancy effect work is easier to get than it would be to eliminate if someone were trying to do that.
Cheers,
Tom

[David King]

Rob read the thread about the bifilar pickups from Italy.
http://music-electronics-forum.com/t11439/

[Leo_Gnardo]

It all sounds like Salesmanship to capitolize off the Roy Buchanan's 53 Tele he called Nancy!
I don't know why you would want to make a broke pickup?
Just wind one that sounds good, with measurable turns.
Next we will be discussing the fancy Wraps (Named Rosie, and Roy).
Just my $.02s.
T

Thanks Terry I had no idea of where "Nancy" derived. And salesmanship & capitolizing, well you can't blame somebody for trying to sell some "unique" idea whether it really is or not. Whether it's pickups or anything else in this world. You don't have to buy into it but sometimes it does get annoying all right. As long as they're not running a radio ad on my fav station every 10 minutes...

On my shop test guitar (a one-off prototype) there's a pair of single coils, rewound Fenders in bridge & neck positions. One switch to do the usual N, N+B, or B, and they sound good in all 3 positions. But there's also a mini switch that puts 'em out of phase and I couldn't ever recommend the thin awful tone that results. EXCEPT - it sounds terrific when played thru super hi gain. The in-phase combo and individual pickups swamp those hi gain amps with low end & sound blimpy & indistinct. So for some people, a tone that's thin & awful can be an advantage. Like Hendricks Gin, it's not for everybody... I can see how a Nancy type pickup may find application similarly in hi gain rigs. Could put switch on it to choose normal or Nancy.

Looking forward to Rosie, Roy and whatever else you got Terry. Before I joined up at MEF I read a lot here. I know you're one of the good guys. One of the best in fact.

[rhgwynn]

For the curious.

Good stuff's at 1:35

-Rob

[David Schwab]

It depends on where the break is. For example, the value of the series capacitance is very small if it occurred right at the connection to the lead wire, but larger inside the coil because of the larger effective area and smaller separation of the two sides of the capacitor.

I agree.

I've checked out some pickups that sounded fairly normal, but had open coils, while others where very thin sounding.

[Possum]

You know Roy sounded like Roy no matter which Tele he played, and he had a few of them. If you want that sound (I hated his shrieky trebly tone and to this day can't listen to any of his albums for more than ten minutes), probably you'd want the break to be right in the middle of the mass of the full coil, so you'd theoretically get the max amount of inductive coupling. Part of his tone came from a Vibrolux I think it was, dimed with treble all the way up and bass off. Or you could buy a treble booster or use a wah ;-)

The best way would be to tap the coil at four spots and then listen to each so you could hear what a break at each part of the coil mass would sound like. I guess some like how that thing sounded......

[Mike Sulzer]

Inductive coupling requires current to flow in one coil to induce a voltage in the other. The two coils are open and thus the only current that can flow is a result of stray capacitance. This means that inductive coupling is small.

the two ends of the break don't need to be held tightly together. this gets me wondering about the capacitive coupling thing. the most coupling there could be between the inner and outer coils is 1 layer, which is aronud 100 turns. that's not a lot of capacitive coupling there. i wonder if most of the coupling, then, is in fact inductive coupling, since you've got 2 coils wound around a common core....

[Possum]

I think whats happening is a number of things so you can't really quantify exactly whats happening. Just try it if you like that sound and see what works best. Personally I think Nancy needs a rewind.....

[big_teee]

Don't know if this is the guitar and the pickup that is broke?
It sounds pretty shrill to me!
What do you guys think?
Roy Buchanan - John's Blues 1972 Remastered - YouTube

[WolfeMacleod]

I swear though man, I have a beautiful mind or some shet... I've been thinking a LOT about bifilar winding lately... didnt even know it had a name. But I've been wondering how it might change the tone of a pickup...

-Rob

I made my first Bifilar humbucker in 1999, with a total of 8 leads.
Seymour did it in the late 70's as well.