Intro and a question

[B. Howard]

Hello, My name is Brian Howard and I am a Luthier running my own shop in central PA. Been messing around with guitars almost my whole life and have been in the business of making and repairing them now for about 5 years. You can visit my website at Brian Howard Guitars- Custom Handmade Acoustic Guitars Lately I have been mostly acoustic on the builds but my first guitars I made many many years ago were electric. I am getting back to making some electrics and in keeping with my new mantra of everything being done in house I have decided to wind my own pickups. That brings me to my first question.....

Is there a standard difference in resistance by percentage between humbuckers for the bridge position vs. the neck position.Thanks in advance.

[John_H]

Hi
Brian, and welcome.

Is there a standard difference in resistance by percentage between humbuckers for the bridge position vs. the neck position

No, there is no standard. The resistance of a pickup is not a reliable way of measuring output.

[B. Howard]

Then what is a reliable way of measuring output?

[John_H]

Then what is a reliable way of measuring output?

Second post, and you asked the 'Million Dollar Question'

I use my ears, and limited experience, but other's are much more scientific.

[kayakerca]

Then what is a reliable way of measuring output?

Hi Brian. Welcome.

I am only a hobbyist that has been tinkering at this for the past 2 or 3 years, so take my comments considering the source.

Like John says, wrt to pickups, I see output in a lot of ways as something a little more qualitative in what your ear hears from a pickup than a specific measurement of, say, DCR. Tonal characteristics. You could probably have a two pickup that have the same DCR output measurement, one made for and used by Pat Metheny and the other made for and used by SRV. They would have the same DCR output, but sound nothing alike and have very different electrical measurements otherwise.

DCR, more or less, can tell you how much of a certain type of wire is on a pickup bobbin of a certain dimension, wound at a certain tension with a certain winding pattern, but that's about where DCR ends. DCR can help you know that you are at a consistent starting point when winding pickups with the same wind parameters as you head towards reproducibility of your pickups. It's all those other factors that are going to determine the tonal characteristics of a pickup's output.

As I reread this it sounds a little stupid, but as I was saying, I'm only a hobbyist who is just scratching at the surface of this stuff.

The answer to your questions is a journey for sure.

[copperheadroads]

Winders usually wind by number of turns & check dcr to make sure its working & get in approximation on the resistance.
A good base for vintage humbucker is 5000 turns of 42 gauge per bobbin .& if you must know ,that should weight in aprox 7.6k for the 2 coils .

[John_H]

Then what is a reliable way of measuring output?

Sorry for the short answer earlier. There are many variables that can have an effect on the output. The size, and shape of the coil. The size, and quantity of wire. The type of magnet/s, and their potential. Just to name a few.

"Calibrated sets" are more of a modern thing. Originally pickups were built the same regardless of position. (sometimes the pole spacing was compensated)

[Mike Sulzer]

Everything else equal, a higher resistance means more turns and a higher output. More turns also lower the resonant frequency and results in fewer high frequencies in the signal. Both of these factors can be good in a bridge pickup when played with a lot of distortion. Depends on the player and type of music. There is no right answer, especially since a pickup maker wants to have his own better sounding pickups, and this is part of it.

Hello, My name is Brian Howard and I am a Luthier running my own shop in central PA. Been messing around with guitars almost my whole life and have been in the business of making and repairing them now for about 5 years. You can visit my website at Brian Howard Guitars- Custom Handmade Acoustic Guitars Lately I have been mostly acoustic on the builds but my first guitars I made many many years ago were electric. I am getting back to making some electrics and in keeping with my new mantra of everything being done in house I have decided to wind my own pickups. That brings me to my first question.....

Is there a standard difference in resistance by percentage between humbuckers for the bridge position vs. the neck position.Thanks in advance.

[B. Howard]

Thanks guys. I know there will be quite a learning curve. This is the only area of guitar construction I have never really dabbled in, always bought my pickups from a catalog. I am aiming for something a bit different than most of what is out there but those who know me know I usually am. The pickups I will be winding are of the mini hum type, same as Gibson used in the deluxes of the 70's. Had one of those and miss it so I am building my own. I realize all vintage pickups were wound the same no matter of where they were to be installed but in the modern world they are wound specifically for position and things generally sound better and balance better when that is the case.

I figured on using DCR differences between the 2 positions to calculate desired number of winds for the neck position from the bridge position. I chose DCR even though I know there are many other variables because in my case all others will be fairly equal and that is the one spec every major pickup maker touts in their catalogs and one that is easily measured. So what other measurements should I be concerned with? And how do I measure them and with what?

[SonnyW]

If I need to make a calibrated set, here is the procedure that I use. It requires a decent sound level meter though. I have an old Extech 407706 Sound Level Meter that I use for this. I picked it up on eBay for about $25, but it is plenty good enough to use for this test. First, some theory and sorry if this is too much info that you might already know.

The neck position pickup is naturally going to be louder if all else is equal because of the way the strings vibrate. There is more "excursion" or movement at that part of the string as compared to the bridge position. More string movement generates more EMF, or output from the pickup. The strings at the bridge position are moving differently and with more of the higher harmonics, and have less room to move, but total movement is what generates EMF. Consider an ideal single string that has only the fundamental vibration and it will have the most movement in the middle, halfway between the end points and will have less and less room to move sideways as you get closer to the ends. OK, so without going into theory further, that explains why people want the bridge pickup to be hotter it is to make the output, (but really it is the sound level which people are thinking of) more equal between the two pickup selections.

What I do for a new design is set up a test in my den/studio. I have the sound level meter on a music stand and have a guitar and amp set up. One thing I am careful of is to set the heights of both pickups the same from the strings. I measure the sound level at around 100 dB with each pickup in turn, with the guitar volume on max, adjusting the amp master volume control to get a reading in the middle of the 100 dB scale. (it's loud) Then I measure the other pickup without changing any amp settings or the position of the meter or anything else in the room. My meter has a max reading hold button and use it and I play the same chord about 5 times to get a max reading for each pickup. If the sound level meter max readings are within something less than 3 dB, then the two pickups are matched well enough that most people will not notice a difference in their output. I fully realize that 3 dB is double the power, but it is also about the smallest volume increment that most ears can sense, and remember that the customer has some additional control by adjusting the relative pickup heights. If the difference in the max readings is more than 3dB then I either increase the turns count on the bridge or reduce them on the neck, or whatever other adjustment I need to make to bring the output levels closer. I don't know what everybody uses, but my rule of thumb to get in the ballpark is about 6-10% more inductance on the bridge pickup. I'd rather use inductance (Henrys) than the DC resistance to gauge this on.

Hope this helps your question.

[David Schwab]

Then what is a reliable way of measuring output?

Generally you will wind the bridge pickup hotter. How much hotter depends on the tone you want from the bridge and neck pickups. Winding more wire not only increases the output, up to a certain point, but also changes the tone of the pickup. You increase the lows/mids and decrease the highs.

So, it's a bit of trial and error. First come up with designs you like, and they might naturally balance out. If not, you can tweak them. After a while you get a feel for how much to wind a pickup to get what you want.

In general I might do 1,000 turns more on each coil on the bridge pickup compared to the neck. But it really depends on the pickup.