Wire gauge tonal differences.

[mr fab]

So, thicker wire = bigger coil = more inductance = 'fatter' sound?
How about output? Does the bigger coil @ the same DCR produce more output than a smaller coil of thinner wire, all else equal?

no.... number of winds determines inductance (everything else in the pickup remaining the same)

forget about dcr... it only tells you how many feet of wire is on the pickup for a given gauge

[wizard333]

I found you could use more turns of smaller wire and still stay brighter with a tighter bass.

How far were you able to go with that? 10% more turns of smaller wire? 5%?

[copperheadroads]

This thread is all over the place by the OP , talking about a 7.2k paf style pickup & gain & "I don't care for low wind 42 ga neck buckers, they tend to sound dull and weak under any gain"
I answers are hear in this thread & repeated .I offer a few neck pickups for higher gain enthusiast but they are not even compared to a 7.2k paf .... maybe visually ..If you got an high gain amp well you don't need the treble from the pickup so you can change up the recipe like using smaller wire ...Time to wind something .

[wizard333]

Has nothing to do with gain or output. Has to do with tone.

Light wind 42 ga paf pickups end up sounding weak and dull to me, as I stated, and they don't really solve the issue of being boomy. If high output were the issue, then my alternative, as it stands so far, wouldn't have been 3.1k 40 ga pickups, which IMO sound much better than low wind 42s.

Also, as I stated, I have compared bridge pickups both with nearly the same turns 42 ga vs 43 ga, and also same DCR 42 vs. 43. In that position, it strikes me that the 43 is tighter for a given # turns, but also perhaps less open/airy. Those would all have a lot more wire than I'd want to see on a neck pickup however, and things that work a certain way in the bridge tend not to work in the neck position.

So what I was after is, if you wind similar turns to say a 7k neck or even a 7.5k 42 ga neck, in 43 or 44, what do you get tone wise? I've seen conflicting answers. Some say brighter/tighter, some say darker with lower frequency bass. I was hoping to hear from someone who'd actually done it.

Tables vary, but a 7.5k 42ga would be approximately somewhere just over 9k DCR of 43 and somewhere around 11.5k DCR of 44. There will be variance since the same turns of the bigger wire will take more copper due to the size.

Anyone actually done something in those ranges for a neck pup?

There is more to it than that. 3.1k of 40 ga wire equates turn wise to about 5K of 42, in terms of DCR of the 42, but I can tell you from experience, 3.1k of 40ga wire whips the snot out of 5k of 42 in terms of output etc. In fact, 3.1k of 40 ga has about the same perceived output (and ability to kick the front end of a tube amp) as you'd expect from a low wind 42 ga neck in the 7.2-7.5k range, with extended high frequency content and still a surprising amount of low end.

I suspect as the wire gets smaller, more winds are required to maintain the same perceived output level. From what I understand, a Duncan "Screamin Demon" is around 10k of 43 with A5 magnet and hex screws. Some people rave about it as a neck pickup, but it would have more low end than I'd like to hear in that application, so maybe more like 9K would be functional there? Anyone tried it?

[copperheadroads]

If I were to say you on the right track ..............well then you'd stop prying & get these results your self by winding .
After you wind enough ,this is the ABC's of winding & will probably come back to haunt you in the years to come .
the meter is for testing continuity .dcr is not so important than you first may think .....it's all about turns .

[big_teee]

Bend some wire.
Wind 3 pickups with 42, 43, 44, and report back to us.
When I chase a tone, I usually end up with a pile of cutoff wire, before I find it.
Sounds like you know what you're after, Test until you get there.
GL,
T

[LtKojak]

Has nothing to do with gain or output. Has to do with tone.

Light wind 42 ga paf pickups end up sounding weak and dull to me, as I stated, and they don't really solve the issue of being boomy. If high output were the issue, then my alternative, as it stands so far, wouldn't have been 3.1k 40 ga pickups, which IMO sound much better than low wind 42s.

Also, as I stated, I have compared bridge pickups both with nearly the same turns 42 ga vs 43 ga, and also same DCR 42 vs. 43. In that position, it strikes me that the 43 is tighter for a given # turns, but also perhaps less open/airy. Those would all have a lot more wire than I'd want to see on a neck pickup however, and things that work a certain way in the bridge tend not to work in the neck position.

So what I was after is, if you wind similar turns to say a 7k neck or even a 7.5k 42 ga neck, in 43 or 44, what do you get tone wise? I've seen conflicting answers. Some say brighter/tighter, some say darker with lower frequency bass. I was hoping to hear from someone who'd actually done it.

Tables vary, but a 7.5k 42ga would be approximately somewhere just over 9k DCR of 43 and somewhere around 11.5k DCR of 44. There will be variance since the same turns of the bigger wire will take more copper due to the size.

Anyone actually done something in those ranges for a neck pup?

There is more to it than that. 3.1k of 40 ga wire equates turn wise to about 5K of 42, in terms of DCR of the 42, but I can tell you from experience, 3.1k of 40ga wire whips the snot out of 5k of 42 in terms of output etc. In fact, 3.1k of 40 ga has about the same perceived output (and ability to kick the front end of a tube amp) as you'd expect from a low wind 42 ga neck in the 7.2-7.5k range, with extended high frequency content and still a surprising amount of low end.

I suspect as the wire gets smaller, more winds are required to maintain the same perceived output level. From what I understand, a Duncan "Screamin Demon" is around 10k of 43 with A5 magnet and hex screws. Some people rave about it as a neck pickup, but it would have more low end than I'd like to hear in that application, so maybe more like 9K would be functional there? Anyone tried it?

For the description given, it's clear that you lack some very basic understanding of what a trasducer is, and how it applies to pickup making.

It all starts here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductance - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductor

Then go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetism

Here is a good read on the most basic principles applied to p'up making: Guitar_Pickups

Then search the Webz for the following topics: "distributed capacitance in a coil" "Effects of coil geometry in pickup winding" "Effect of Eddy currents in pickup design"

Have fun!

[wizard333]

I did know a lot of that, and after reading it, I'm left thinking, as I often am after that sort of exposition, "yes, that's lovely. But how does it sound?".

Question left completely unanswered.

Don't even get me started about his fallacies RE FETS vs. Tubes.

[CheopisIV]

I did know a lot of that, and after reading it, I'm left thinking, as I often am after that sort of exposition, "yes, that's lovely. But how does it sound?".

Question left completely unanswered.

Don't even get me started about his fallacies RE FETS vs. Tubes.

On the contrary, your question was answered in general terms in post #2. The rest is up to you as we can't tell you what you will hear beyond these type generalizations. Now all that's left is the trying.

[LtKojak]

I did know a lot of that.

Oh, really?

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know.

There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know.

But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know"

- Donald Rumsfeld

That's your answer right there.

HTH,

[Mike Sulzer]

This reference, Guitar_Pickups, introduces the usual confusing ideas about how a guitar pickup works. First, the purpose of a magnetic field is to quantify the magnetic interaction as a function of location in space and time. So we locate the place that matters, and consider it, not everywhere. For the permanent field of a pickup, the spatial location that matters is where a string is. Why? Consider permeability. From a physical point of view this quantity is the ability for the magnetization of an object to change from an applied magnetic field (at that location, at that time). Thus the string becomes magnetized. Next consider superposition, which says that you can ignore that permanent field, since it has done its job, that is magnetized the string, and just consider the magnetic field of the string (caused by the permanent field, of course). Next, since the field of the string decreases with distance from it, when the string vibrates, the strength of the field from it at a particular location changes. Consider this change across the area inside a coil and you have a magnetic flux changing in time, which induces a voltage around the coil.

It is really that simple in principle, but the details get complicated.

[wizard333]

Oh, really?

Yeah really. But as usual with such expositions, I'm left thinking the author is mostly demonstrating they are heavily OCD. You can measure all sorts of physical and electrical properties, but what is missing (mostly) from that is, how are they going to affect what really matters, i.e., their affect on the tonal properties of the device? Lots of detail, but the most important details were left missing. A guitar pickup, an amp, etc, is not an abstract electronic curiosity. It's purpose is to produce a pleasing sound in a way that responds to the artists demands. A lot of people don't know that they don't know that.

When he gets into how FETs can replace tubes, he definitively demonstrates to me that he is concerned with musical electronic devices in the abstract, but not in real world applications. There was so much wrong with that part of his exposition, and so much ignorance, it would take me all night to type it all up, which I'm not going to do. An FET amp is a sound reproduction device. A Tube amp, at least a good one, is a musical instrument. If you don't know what I mean by that, stop reading the boards and go play your guitar.

[Mike Sulzer]

An FET amp is a sound reproduction device. A Tube amp, at least a good one, is a musical instrument. If you don't know what I mean by that, stop reading the boards and go play your guitar.

The problem is that you do not know what you mean by that. One does what you want. If the other does not, do not use it. All amplifiers modify the signal that passes through. Use the one that does the job for you, but let's not make a religion out it.

[wizard333]

Wrong. No religion to it. A good tube amp responds to and gives feedback to touch and is part of the instrument, guitar-signal chain-amp. You feel it at the strings. I can tell a fair amount about what is happening with a circuit without ever looking at the schematic, just by the way an amp feels and sounds. Solid state amps simply do not do that, and that is why they will never replace tube amps. It has eff-all to do with 'warmth', it has to do with sense of touch.

Crate has been making good sounding solid state gain channels since the mid 80s. It ain't new. No one as yet makes a good tubey clean channel, but in any case, that is where all the Kempers and AXFXs and modelers and those old crates etc fall on their face, they can sound like distorting tubes. They will never feel like it.

A lot of amp designers DO NOT understand that, and typically they are the ones who can make a tube amp respond like a crate solid state amp from the 80s. Won't name names but they are well known and not uncommon. That effect is typically produced by designers who are not also good players and who sit around and try to calculate how many angels fit on the head of a pin rather than working on the design live and with a guitar plugged in. The best amps I've ever played/felt were ones designed by repair men, not engineers.

I had a professor who always said, "if you can't explain yourself to an intelligent non-expert, you don't know what the hell you're talking about". I asked a simple question in the OP. I got a few simple answers, albeit in opposition to each other, and a lot of cryptic ones and ones that weren't on point.

Its pretty simple. The correct answer looks like this, if you meet the professor's criteria: "Yes x gauge will/wont be brighter/tighter than 42 with the same magnet/screws/turns and here's why". Is that so hard? Apparently it is for a lot of folks.

Cryptic, not-on-point answers always convince me that the people giving them are too busy trying to look smart or knowledgeable, rather than actually being that. If you actually know wtf you're talking about, you can explain yourself simply and clearly.

[Mike Sulzer]

Wrong. No religion to it. A good tube amp responds to and gives feedback to touch and is part of the instrument, guitar-signal chain-amp..........They will never feel like it.

Obviously they sound different. If you interpret that as feeling different, that is you; do not expect others to hear/feel it the same way, and if you really insist that it is feeling, not sound, then you are confused in profound way.

I had a professor who always said, "if you can't explain yourself to an intelligent non-expert, you don't know what the hell you're talking about". I asked a simple question in the OP. I got a few simple answers, albeit in opposition to each other, and a lot of cryptic ones and ones that weren't on point.

Its pretty simple. The correct answer looks like this, if you meet the professor's criteria: "Yes x gauge will/wont be brighter/tighter than 42 with the same magnet/screws/turns and here's why". Is that so hard? Apparently it is for a lot of folks.

Most highly technical things cannot be adequately explained in simple ways to non-experts; it can be difficult even for somewhat complicated things. For example, let's take your "looks like this" answer, and consider just one of several things changing the wire size might do, and that is to change the amount of resistance ("loss") in the copper as heard near the resonant frequency. You cannot expect a consistent answer even for this one effect. The effect of changing the copper loss depends on the losses already present. If you have a steel core humbucker where the dominant loss is from eddy currents in the cores and so the total amount of loss if large, changing the copper resistance has one effect on the sound. if you have a pickup using lower loss alnico rod magnets for cores, then the effect of changing the wire resistance is different.