Peter Green Neck Pickup

[NightWinder]

Winding direction, not a flipped magnet...

Flipping the magnets won't have a volume drop like that

[Possum]

Peter Green BS...

You know I've been hanging out on the new LP forum a bit and it really amazes me what I would call "forum psychology" that goes on regarding pickups and what they all buy.

It kinda ties in with the Peter Green thing. What is special about those pickups? NOTHING. They are PAFs, one of the sets that didn't sound like mud. What is special about them? They had Peter Green playing them, Gary Moore playing them, thats whats special about them. That guitar sounded completely different with each guy playing on it. I think its more that it was a great piece of wood and there again not ALL 59 bursts sounded great either, you read these articles by famous rich musicians who try out some bursts and they say well some of them were real boring sounding but I found a good one (and paid an ungodly amount of money for it). The PG guitar has alot of repairs and most of the parts aren't original :-)

Back to the forum psychology thing. These guys are clique children, they all buy the same things because its the cool thing to do and they want to fit into the clique and be accepted. On a broader spectrum the same thing applies to pickups and guitars out in the general public, Jimmy Page played it so its gotta be good. The Danelectro thing, no one gave a shit about them til he played one. No one gave a shit about Harmony Stratotones til Rick Holmstrom and Junior Watson played them. Without this kind of mass guitar hysteria thing 59 bursts would just be old guitars you could buy in a pawn shop for $200, seriously.

The way this relates to selling pickups is useful if you know it and use it. I see these guys post video clips of pickups they bought because everyone else in their clique is buying them and I listen and some of them sound pretty good, some of them don't sound like anything but some StewMac parts thrown together, nothing special. So what is special is WHO is doing the demo and WHAT they are playing. I had a guy on that forum insult my "hat" and suggest I hire a professional guitar player to demo my pickups. Translation is I don't understand your hat, WE don't wear such hats, I dont understand your playing WE don't play II-V progressions and think jump blues is rockabilly, YOU don't fit in here. I'm not a pro guitar player but I do get compliments on my playing now and then :-)

Anyway, its kinda disgusting but players will buy something if you put the Peter Green label on it, its a hot button that works. But its just a damn nice old guitar with a better sounding PAF set in it. Without all this hysteria you'd have a hard time selling that guitar to anyone, it has multiple repaired fractures on it, a headstock break, the finish is messed up, rusty parts, crazy.....
Anyway, I've got video coming with a pro player doing the hard rock, fusion, metal stuff, lesson learned....

[JGundry]

Spence,

I know I'm belaboring the point here but there are many things concerning pickup making that are open to interpretation but this is not one of them. The fact is PAF's were machine wound. No real room for opinion concerning this. Did they vary, yes. But they were all machine wound.

I bought the Leesona 102 because it is the the best tool for making a PAF clone. Mine also has the original tensioners which Seymour either does not have or does not choose to use. He uses a whisker disk instead. The original Leesona tensioners are only meant to do 40AWG and are a pain in the ass to set up but they are the best tool to duplicate a PAF wind and the extra tension they add is certainly part of the PAF recipe. Of course having a Leesona 102 is a marketing tool because it is the best tool for the job when making a PAF clone. Just as hand winding is a marketing tool for early Fender pickup clones. It is the appropriate method for the job. The Leesona 102 I have certainly could be a museum piece. But big old machines like the Leesona 102 were built to last and there is a certain satisfaction in knowing I will put it to good use doing what it does best.

Nightwinder,

I have done the magnet flip on all my guitars and there is a volume drop on the middle position. It is just less pronounced with a pushed amp.

Possum,

The LPF is a great resource for both the guitar player and maker. I'm sure quite a few members lurk here just because they are interested in pickups. Any focused forum that revolves around a very defined topic becomes a clique. It happens here. It is just the nature of the online forum world. Peter Green is still a relatively obscure guitar god as guitar gods go. I can't get enough of his playing myself. It is only natural that fans try to emulate the tone, and the gear of their favorite players whether famous or obscure.

[Possum]

LPF

I wasn't talking about the LPF I was mentioning the NEW forum. Anyway they all tend to turn into cliques. Yeah is a clique here but the reason I like the pickup forum is there isn't mindless acceptance of anything here really, its just we all know eachother and disagree alot and rationally investigate myths and knowledge.

Personally I find the mindless follow the pack mentality annoying, the reason is they set aside rational thinking and give their power away to the wolf pack. How many times have I heard this one - "I bought these pickups because everybody says they are great, but I can't play them they are dull and boring." Well, if you abandon your own rational investigative faculties and just buy something because "everybody" says they're good, too bad :-) Heck I got into pickup making because I spent about $500 on some boutique pickups based on a "name" and they were awful. Sent me on a quest to find out why they sucked.

But thankfully probably 99% of my sales come from Google searches or customer recommendations.

[JGundry]

Oh the new LP forum. Nevermind.

[kevinT]

You know I've been hanging out on the new LP forum a bit and it really amazes me what I would call "forum psychology" that goes on regarding pickups and what they all buy.

I've been lurking there for quite a while too. That is so true. I'm glad that you brought this up. It seems as if the "forum psychology" thing is especially intense and prevalent on that forum. I like the forum and i think it has great potential...i just wish there were more pickup makers and pickup connissourers (spelling) that participated. The forum needs more of a variety of folks and opinions to make it interesting than the same old folks with their sound clips and opinions about a certain maker, etc...

I plan on doing some major marketing on that forum next year when my new website and line of pickups is ready.

Back to the forum psychology thing. These guys are clique children, they all buy the same things because its the cool thing to do and they want to fit into the clique and be accepted. .

I agree. There is nothing wrong with jumping on the bandwagon in trying some hot new products because of all the buzz about them.... but having a closed mind to everything else (other pickup maker's products) is what is sad. Those folks are missing out on some great tone...and maybe even better tone from other makers.

Anyway, its kinda disgusting but players will buy something if you put the Peter Green label on it, its a hot button that works.

It seems like that lately....everybody is on the Peter Green kick . Maybe I'll start some Randy Rhoads hype.

[Spence]

It's true that people on forums get into a particular maker's stuff and then jump ship to someone else's en masse. It's also quite irritating if you get too involved.

It's been Lollar, Fralin, Tim White, Peter Florance, Wolfe, WB, Don Mare, WCR and all sorts of other's. That's just the way it goes. Next week it could be Stephens Design, and why not.

Forums like the MLPF and the LPF etc, have a negative attitude towards anything that's not made in the USA. It's a typically insular attitude and I am qualified to say that as I have lived in America. Based on the attitude towards UK pickup makers on those forums you could conclude that the American market is closed to us except that it isn't the case. Plenty of my stuff is floating around the States.
So in essence I'm saying I wouldn't get hung up on the forum communities blinkered behaviour because they are a very small part of the bigger picture.

[NightWinder]

Try the reverse coils....you'll see what I mean- Even more drop....The magnet flip is very small compared.

[Possum]

America...

yeah its weird that you don't see those guys ever getting all worked up over BareKnuckles or Spence's stuff, I don't quite get that. It may be that you guys aren't marketing over here probably. WCR, Fralin, Lollar, those guys advertising extensively over here in the magazines and work the press to get reviews etc. You just don't see the UK winders in the mags here.

On the other hand if you want to buy a really authentic Les Paul thats great buy a Japanese one because the Gibson stuff sure is questionable at the prices they get. there IS a kind of America mystique thing in some places in Europe, the French, Italians, Danes, some Australians all seem to think pickups made by Americans are the stuff. I'd say I sell half my stuff overseas actually.

I think that print advertising is very important, so you need a good ad and need to target who you want to sell to. I quit running my ads in VG last year because I got overloaded with album design work and couldn't keep up with the pickup stuff and my pickup orders just about DIED. I had no idea those ads were so effective. I know Wolfe made a killing working the forums, or at least that Dr. Vintage guy did, but really the forums aren't a big market in the long run.

[JGundry]

Here is another update to the post on the LPF from the Bare Knuckle guy.

LPF Post:

Here is the latest reply from Tim Mills about the magnet flip:

Hi Todd, like I said, I've based my research on the time the guitar was in the ownership of Gary Moore and can't vouch for what has happened to the guitar or pickups since it left his ownership.If the wind is reversed AND the magnet flipped then the pickup would come back in phase in the mid position and not give you the Peter Green tone. I've experimented with flipping magnet and also reverse winding the coils and personally belive that the later has the most accurate tone. kind regards Tim

End of LPF post.

What I don't get is why would Tim be experimenting with both the magnet flip and reverse winding if he has such iron clad information concerning Peter Green's guitar? I find the entire premise less convincing now than at the start. Maybe it is just possible that Gary Moore ef'ed up one of the best LP tones on the planet by having it rewound by a hack that put in a push pull pot and reverse wound the coils by accident with the wrong wire so he could undue the legendary tone at will. Kind of like having Bob Villa work on Paganini's Guarneri until the fiddle player on Hee Haw is happy with it. Maybe this is the real story. With no time line this info is almost meaningless.

I will give it a try though. I'm just not holding my breath that it will be a tonal revelation.

[NightWinder]

Hum...: ) Theres only so many possibilitys. The reverse winding is very strong in volume drop, much more so than the flipped mag. No biggie, everyone has their "version".

[Spence]

Here is another update to the post on the LPF from the Bare Knuckle guy.

LPF Post:

Here is the latest reply from Tim Mills about the magnet flip:

Hi Todd, like I said, I've based my research on the time the guitar was in the ownership of Gary Moore and can't vouch for what has happened to the guitar or pickups since it left his ownership.If the wind is reversed AND the magnet flipped then the pickup would come back in phase in the mid position and not give you the Peter Green tone. I've experimented with flipping magnet and also reverse winding the coils and personally belive that the later has the most accurate tone. kind regards Tim

End of LPF post.

What I don't get is why would Tim be experimenting with both the magnet flip and reverse winding if he has such iron clad information concerning Peter Green's guitar? I find the entire premise less convincing now than at the start. Maybe it is just possible that Gary Moore ef'ed up one of the best LP tones on the planet by having it rewound by a hack that put in a push pull pot and reverse wound the coils by accident with the wrong wire so he could undue the legendary tone at will. Kind of like having Bob Villa work on Paganini's Guarneri until the fiddle player on Hee Haw is happy with it. Maybe this is the real story. With no time line this info is almost meaningless.

I will give it a try though. I'm just not holding my breath that it will be a tonal revelation.

So many people have argued about the magnet flip, called him out and said he was wrong that he tried it and found it to be wrong. What Tim published about that neck pickup actually blew things wide open but guess what; you don't believe it, can't believe it. But if Seth Lover turned up claiming to have rewound that pickup at the Gibson factory over lunch when Peter Green was dropped off their by aliens, you'd believe that.
Gary Moore didn't have the pickup rewound either. It was done when Peter owned it. They guy that rewound it had never done a Gibson pickup before.
No big deal. People make mistakes.

Gary Moore did have push-pull pots in the guitar but the original pickups were taken out at that time.

There are no mysteries here unless you want there to be.

[Steve A.]

A few questions and observations:

#1. Reverse winding coils- can you just switch the two wires on humbuicker bobbins or does it make a difference which wire is inside the coil and which wire is outside the coil? What if you flip the bobbins around (so that the bottom is the top)?

#2. Delmark recording artist Steve Freund is a big fan of Peter Green and in his opinion you get a better out-of-phase sound by flipping the magnet. However, he usually just switches them out-of-phase now electrically, if they have the extra wire because it is less of a hassle and easily reversible if he decides to sell the guitar.

#3. Does it make a difference to string sustain, etc., if the inside coils are the same magnetic polarity or not?

#4. So has it been decided that the two pickups on Peter Green's guitar were out of phase when it was in his possession? I just always assumed that they were...

Steve Ahola

P.S. My own theory was that when Peter got the guitar the pickups were out of phase, and that he had a buddy who was a real electronics whiz who told him that it could be fixed by flipping the pickup around...

I have absolutely no evidence to support that theory, but I was a stoner back then and that was how we'd think.

And after the pickup was flipped around and it was *still* out of phase, Peter decided that he liked it because it had that B.B. King sound.

P.P.S. The Fleetwood Mac blues recordings in Chicago and NY in 1969 (the Chess blues jam and the Otis Spann "Colossus" LP) had that B.B. King out-of-phase sound featured very prominently. I suspect that he used his LP for those recordings, although he might have used a different guitar for his recordings in the UK.

[Spence]

For those who may be confused here again is what happened:

The pickup broke down.
A man called 'Sam' Lee was asked to rewind it. Yes that's right, 'Sam' isn't his real name.
Well Sam had never rewound a Gibson humbucker before. The next part I'm guessing actually...
he cut both coils off the humbucker and either failed to notice the wind direction or mounted the bobbins the wrong way on his winder.
This part is for sure :
He only had Formvar coated wire and rewound them with that. To what DCR I hear you ask? Well, he probably just wound them until the bobbins were full and hoped for the best. I don't know what the DCR is but I suspect it's around 7.3 K Ohms.
Next, he put the pickup back in the guitar and noticed the phase issue in the middle position. Remember, he wasn't a pickup expert and he just thought turning the pickup around would correct the problem. Only wait! The hookup wasn't going to be long enough to do that. that's why he used some standard plastic - coated twin conductor wire. It had a grey outer sheath with a braided earth wrapped around a white plastic - coated inner.
It didn't fix the problem but Peter Green most likely thought it was useable anyway where a magnet flip would have meant big volume drop issues.

Note here that I have said both coils were rewound in that humbucker.
Note also I have said there was no magnet flip.

For those of you reading this and shouting at your screens, just try it.
Frankly I think you have all been given too much information as I and Tim Mills could have kept this quiet. Nobody had to tell you any of this.

[JGundry]

I am not a complete and total skeptic so I will try it for sure. From making effects I know that there are many changes that can be made to a circuit that can have a huge tonal impact that technically should have none.

But again I would think if this is such authentic information that you guys should at the very least have the impedance reading of the neck pickup. Which by the way is 8.2K as measured from the pots. This was posted by a LPF member that inspected the guitar.