Does hand winding mean hand on the wire?

[David Schwab]

My fingers tension and guide the wire.
Therefore my hand controls the parameters of my wind.

And how do you know what those parameters are? I do the same, and I couldn't tell you what the tension I'm applying is. I also know I couldn't exactly repeat the same pattern if my life depended on it.

So I know my hand makes an huge impact on the way each pickup I make sounds.

Really? How do you know? Have you done a blind A/B comparison?

If you had a winder that applied the same tension, and guided the wire the same way, what's the difference?

[David Schwab]

It's far simpler than that.

Everyone knows that what we call handwound relates to the pickupmaker using his hand to tension and guide the wire.

The guys who constantly argue the toss about this are the ones who machine wind but seem desperate to find some way to market their pickups as handwound. They are not handwound no matter how you dress it up. If it's your conviction that machinewound pickups are better than handwound then just stick to your convictions and be honest about your manufacturing method.

Case closed as far as I'm concerned.

Spence, with all due respect, how do we really know that hand wound pickups are better? It's easy to disparage those who use machines as desperate, but take someone like Seymour. I think we can all agree this guy probably knows more about pickups than most of us. He's not making sucky pickups, and he machine winds them. People love his pickups and don't care how they were made. Possum has a spiffy winder, and his pickups sound great too. And how about Wolfe?

Why would someone want to market their pickups as hand wound then, except for the fact that people have been told hand wound pickups are better?

A large number of machine wound mass produced pickups are on the market, and for the most part people like them just fine. My buddy swears by the Duncan Antiquities, and has them in many of his 15 or so vintage Les Pauls. These are apparently machine wound pickups. No one seem to complain about them.

So far its all anecdotal. We know there are great pickups that are hand wound. We also know there are great pickups that are machine wound. I don't think anyone can argue with that.

What we haven't seen is a real world test were the same design pickup was built using both techniques, with the same materials, etc., and do a double blind test.

Something similar is people saying they don't like the sound of op amps, and prefer FET's. A double blind test was done with buffers made with both using pretty much as similar a circuit as possible.

In a double blind test, some people preferred one over the other, but most had no preference, and no one could tell which was which.

[kevinT]

Everyone knows that what we call handwound relates to the pickupmaker using his hand to tension and guide the wire.

Amen Bro!!!! No argument here.

The guys who constantly argue the toss about this are the ones who machine wind but seem desperate to find some way to market their pickups as handwound.

I don't know if that is the case, but there needs to be a strict differentiation of hand wound and machine wound. You can't have it both ways. Separation and distinction between the two is key. Not that either one is better than the other (we've been there...don't need to revisit) but they need to be separated so that consumers are correctly informed about the products they're purchasing so they can make their own informed decision about which method they like best.

They are not handwound no matter how you dress it up. If it's your conviction that machinewound pickups are better than handwound then just stick to your convictions and be honest about your manufacturing method.

Totally agree, but there are ways for machine winders (including myself) that can communicate and market using "handwinding-type" terms ...e.g., ..simulated handwinding pattern, simulated hand scatter, etc... This is not to pull the wool over the public's eye's or to take advantage of the term..... but to me it shows a sense of sophistication in that we've taken into account the human intervention factor in the winding process. I have set my tensioner based on tests that i've done using the handwound method as well as programmed my winder to mimic handwinding characteristics....so it's not lying or fooling consumers.

What pisses me off about this whole topic is all the handwinders (not talkin about you spence) that totally disrespect machine winders. If you look at many boutique makers' websites they abuse the whole machine vs. handwound debate and they actually are taking advantage of the handwound term for their own benefit more than machine winders do. There are many winders here on the forum that tout their wares as being better than the mass produced machine wound pickups...I'm not going to name anyone but they are present on the forum.

It kills me that many hand winders claim that they know this for a fact even when they've never used a CNC machine to wind pickups and conduct there own tests. So how do they know they sound better---they don't...it's bullshit and marketing bullshit that they're using for their own benefit. And what is mass produced anyway? How many pickups would you consider a pickup maker to be making to be mass producing pickups?...10, 20....300?...and does it make sense to equate mass production to quality and a pickup not sounding good....NOT!!!....and i think hand winders need to be more straight forward and provide accurate info about both methods of pickup manufacturing..... and stop abusing us machine winders like that .... just something to think about.

Again... I'm going to kick this dead horse one more time....the fact is.... both machine and handwound pickups can sound good or Duncan wouldn't be making a living off of pickups and boutique makers that handwind pickups wouldn't have any customers and receiving rave reviews at harmony central.

End of Rant!!!

P. S. Keep an eye out because I'll be introducing my footwound pickups soon and I will be posting a video on YouTube of me winding with my toes. I'll be using my 07-07 fungus wire and initiatating my footcheese wrap.

[madialex]

P. S. Keep an eye out because I'll be introducing my footwound pickups soon and I will be posting a video on YouTube of me winding with my toes. I'll be using my 07-07 fungus wire and initiatating my footcheese wrap.

This was funny as hell, for those who get it

[JGundry]

It's far simpler than that.

Everyone knows that what we call handwound relates to the pickupmaker using his hand to tension and guide the wire.

The guys who constantly argue the toss about this are the ones who machine wind but seem desperate to find some way to market their pickups as handwound. They are not handwound no matter how you dress it up. If it's your conviction that machinewound pickups are better than handwound then just stick to your convictions and be honest about your manufacturing method.

Case closed as far as I'm concerned.

I bet there are quite a few winders that tension via felt and spring clamp or some variation of that but guide the wire by hand that would disagree with you. If it is an important distinction the hand winder that also hand tensions can make this distinction with their own product description.

I don't think better or worse ever came up in this conversation. Personally I'm just curious what other people think about what the the hand wound definition should include.

[mkat]

A large number of machine wound mass produced pickups are on the market, and for the most part people like them just fine. My buddy swears by the Duncan Antiquities, and has them in many of his 15 or so vintage Les Pauls. These are apparently machine wound pickups. No one seem to complain about them.

I've heard the same from some guitarists. But the wire in these pickups is placed neatly side by side, and there is a coil shape to them. If that's all you need to make a good machine wound pickup, then replicating these is very simple.

[Spence]

Look:



I haven't got my knickers in a twist thanks all the same.


I merely pointed out that there are machine winders who try to get the term 'handwound' into their marketing blurb which they shouldn't. I never said in my post that handwound is better though that is my personal conviction, There's the key word; conviction. If it's your conviction that machine wound is best, and you make them that way then you should be honest about it.

[mkat]

And what is mass produced anyway? How many pickups would you consider a pickup maker to be making to be mass producing pickups?...10, 20....300?...and does it make sense to equate mass production to quality and a pickup not sounding good....NOT!!!....

If the makers aren't manufacturing to a price point, but for quality, then the expectation would be a good pickup. Marketing a pickup as something close to a certain vintage, for example, doesn't mean much really 'cause it could be anything.

You may have a winner with your foot wound pickups, LOL. This may be the kind of real innovation this industry needs to take it to another level. Is there a patent on toe jam and it's effects on some parameters and the final sound? This may start the ball rolling on winding with other appendages.

[JGundry]

I've heard the same from some guitarists. But the wire in these pickups is placed neatly side by side, and there is a coil shape to them. If that's all you need to make a good machine wound pickup, then replicating these is very simple.

You have obviously never experimented with machine winding. There are plenty of machine wound set-ups that will give you anything but neatly placed wire. In fact you can get some very strange scatter with machine winding that you would not be able to duplicate by hand.

[GlennW]

Cheeky Pickup Co.

Guess where the tension comes from.

[Steve Conner]

Will these Cheeky pickups have a thin, tight bottom end or a big flabby one?

Anyway, I strongly suspect that you can make machine-wound pickups that sound no different to handwound ones. I have no idea how, but I bet it can be done. I wouldn't pay extra for a boutique pickup unless it was a crazy looking work of art.

[mkat]

You have obviously never experimented with machine winding. There are plenty of machine wound set-ups that will give you anything but neatly placed wire. In fact you can get some very strange scatter with machine winding that you would not be able to duplicate by hand.

True, no experience with machine winding at all, but I have read up on the capabilities of machine winders and have thought about some high level design details at a S/W level - many things are possible. But, my observation was one example of a pickup that many say sounds great, but is neatly and simply wound.

[David Schwab]

What pisses me off about this whole topic is all the handwinders (not talkin about you spence) that totally disrespect machine winders. If you look at many boutique makers' websites they abuse the whole machine vs. handwound debate and they actually are taking advantage of the handwound term for their own benefit more than machine winders do. There are many winders here on the forum that tout their wares as being better than the mass produced machine wound pickups...I'm not going to name anyone but they are present on the forum.

That's a good point. And I like Spence, he's a funny guy, but he also thinks machine wound pickups aren't any good. He's honest and says so, and that's a good thing.

In a certain area of pickup making, and I guess it's the space where most of the boutique winders occupy, it's very competitive. How many different tones can you squeeze out of an old design like a Fender SC or a Gibson HB? It's truly amazing what can be done with pretty limiting design parameters.

But how do you set yourself apart from the rest?

So you need something to differentiate your product from the mass produced stuff out there. So "hand wound" is good marketing, and evokes the feeling that the pickups are made the way they "used to be" made, even if that's not true. Everyone wants old guitars now... even if they are fake old guitars.

Now if I'm coming off like I think hand wound pickups aren't any good, or that machine wound is better... I'm not saying that. I hand wind my pickups. But there's two ways to make money doing something.. do it slowly, making few pieces per month, and charge a lot for them, or make them quickly, making many pieces per month, and charge a lot less for them. The later method will sell a lot more pickups. Look at Guitar Fetish.

I haven't tried any of his pickups, but builders over at MIMF seem to like them. Same with the Stew-Mac Golden Age humbuckers.

So to make any money at this, you either have to charge a lot, and convince people the product is truly worth it, or have them mass produced. Somewhere in the middle is probably the "sweet spot". Take Bartolini. It's two people... Bill and Pat. Bill says he hand winds the pickups. I'm not sure how he supplies all those pickups to makers like Ibanez, Maybe some are sourced out over seas? If that's the case, they sound the same.

The other thing of course is supply and demand. If you get a good reputation, you can charge more and take your time making them! Otherwise the average Joe will go with the lower priced pickup.

As a luthier and generally detail oriented person, I know that putting the time into doing something right counts. This is why hand made guitars are usually better than production guitars. More attention to details was made, and the builder was more fussy choosing materials.

I'd love to be able to open a box of wound coils and assemble my pickups, and of course have them sound like they should.

So I'm not saying I know the answers to machine vs. hand winding, but I'd like to find out myself, and that's on a practical level, not just an academic one. Building instruments is time consuming. I'm always looking for a faster way to do things, while maintaining quality.

[R.G.]

Look:
I merely pointed out that there are machine winders who try to get the term 'handwound' into their marketing blurb which they shouldn't. I never said in my post that handwound is better though that is my personal conviction, There's the key word; conviction. If it's your conviction that machine wound is best, and you make them that way then you should be honest about it.

Ah, OK. It must be my glasses - it was not clear to me that was what you meant to say.

I'm with you - no one should say things that aren't true in their advertising.

However, in the words of our immora...er, immortal ex-president, William Jefferson Clinton, it all depends on what your definition of "is" is.

I'm a strict constructionist. I think that "hand wound" only applies if you use no mechanical assistance at all. And I think that anything else does not qualify. But that's just me. I make room for other opinions.

Maybe if you use machines for only part of the work, there ought to be a descriptive phrase like "partially hand wound", or perhaps "hand-guided" although as you see, that gets tricky too because the guiding part can logically be stored. "Mostly hand wound"? "73.2% hand wound"?

English is a funny language, at least as it's used over here in the beknighted left side of the Atlantic. It is at once very flexible (any noun can be verbed) and has some rigid assumptions, one being that if one asserts one condition, there is an unspoken implication that there is only one other possible condition, the reverse of the assertion, a binary yes/no. I don't know if it's the same in the language's home land.

But I'm also with you on another issue - it's a matter of conviction. Every builder of anything should build them the way they are convicted... sorry, convinced, is the best. I actually think this is what happens, as most builders of anything musical will define "best" as "that set of conditions which returns me the most money". But there ought to be a set of conditions where we could take "best" as "sounds best" - right?

I think things just get confused when
(a) there is no repeatable, objective test that can be applied to pin down what "best" means as regards sound
(b) there is no clear and generally agreed definition of what "hand wound" or "machine wound is"; everyone seems to be picking their own spot in the continuum of 0 to 100% mechanical assistance, and with a logical argument as to why that's true
(c) there isn't any objective evidence that touching the wire with human fingers is the real trick in making good sound
(d) there is general agreement that hand wound pickups vary a lot
(e) there is no general agreement or even information available about what is a good versus bad wind of whatever origin; oops, did it again - 87.3% good versus 32% good - English predisposes us to binary presumptions even when we're watching for them.

The problem with asserting that it's the magic touch of human fingers on the wire that makes a pickup sound good is that it sets you up for unfair market-raptors to eat you alive. Our friend in Korea who offers pickups for $2, what if those guys figure out that "hand wound" is the magic phrase in selling pickups, and hire guys to sit there touching the wire as it runs onto the otherwise machine wound pickups? There is a logical case to be made that they would be "Individually hand wound! The loving touch of the winder's hand is the last thing that touches the wire as it goes onto the bobbin!" They could probably get away with that in most countries as a legal definition of "hand wound". And that would, of course, quickly devalue "hand wound" as the description of a pickup.

What winding artists want is that "hand wound" means "wire has been wound onto the bobbin by someone who knows what they're doing as they guide the wire", right?

Even if we go with a conventional definition of "hand wound" as the true gold standard, there are much, much cheaper hands available in the world. Our friend the $2 Korean could say, OK, I see that hand wound is better and I honestly want to do the best I can. So he ups his price to $3 and sets up a thousand workers hand guiding wire onto machine-spun bobbins, just the same as I think you mean by hand-wound, and honestly markets that as such.

Fact is, "hand-wound" is a pretty thin thing to base your marketing on, and it's only become valuable because of the infatuation of the musical market with "if it's old, it must be good". Sure it's an easy thing to use right now, but once our Korean friend gets some good marketing advice, it will wear thin. I think what you really want to say is something like "hand wound by a skilled artisan who has spent years developing his craft to produce these works of art". Then we could say something like "wound by pickup master artist XXXXX!" as a description of all that's good and worthwhile in pickups, not "hand wound".

Let's be clear about this: I'm not a pickup winder in the sense of the pros here at all. I'm a tinkerer. And I think the pros here thought I was stone cold nuts at throwing out the idea that one should be able to measure some set of things about a pickup regardless of its provenance and be able from that measurement to make provable statements about what musical conditions it would be good for.

Maybe so - as my friends tell me, a monstrous mind is a toy forever - but if the issue is what one can say in advertising, I'd think you pros, the ones who make the pickups that matter, would be running screaming for protection from the knockoff "hand winders". Knowing no more that I do now, I could have truly, honestly hand wound pickups arriving in container loads from south Asia in a month. And there are many people with much better contacts in Asia than me. I'm an amateur there, too.

(Note - this is not a threat. I have no plans whatsoever to ever sell a pickup, whether home grown, Asian, or whatever. But there are other people just looking for a market. I'm just trying to open your eyes to the possibilities. I'm trying to help you get ready, because it's almost certain to happen.)

Would they sound as good as other "hand wound" pickups? Just as in the "million-monkeys" approach to literature, yes, some of them. But like the Fender pickups of yore, there would be a vast majority that would sound ordinary or worse. And they'd be cheap as well as being hand wound.

Logically, what has to set a pickup apart is (a) the exact set of materials and parts used, (b) the detailed winding of the coil. That last is where the artistry comes in - right? I think that you ought to be establishing the case for being an artist, not a hand winder. Hand winder is portable. Artist isn't, at least not as much.

So yes, I'm with you - honesty is the best policy. But it's not all there is. There's quality too. Go for honest quality!

[David Schwab]

I bet there are quite a few winders that tension via felt and spring clamp or some variation of that but guide the wire by hand that would disagree with you. If it is an important distinction the hand winder that also hand tensions can make this distinction with their own product description.

Right, you are applying tension to the wire, or you are not. The only difference between using a tensioning device (and that can be as simple as felt and an alligator clip) and your finger, is that your finger can change the tension as you wind. Once you have the tension you need, you have it.

So the question is do we need to change the tension as we wind? Does anyone do that?

Another abstract thought.. what if you had a joystick that controlled both guiding the wire and tension ( Left and right is wire feed, forward and back is tension), but you never touched the wire directly with your hand. Yet your movements on the joystick controlled these two things in real time.

Is it hand wound? You are hand guiding the wire after all. And would it sound different from holding the wire in your hand? If so, why?