Loss of high frequencies in Humbucker build

[ES225]

Can anyone shed some light on this for me. I just built two humbuckers. Bridge 8.5K ohm and Neck 6.5K ohm. 42 AWG wire. They both work fine but strangely they are both much darker than an equivalent mainstream humbucker. Especially the neck is quite dark as if there was a blanket over the sound or the tone control turned half way down. Now some may like this and say these are exceptionally warm humbuckers. However, they have no sparkle and in single coil mode they do not chime at all. I was not intending them to be this way and would love to know what I did to make them end up this way. Does it have something to do with my winding process. Any help would be appreciated. Expert needed to solve this one.

[Antigua]

Can anyone shed some light on this for me. I just built two humbuckers. Bridge 8.5K ohm and Neck 6.5K ohm. 42 AWG wire. They both work fine but strangely they are both much darker than an equivalent mainstream humbucker. Especially the neck is quite dark as if there was a blanket over the sound or the tone control turned half way down. Now some may like this and say these are exceptionally warm humbuckers. However, they have no sparkle and in single coil mode they do not chime at all. I was not intending them to be this way and would love to know what I did to make them end up this way. Does it have something to do with my winding process. Any help would be appreciated. Expert needed to solve this one.

Brass covers, maybe? Maybe if you post pics, some clue will present itself.

[ES225]

No covers used. These are both open humbuckers, using all conventional parts used in vintage construction.
These were hand wound of course. I will add that these are both UN-potted.

[Mike Sulzer]

Shorted turns?

Can anyone shed some light on this for me. I just built two humbuckers. Bridge 8.5K ohm and Neck 6.5K ohm. 42 AWG wire. They both work fine but strangely they are both much darker than an equivalent mainstream humbucker. Especially the neck is quite dark as if there was a blanket over the sound or the tone control turned half way down. Now some may like this and say these are exceptionally warm humbuckers. However, they have no sparkle and in single coil mode they do not chime at all. I was not intending them to be this way and would love to know what I did to make them end up this way. Does it have something to do with my winding process. Any help would be appreciated. Expert needed to solve this one.

[ES225]

Could you explain further and tell me what I may have done wrong in the winding process.

[John_H]

How do you have the coils wired?

[jack briggs]

are the magnets fully charged?

[ES225]

I tried to reply but I don't see my reply posted for some reason.

What do you mean about the wiring? I have them wired in series. Exactly as a DiMarzio

[ES225]

How do you have the coils wired?

I have them wired in series to each other. Same as Dimarzio color codes I used

[ES225]

The coils are wired in series, same as Dimarzio color codes and the magnets are fully charged.

[ES225]

Magnets fully charged and wired in series.

[Antigua]

This forum is really sketchy, sometimes I wonder if it will go away and never come back. If that happens... I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

Have you directly A/B'd them with other pickups of similar values to be absolutely sure it's not some other factor that is causing a lack of what you characterize as "sparkle" and "chime"? Do you have something standardish, like Seymour Duncan 59's to contrast them with?

[big_teee]

Hi ES225:
Are you wired like this diagram?
http://www.guitarheads.net/tech/imag...inghbcolor.jpg
Both coils wound same direction? Both finish leads tied together?
Make sure you are not scuffing the wire when winding, thus causing shorts.
Are you using nickel or brass baseplates?
Nickel is brighter than brass.
Some pictures of your pickups might help us, determine what is going on.
Your forum issues, may be because you're a new member.
tboy has been applying some monitoring for new members, until he determines they are not spammers.
T
**Some of the forum issues, has been the server move that tboy recently did to make the server compatible with https secure.
It should be better as time goes along.

[ES225]

Thanks everyone for all the information.
I believe that it was indeed a short in the coil. Just one coil. Usually even in guitar wiring when output drops and high frequencies diminish, its usually a short. The strange thing is that it does not show up on the meter.
I believe that I may have scraped the coating of the wire in the process of winding.
I rewound the coil and everything is really good. My first set of pickups turned out quite well. I am learning.
I have a another question, which I will post shortly. Its about charging magnets with a magnetizer.
Also, how does one delete off-topic replies I made on this thread, regarding the technical issues with replies not showing up?

[soundmasterg]

The PAF and most other Gibson humbuckers traditionally are not hand wound, they are machine wound instead. In fact I can't say I know of a popular humbucker from the big name manufacturers such as Gibson, Duncan, DiMarzio, etc., that are hand wound. Hand winding can make the pickup sound duller in comparison to a machine wound pickup. There are other differences caused by the hand winding in comparison to machine winding. Just something to consider.

Greg