Turns Per Layer

[Helmholtz]

PUs should be wired to desired inductance instead of resistance.
Capacitance should be measured instead of guessed.

[RedHouse]

No, with a machine wound coil, Higher number of turns, or less scatter like you're trying to fill the bobbin across 1 layer all the way until you're done winding, will, as stated above by SteikBacon, make the capacitance lower as well as the resistance, as if you made 1 turn with a flat piece of copper the width of the bobbin all the way around. More scatter will increase capacitance because the wires overlap a lot more causing an increase in capacitance with resistance , think of it like having a 4 inch pipe, the tight scatter is like the water flowing through the pipe freely now imagine the more scatter where the wire goes over the other windings numerous times, imagine that those are like little baffles in the pipe, it's going to impede the flow of the water because you have more resistance. If you wind a coil with a lot of scatter you'll get to your desired resistance faster with less turns than you will with less scatter. I can't tell you how many times I've read this post and never got it. When I did it was like a light bulb turned on.
Basically, if you wind a little looser, don't confuse me saying looser with the wire being sloppy falling off the coil, with less scatter the pickup will brighten up. Less scatter and it will fatten up and cut some highs. The trick is to get the tension and the TPL just right for the best of all things combined. Don't take my word for it. YMMV.......

Yo Bob, do you realize you are responding (with an answer) to a 9 year old post in a thread that went dormant in 2015?

Just sayin'

[mozz]

"No, with a machine wound coil, Higher number of turns, or less scatter like you're trying to fill the bobbin across 1 layer all the way until you're done winding, will, as stated above by SteikBacon, make the capacitance lower as well as the resistance, as if you made 1 turn with a flat piece of copper the width of the bobbin all the way around. More scatter will increase capacitance because the wires overlap a lot more causing an increase in capacitance with resistance"

This is wrong correct? I would think the more you scatter, your capacitance goes down. When my latest hobby was winding single coils, i used to measure inductance and then find the resonant peak with my signal generator and XY on the scope, then calculate capacitance. I think i remember tighter/closer and more uniform winds would increase capacitance. Been a while since i wound pickups, glad i bought those 5lb spools back then.

[bob]

I've been reading this post and the comments over and over and I see one person say i get this instead of that with scatter and another saying they get the opposite. Lets not forget Tension. Increasing or decreasing the tension can affect the overall tone no matter whether you're using a lot of scatter or doing a 100% fill rate.

[mozz]

If you wind very consistent and place one turn next to the previous turn i would think you will increase the capacitance. That's how a capacitor is made right? More surface area.

[Helmholtz]

Generally a looser wind can give lower capacitance.
But the result can be spoiled when the winder fills up the "valleys" of an uneven wind for a nicer look, because this lowers the distance between inner and outer turns and can significantly increase total capacitance.

It is essential to build up the coil evenly for low capacitance.

Most vintage type Strat-PUs using heavy Formvar wire measure between 50pF and 100pF.
My test comprised hand wound PUs from several boutique winders as well as machine wound (e.g. Fender) PUs including a set of original 1959 Strat PUs.
The test didn't show a clear trend between hand and machine wound.
Plain enamel insulation is thinner and increases capacitance by roughly 50pF, measured PUs ranging between 110pF and 150pF.

As PU capacitance merely adds to the much larger cable capacitance, I wouldn't worry about a difference of 50pF.

[Antigua]

The overall geometry of the coils makes a much bigger difference than the layering of the wire. A Strat coil will usually have a capacitance around 100pF, but a Jazzmaster pickup coil is closer to 50pF, and a Tele neck pickup, with a tall thin coil, is usually closer to 200pF. If the tension or scatter winding causes the overall shape of the coil to have more width, that alone can cause the capacitance to be lower. In general, tightly machine wound coils have less width.

The differences being considered, 30pF more or less based on how tight or loose the coil is, is usually not audible. That's like the difference of a foot of guitar cable, or the difference between two and four conductor wiring. I was auditioning caps for the sake of passive tone shaping, and I think I needed closer to 330pF shift in value to even notice a difference.

KevinT says on page 1, from 2008, "I know what you're saying and that is what it actually does according to scienctific principles, but i am going out on a limb here and say that it does the complete opposite for me. I notice that if i wind a coil with each turn right up against the other, and many turns per layer, the tone is bright and ice picky as opposed to when I add spacing (scatter) to each turn of wire and fewer turns per layer."

Ice pick sound can come from a lower peak frequency, especially if there is a higher Q factor. It's a result of pushing amplitude in a band of treble that stands out audibly, and possibly sounds annoying in turn. If the resonant frequency is 20kHz, there's not going to be any ice pick because the peak is beyond audible range, and beyond the speaker's range. One example of this is the JB humbucker, a lot of people saying in forums that it sounds too bright, but in fact it has a very low resonant peak frequency. Sometimes also guitarists will swap their 500k pots with 1 meg looking for more treble, but they don't increase the treble frequency, just the Q factor, or the amplitude at the existing frequency, and no surprise, it ends up giving them more of what they didn't want.

Fender pickups, having an inductance around 2 to 3 Henries, combined with a long long guitar cable, and AlNiCo cores, would have a resonant peak between 3 to 4kHz and a high Q factor, so on the one hand they're given to ice pick sound, but a trade off for approaching the edge of sounding annoying, is that they sound distinctive and grab your attention, compared to other designs that played it safe, either having a lower Q (or no Q) and a resonant frequnecy that is way above audible range. When the Q factor makes the difference between sound great and ice pick, the 250k pots in a Fender are doing some heavy lifting, but of course those pots are known for having a wide tolerance, +/- 20%. The exact values of the tone and volume pot could mean the difference between great tone and ice pick. Some might even say it's that resonant Q that makes an electric guitar sound like an electric guitar, and not like a mic'd acoustic, and to that end, Fender sounds very "electric guitar-like".