Turns Per Layer

[Meowy]

Everything else being equal, what difference should I hear if I wind a humbucker to ~5000 winds with 42 AWG at 50 TPL vs 100 TPL

Any other differences with a hotter wind or thinner (43, 44) wire?

[kevinT]

Everything else being equal, what difference should I hear if I wind a humbucker to ~5000 winds with 42 AWG at 50 TPL vs 100 TPL

With fewer TPLs, you're spreading the capacitance or the spacing between each turn of wire and layer. This reduces the higher frequencies and makes the sound of the pickup much more rich and harmonically dynamic. Basically, you're reducing the highs by decreasing the TPLs.

There is a point, where too much scatter or spacing throughout the entire coil, will make the pickup sound muddy.

With 100 TPL, the capacitance will be less between each turn/layer of wire. This will allow for more of the higher freqencies through which will make the tone of the pickup sound clearer and brighter.

Also keep in mind that less tension will make the pickup brighter/clearer. In contrast, a lot or tension may stretch the wire increasing the DC resistance which will subdue/reduce the higher freqencies.

Any other differences with a hotter wind or thinner (43, 44) wire?

With a hotter wind you will be increaseing the DCR and reducing the high end.

In terms of the actual sound you will have to experiement because there are many more factors in the equation that will affect the timbre of the pickup than just the DCR and the type of wire you're using.

In other words, suck it and see.

[Meowy]

I've handwound a few pickups to between 50 - 100. Since I am hand winding nothing of course is precise, but I try to keep my traversal fairly in line with my counter.

So far I can't attribute any difference in tone to winding at 50 vs 100 TPL, but I guess it all averages out over the entire wind. I have made a few really nice sounding humbuckers so at least I'm getting some good results. I've read "the number" for a burstbucker is 64 so assuming that is correct I suppose I am within the ballpark.

Is it fair to say that TPL is not as critical with hand winding as it is with a machine wind given of the lack of precision?

[David Schwab]

I always thought more scatter = less capacitance since each turn is farther apart? Less capacitance would make a brighter pickup.

[kevinT]

I always thought more scatter = less capacitance since each turn is farther apart? Less capacitance would make a brighter pickup.

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. I find that it smooths out the brittleness and harshness and makes the pickup more dynamic. The tone is just more pleasant to my ears. I am not an electrical engineer and I don't know all the technical stuff. However, i am just describing what i experience and what i hear.

Here is a quote from Tim from Bare Knuckles off of his web site.

"When a coil is scatterwound, the wire isn't as close or even, layer on layer, as with a machine and this lowers the distributed capacitance that exists between the turns of the wire. Lower capacitance allows more top end through, the resonant peak increases slightly and the pickup has a flatter frequency response across its range. The result is a clearer, more open sound that has the impression of being louder purely by the amount of extra detail and dynamics present."

Here is a definition from guitarelectronics.com's glossary which i think is taken off of seymour's site. To me it is vague.

Distributed Capacitance - The capacitance which exists turn-to-turn and layer-to-layer between the wires of a coil. This property combines with the coil's inductance to produce a resonant peak. Post resonance, distributed capacitance acts like a built-in tone pot and rolls off high frequency response. (See "Resonant Peak").

[David Schwab]

Resonant peak

Here's what I think is going on. I recently made some bass pickups, and the client wanted a very bright bridge pickup, and a neck pickup that sounded like an upright bass. So I would the neck pickup to sound very full with a strong bottom end, and wound the bridge with about 1000 turns less per coil.

So the bridge ends up not sounding as bright as I expected. The high end was there, but it was very smooth. Then I tried the hotter neck pickup at the bridge, and that was very bright and clangy! That was a real surprise.

I realized the reason was it had a lower resonant peak, which was accentuating the upper mids and treble, while the other pickup's peak was much higher, so it was flatter and less pronounced.

[SteikBacon]

If a pickup is machinemade and is supertight turn to turn... Then the capasitance will work with less resistance, like in one turn. Scatterwound the wire will meet itself after many turns, more resistance. The machinemade should get the same (more even) amount of resistance vs capasitence spread through the coil, while scatterwound would spread the amount (but also have higher) resistance vs capasitence..

And machinewound will probably have higher number of this capasitance (wire is closer) than scatter.....

Higher capasitance will kill the treble, but so will higher resistance where the capasitance appear.

Does this seem right??

[madialex]

Well all I can say is, when I wind with fairly tight tension and tight scatter " I hand wind" I get bright but very musical pickups. As a test I wound one with looser scatter, same tension and noticed the bottom end fattening up and the top rolling off. Tried it looser tension tight scatter and even worse, muddier and top was almost flat sounding. YMMV

[madialex]

But Paalease someone put an end to the debate!! Is it this way or that way. Anyone truly know??

[Steve Conner]

I think it's quite a hard question to answer. The capacitance is distributed throughout the pickup coils, so the simplistic model of a single LC resonant circuit doesn't really apply.

But I'm going to assume that it does apply and have a go anyway. I would say that more scatter (which I take to mean the same as less TPL) would increase the self-capacitance and hence lower the self-resonant frequency, but with reservations.

Reasoning:

1: If there are fewer turns per layer, then each turn must mingle more with turns from other layers. Therefore, there are more turns between "meetings" on average and so the mean voltage across the wire dielectric is greater. All other things being equal, this means more self-capacitance referred to the pickup terminals. (Proof of this is by conservation of energy.)

2: Increasing tension should increase self-capacitance too, by packing the wires in more intimate contact. This should be a quite independent effect, assuming you can control tension and TPL independently.

3: But on the other hand, decreasing TPL will tend to pack the wire less efficiently (it crosses instead of lying neatly side-by-side) which would decrease the capacitance. This effect fights against effect 1 (in other words, all other things are not equal as I stated) and so I couldn't say for sure which effect wins out. But I think 1 wins out as it is a square-law effect, whereas 3 is linear.

[Stratz]

Thats pretty much my experience as well. I get up to as high as 200 tpl on Strat singles and they just drip with beautiful tones.

Well all I can say is, when I wind with fairly tight tension and tight scatter " I hand wind" I get bright but very musical pickups. As a test I wound one with looser scatter, same tension and noticed the bottom end fattening up and the top rolling off. Tried it looser tension tight scatter and even worse, muddier and top was almost flat sounding. YMMV

[Joe Gwinn]

It's easy enough to tell with a few measurements on some test coils.

[David Schwab]

Well all I can say is, when I wind with fairly tight tension and tight scatter " I hand wind" I get bright but very musical pickups. As a test I wound one with looser scatter, same tension and noticed the bottom end fattening up and the top rolling off. Tried it looser tension tight scatter and even worse, muddier and top was almost flat sounding. YMMV

That's exactly my observations as well. I wind with fairly high tension (by hand) and wind very neatly. Scattering has always made them sound darker to me, which was the opposite of what I was expecting.

[Mike Sulzer]

I think it's quite a hard question to answer. The capacitance is distributed throughout the pickup coils, so the simplistic model of a single LC resonant circuit doesn't really apply.

It is a much better approximation than you might think, but you are correct, it cannot be an exact model. I have not measured any significant discrepancies, but you can always look harder.

[Mike Sulzer]

It is a much better approximation than you might think, but you are correct, it cannot be an exact model. I have not measured any significant discrepancies, but you can always look harder.

Brightness in a pickup is very much affected by the Q, the height of the resonant peak. If you wind tighter, there are two competing effects, wire stretching, which tends to raise the resistance, and packing the wire into a smaller space,which tends to lower the resistance because you do not need as much wire. I suspect that the second effect is more important, but it would be interesting to do some experiments.

So if you lower the resistance, you make the Q higher, and it is brighter. It could be that simple. Nah, nothing is ever that simple!