Need Strat neck pickup advice

[GlennW]

I've been working on getting my fake Strat to sound good and need some advice on what to do for a neck pickup. Here's what the other two are in case that's important.

Middle: Fender Am Std bridge pickup; 7.79K, 42 (I guess)

Bridge: Gibson P-90, 8.58K, 42 (guessing again)

Here's what I've tried for the neck:

4.9K, 43, didn't like it

6.3K, 43, good, but not what I'm after

6.63K 42?, Am Std, pretty good, but not quite

7.63K about 4K od 42? with 43 added, ok, but too quiet

7.70K, 42, old Fender, pretty good, but not quite

10.92K, 43, nope

11.29K, 43, nope

The two I liked most are 6.63K and 7.70K Fender pickups, guessing 42 Formvar.

I'm looking for something with a little more bottom, and I'm going to start peeling wire off the 10.92K and testing, and repeat as necessary.

My question is am I barking up the wrong tree with 43? Or should I try something like 8-9K with 42?

I'm after that big/hollow Strat sound on the neck...kind of like Roy's Nancy neck pickup as well...something like that.

[chevalij]

I'm personally amazed you can get 7.7k worth of 42 on a standard strat bobbin! If you want to go for 8-9k with 42, you'll have to build a very tall bobbin. Maybe go flat-pole with .710 mags?

[GlennW]

I'm personally amazed you can get 7.7k worth of 42 on a standard strat bobbin!

It's stock as far as I know, probably a bridge pickup. I'm guessing it's 42 because I never heard of Fender using 43 in Strats in the 70s-early 80s.

I unwound the 10.92K some and ended up with 7.92K of 43. It sounds better, but I might take a little more off after playing it some more.

I do have a DiMarzio core that's tall, might try that with 42 if this pickup with the 43 doesn't work out.

[madialex]

With 42 at 6.6K you should have plenty of bottom and good highs as well. How are you winding it> It must be very tight to get 7 and 8 K worth of 42 on it which may be part of the problem. Wind it with looser tension, make the coil with the middle rounded a little and try changing your wind pitch. Hell if anything the ones I have wound in the past almost have too much bottom if i'm not careful about the tension

[GlennW]

I use an egg beater style drill and my thumb and finger for tension. That's how all the pickups with 43 were wound. The pickups with 42, and I'm guessing at the 42, are stock Fender Am Std except for the 7.70K which is an older Fender. I'll take a picture of the Fenders without covers, maybe you guys can look at them knowing the K spec and tell if they have 42. Thanks for the tension tip, I'll keep that in mind when I wind again.

On the neck pickup with 43, it started at 10.92K, then I unwound it to 7.92 which was better, then to about 7.5K which was better yet. It's still sounds a little choked, and playing a Chuck Berry type rhythm it sounds muddled unless the tone is around 8-10. I started thinking 42 would be the way to go, and since the middle pickup is about 7.79K of 42 (I think) I tried it in the neck position. Big improvement, so now I might wind one with 42 on the tall DiMarzio bobbin or just add some 42 to another pickup and see what happens. I don't think 43 will work for what I want.

I just measured them again, and they're a little different. The old Fender is the one without the radiused magnets and is 7.64K.

On the Am Std set:
neck, white wire, 6.72K
middle, red wire, 6.68K
bridge, yellow wire, 7.85K

Do you think they're wound with 42?

[madialex]

On the Am Std set:
neck, white wire, 6.72K
middle, red wire, 6.68K
bridge, yellow wire, 7.85K

Do you think they're wound with 42?

Yep, with the coil as full as it is and the DCR of them i'd definately say 42

[lowell]

maybe try putting your bridge pickup in the neck and put a 9k bridge pickup in? I like that combo.

[GlennW]

Thanks again for the replies. I'll try to load up an Am Std bobbin with 42, if that doesn't do it I'll try the taller DiMarzio bobbin. I learned a lot yesterday. I did try the bridge pickup at the neck and it was the best sounding so far, but I like it so much in the middle it will stay there...two down, one to go.

[Mal88]

The easy way to Tune your Pickups

If you want more bottom, then stop wasting your time with rewinding your pickup and understand that the pickup is an inductive voltage generator and not a resistive voltage generator - it then becomes obvious that the reactive inductance and the volume pot resistance form a first order low pass filter, and that specifies your 3 dB frequency point.

If you changed your Tone control to a 1 M log pot and put a 10 K min limit in series - and put this across your volume pot, then the 3 dB frequency point can be adjusted at will.

If you want to get a little smarter then replace the Tone control with a 12 position switch, and put 12 capacitors in a geometric progression so that they create a second order low pass filter with the 3 dB cut-off position clearly defined on a musical octave or two - and the Tone pot can control the amount of resonant peak.

When I get back from holidays (end of October) I will put the detail on my website.

Hope that helps

[GlennW]

I appreciate your input, but I'm not going to regroup and toss out everything when there's only one piece of the puzzle to go.

[GlennW]

I put about 7.65K of 42 on an AM Std bobbin and it sounds a lot better than the pickups with 43; the tone can be turned down without mudding up. I'll try the taller bobbin tonight or tomorrow and see how that sounds.

When I started getting into this stuff a few years ago I think I read that the Texas Specials were wound with 43, and that's what influenced me to take the wrong path.

[salvarsan]

When I started getting into this stuff a few years ago I think I read that the Texas Specials were wound with 43, and that's what influenced me to take the wrong path.

They might still be 43.
Have you tried AWG 43 with a heavy/double build insulation?

-drh

[GlennW]

I haven't. When I ordered wire from wirenetics I got two spools which were about 2 1/2 pounds each, 42 and 43 solderon. That's all I've ever used.

[63superreverb]

I had a Lindy Fralin set from the early 90s in my strat...normal set not the hot rod set...my favorite pickup has always been the neck for most playing...the low E string from the B flat up to the nut was booming out every amp i played through no matter what the height was on the pickups...it measured close to 7.00 around 6.91 it was always a love hate thing with this PU...I called Jason Lollar...he answered the phone...rather than trying to sell me a pickup...he suggested taking some windings off...I took it down to 5.81...new strings..super nice sounding pickup now..balanced...still has the power to push the tubes.....I generally don't post but i didnt see anything in the five range...hope this helps you out...
If i ever order any pickups for another guitar i am going to give lollar a call after this experiance...love my fralins still though..

[GlennW]

Thanks for breaking your posting cherry on my account. A few weeks ago I did rewind one to 5.82K for the neck, but haven't tried it yet. I'm fairly satisfied with the one that's in there, but a lot of people who know suggest something a little below 6K. I'll make a point of trying it during the holidays.

I'm not going to mess with the tall DiMarzio; that would probably be a step in the wrong direction, and might even require some additional routing so it would go down far enough.