How to brighten up neck pickup winding?

[glennv]

Newbie here and to pickup building. I teach high school physics and engineering and I've got my kids making automated pickup winding machines. I've been sourcing parts from Philadelphia Luthiers. We've had success winding several A5 and A8 humbucker that sound great in the bridge position of any guitar but non have been suitable for the neck position. Too dark. 5000 winds in each coil, wax potted, 44 gauge poly wire.

Any resources out there?

[Helmholtz]

What kind of neck PU sound are you after?
Can we see pictures?

PU brightness depends on a number of things, like PU dimensions, PU position, conductive construction materials (eddy currents) but most of all on the resonance peak.
PU resonance is mainly determined by inductance and the effective load capacitance, which is the sum of cable capacitance and winding capacitance.
How does the PU sound with a very short (low capacitance) cable?
Less turns will give lower inductance and is the most effective measure to increase treble.
The thin wire gauge and the potting tend to increase PU self-capacitance.

[mozz]

I think you should be using 42awg for humbuckers, 5000 turns would fill the coil. Smaller gauge is usually when you want to get a higher output/distortion type pickup.More experienced with single coils but I'm sure other will chime in.

[John_H]

Fewer turns as was mentioned earlier is effective. Higher tension, and high 'turn per layer' count will also help. You could also try a high pass filter / treble bleed circuit. Don't pot the pickups. see link...
https://infinityguitarworks.com/2022...leed-circuits/

[Helmholtz]

https://infinityguitarworks.com/2022...leed-circuits/

The article mixes up milli Farad (mF) and micro Farad (µF). Difference is a factor of 1000.
A treble bleed circuit makes no difference with volume fully up.

[Helmholtz]

Also make sure to plug into a real guitar amp having a high (>500k) input impedance.
Low amp input impedance kills highs.
Use 500k guitar controls.

Personally I like a neck humbucker with 4500 turns per coil for a nice Gibson type neck sound.

[big_teee]

I agree with the others.
Here's my breakdown of the duncan Seth Lover neck.
I've wound it several times, and it is a good bright sounding pickup, IMO.
Metal covers can also kill the highs.

[John_H]

The article mixes up milli Farad (mF) and micro Farad (µF). Difference is a factor of 1000.

Good catch. I confess, I didn't very carefully read the article.

A treble bleed circuit makes no difference with volume fully up.

I find this as more of a feature than a fault. At lower settings, the high pass allows the emphasis on the upper part of the spectrum allowing for a little more presence or 'sparkle'. At full 'volume', with no load from the pot, it's not so desirable. My favorite neck humbucker is offset wound ~4.9k turns on the slug bobbin and 4.7 on the screw side. AlNiCo V.

[Helmholtz]

I find this as more of a feature than a fault. At lower settings, the high pass allows the emphasis on the upper part of the spectrum allowing for a little more presence or 'sparkle'. At full 'volume', with no load from the pot, it's not so desirable. My favorite neck humbucker is offset wound ~4.9k turns on the slug bobbin and 4.7 on the screw side. AlNiCo V.

Sure, a suitable treble bleed circuit is very useful as it can compensate the treble loss when rolling back the volume (the increasing pot series resistance together with the cable capacitance form a treble cut or low pass filter). The higher the pot resistance, the more a treble bleed makes sense. Even Leo knew.
At full volume it is out-of-circuit.
As most players compare PUs with volume fully up, I'm not sure if this solves the OPs problem.

BTW, I prefer somewhat degaussed A4 (so much weaker than fully charged A5) magnets as with original PAFs.
And very low carbon (1010 or lower) pole screws.