Wire gauge and tone changes

[GunbarrelCustom]

I have played a few Tele pickups that use 43 awg and 42 awg and have noticed differences.

What would be the changes to tone and dynamics, all things equal, if you filled a P-90 bobbin with 42 versus 38 awg magnet wire? I think the resistance would go down making the 38 brighter with similar output?

I'm not a troll just a nubee.

Thanks!

[big_teee]

On tone, the best is just to make several pickups differently and compare them.
I just did that with my Ibanez bass with soap bar humbucker pickups.
Hard to get all the tonal qualities I wanted in the neck pickup.
So Right now I have 4 made up. I have a low wound 38 gauge, full bobbins, that measure 1.7k total.
I have a 41 Gauge Pickup that measures at 5.4k.
I have a 42HPN pickup that measures near 7.4k.
And, last but so far the best I think is a 42 SPN pickup the wire is large at .00275", and it was 8k, I reduced it to 7.3k.
It was a little muddy on the big E string at 8k, it sounds much better at 7.3k.
All 4 pickups have qualities I like.
I seem to get used to and adpat to each one if I play it a while.
So I recommend winding several and play each one a day or two.
With winding there is a lot of experimenting, and wire removal.
Good Luck,
T

[guitician]

38awg is really thick wire, relatively, for a pickup. Is that something you have, or want to experiment with? It would make for a much weaker pickup because you would not be able to wind as many turns.

[big_teee]

38awg is really thick wire, relatively, for a pickup. Is that something you have, or want to experiment with? It would make for a much weaker pickup because you would not be able to wind as many turns.

I thought that too, until I just did the experiment with the Ibby bass buckers.
I wouldn't recommend it on a bridge pickup, but worth a try on a neck pickup.
The Charlie Christian is a 38 gauge neck pickup.
T
I use the gauge of the wire, and the diameter of the coil to help set the tone of the pickup.

[GunbarrelCustom]

The CC pickup is why I asked about 38.

I guess I could even ask about .026" poly versus .029 heavy formvar with both 42 awg.

[big_teee]

I liked the 38 on my bass neck pickup.
Not overly hot, but a nice warm tone with full coils.

[Durrant Pickups]

this is what i love about pickups. "good tone" is totally based on the listener, you may not like a certain pickup but someone else listens to it and loves it or vice versa. always keep all of your prototypes and come back to them a few weeks later you may find your opinion on it has changed.

[guitician]

OK, I didn't know that about the CC pup. You learn something new every day. I wound a Strat pup once with 40awg and it was weak, but I didn't really overfill the bobbin either, or count the turns for that matter, that was before the internet. Thanks

[GunbarrelCustom]

I was looking at the Lollar website and he uses stronger magnets when using thicker wire. That must be the way to get around the low power due to fewer wraps of larger wire. I'm not sure how the CC pickup is constructed, but my guess is you need to make a bobbin large enough to get enough wraps, or use stronger magnets. I'm not sure I want to tackle this right now!

[big_teee]

I was looking at the Lollar website and he uses stronger magnets when using thicker wire. That must be the way to get around the low power due to fewer wraps of larger wire. I'm not sure how the CC pickup is constructed, but my guess is you need to make a bobbin large enough to get enough wraps, or use stronger magnets. I'm not sure I want to tackle this right now!

If you're talking about a P90, and want stronger magnets, just use 2 C8 Ceramic magnets.
That would be plenty strong.
T