My coilwinders

[Rob S]

I saw something on the internet about making a winder from an old floppy disc drive...

I've seen this too but when I looked for it just then I fell into the internet-I'll-not-get anything-done-at-this-rate trap...

look

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/04/

http://epierce.blog.usf.edu/feeds/author/philliptorrone

That's why I fish

[SK66]

when it comes to machine winding, it's all in how you program the machine.

And the truth is, there are already a million pickups out there suitable for every player.... Duncan/Dimarzio et all. The problem is there are too many choices....

[David Schwab]

And the truth is, there are already a million pickups out there suitable for every player.... Duncan/Dimarzio et all. The problem is there are too many choices....

Exactly... as long as they are variations on a theme, i.e., Fender or Gibson pickups, how much can you do in those confines?

Then there's the issue that if you do something really different, most guitar players aren't interested because it's not the sound they grew up with on their favorite classic rock records.

For example, how many guitar players want a very hi-fi transparent sounding pickup? Not many. Maybe jazz players. But this is the kind of thing many bass players look for.

It also goes back to the guitar makers. Before there was a market for replacement pickups, you got what ever pickup came with your guitar. With the exception of DeArmond, most pickups were OEM for that maker's guitars. Some makers like Guild and Gretch used a few different brands of pickups. DiMarzio got started because they offered something different... hot humbuckers. Schecter did the hot tapped single coils. Duncan got started doing custom rewinds. EMG found their market with "active" pickups. Lace did something different.

So that's where's it's at I guess... either do something radical, and hope it catches on, or offer some kind of added value... people like the idea of boutique makers, even if their products aren't so radically different from something Duncan might offer. But hand wound pickups do have a certain tone that seems to be hard to get with mass produced pickups...

[ken]

I do notice that bass players aren't as uptight about their pickups as guitarists are, they are more 'tone oriented' and don't worry so much about construction
details just so they sound good. The problem for me is that I want to do more 'way out' designs too, but these don't seem to sell too well. So, I make a few special pickups for myself, and the customers get the more usual designs. I have a couple of my customers who will experiment a bit tonally, and they will ask me if I have any 'weirdo' pickups for them.

Ken