Unplugged sound in an electric guitar

txbumper57

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Yup! I also played a first-year ('52) LP this past weekend with great P-90s. Very clear, not so hot & gritty (though that has its place too). But the staples are elegant. :)



One of my more recent "experiment" guitars is a Reverend Jetsteam with three of their P-90s. The 'tweener positions are among the best I've heard. There's quack but also more midrange body than you'll get with a stock Strat. Triple pickup Rickies put the neck & middle pickups together with stock wiring. This too gives a great fatter quack tone.

-Dave-

I love everything about triple pickup Rickies but the neck. I always found it too cramped for me.

TX
 

adorshki

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As far as the Franz pickups are concerned, "microphonic" is meant as a term of endearment.
Right, and I was just remembering last night, somebody dissected a set a few years back and mentioned the windings looked like a "bird's nest".
These days you can order your cutom p/u's "scatterwound", supposed to sound "warmer".
Probably contributes to microphonic effect too, or maybe that's actually why they sound that way..
 

bluesypicky

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Right, and I was just remembering last night, somebody dissected a set a few years back and mentioned the windings looked like a "bird's nest".
These days you can order your cutom p/u's "scatterwound", supposed to sound "warmer".
Probably contributes to microphonic effect too, or maybe that's actually why they sound that way..

Pickup winding has to be the most inexact science there is.
Every attempt at reproducing vintage pickups (discussed at length here in the past) has always been a failure to some degree.
 

adorshki

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Pickup winding has to be the most inexact science there is.
Every attempt at reproducing vintage pickups (discussed at length here in the past) has always been a failure to some degree.
Yeah, just mentioning one of the details about Franz's that's been suggested as at least part of the reason for their warmth, tends to support Neal's impression, and that enough makers believe it creates a different frequency profile to keep offering the construction to those who want it.
Still, in support of your original statement, dare I trot out the quote from Hendrix's equipment tech?:
"Basically, what became very apparent with pickups is exactly what I thought before we started: They really don't make much difference! I would say they're one of the most vastly overrated parts of the guitar itself. If you understand electronics, you understand that as the inductance of the pickup increases—that is, as the number of turns on the pickup increases—all that happens is you get a larger output, and you effectively get less high-frequency response due to the fact that the inductance of the pickups rises. It's a trade-off.
"And after making several experiments, which probably covered all the number of pickup turns that are available now, I came to the conclusion that Leo probably had it about right! There wasn't much to be gained by deviating from the 7,000 turns or so on a regular pickup."
 

mad dog

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Individual electric guitars seem to have distinct personalities, plugged or unplugged. At least in my experience.

Whether you care about the unplugged sound of an electric or not is your choice. I do care, in part because I spend a lot of time playing electrics unplugged, also because I so often hear interesting things in those unplugged sounds. The most recent example: I just bought a used Samick RL-3 semihollow electric for a friend who wants to learn guitar. He has no amp now, likely won't have one for awhile. IMO, having an extremely playable electric that you can still hear very well is a great place to start learning. This guitar sure does fit the bill.

In setting it up and getting to know the RL-3, I have plugged it in quite a bit. Many cool sounds here, one being a hard to describe little snarl you get when slurring or bending certain notes on the inside treble strings (G and B). I don't hear that sound on my other semihollow guitars, and like it a lot. You can actually hear it unplugged. Rather subtle without the volume, but clearly this sound is related to how the parts on this guitar are interacting when certain strings are plucked.

Perhaps I would not hear that if I believed only pickups mattered in electric guitars. Next time I see my guru, I'll ask.
 

txbumper57

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The thing about the old strat pickups from the 50's and early 60's is they were all the same or at least meant to be. I used to have a friend who worked for Fender back in the day assembling guitars and he let me in in the secret of those wonderful pickups from that era, The secret was that there was no secret! LOL, I know in today's modern world we all worry about resistance values and where each pickup needs to be installed, etc.... He told me back in that time period there were no Neck, Middle, and Bridge pickup designations. There was just a huge bin of "Strat" Pickups that had all been mass produced and you grabbed three out of the bin and put them in the guitar in the order you grabbed them! Basically "Pot Luck". Your neck pickup could have been 6.01K and your bridge pickup could have been 5.46K in the same guitar. I guess that is why some Strats sounded better than others and why folks are constantly trying to reproduce certain characteristics of certain original pickup sets. I thought that was pretty cool when he shared that story with me.

TX
 

GAD

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Pickup winding has to be the most inexact science there is.
Every attempt at reproducing vintage pickups (discussed at length here in the past) has always been a failure to some degree.

I've spoken with many winders about this and the art of winding.

As the Hendrix tech quote above seems to indicate, pickups are just spools of wire. How hard could it be? Well, I'd argue that with high gain or fuzz, the subtleties are lost.

That coil of wire is a very complex thing when it comes down to math and physics. Different coils behave differently and have different resonant peaks (pickups behave better at different frequencies). This is well known to EEs (Electrical Engineers), but it's a bit beyond the typical non-EE to be honest because there's a lot of math involved and the complexities of what otherwise appears to be a simple circuit are huge. Why does a high-value pot make the guitar brighter? Because it changes the behavior of the LCR circuit in regard to filtering. Here's a nice article on that: http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/t...ersus-500k-pots-going-deeper-into-the-subject

The "secret" of a pickup is the recipe according to every winder I've talked to. How they're wound in what pattern for how long with what wire, etc. etc. Yes, the bobbins, the magnets, and all the parts play a part, as does how tightly wound the wire is going back to the Franz microphonic thing. I firmly believe that pickup winding is as much art as it is science. I've had a lot of pickups and I know what I like and I know that some sound better than others. For example, I like Guild HB1s because the seem to consistently deliver the sound and performance that I love. What's the secret? I have no idea. That's why I keep buying them. :wink:

The problem is compounded by the fact that these super-secret recipes are trying to replicate a standard that probably didn't exist. PAFs are notoriously inconsistent and may have different windings between any two pair since they were wound on machines controlled by humans. Plus age may play a factor. Bobbins deform, magnets degrade over time, and who knows what else may have happened to make a perfect pickup become perfect.

Check out this video about ThroBak using a Gibson Vintage Winder with the secret sauce covered by a towel.

 

GAD

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Check out Fender Master Pickup Winder Abigail Ybarra wind pickups by moving the wire by hand. I especially love her comment at the end about how they all had little sewing machine motors to wind their pickups with:

 

fronobulax

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In which we come to the same conclusion about electrics that we did about acoustics - there is both art and science behind what your ears eventually hear and we will continue to discuss in hope of additional insight.

:)
 

Neal

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I presume that '50's era Franz's would have been hand-wound in the same fashion as the Fender "sewing machine" approach?

I had this mental picture of some poor soul sitting at a table with the bobbin in one hand and the coil in the other, wrapping and wrapping...
 

walrus

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Huh.... correct me if I'm wrong but, it is an electric guitar isn't it? (As opposed to an electro-acoustic where the actual "acoustic" properties matter...)
Don't mean to smart @$$ the remark here (or do I?..... :devilish:) but I've always been tickled and even puzzled by folks commenting on the acoustical merits of an electric guitar. :confused:


This thread is very interesting and informative! bluesy, I'm glad you got me riled up enough with your post to make me start this thread! You are a master manipulator! :joyous:

walrus
 

bluesypicky

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Eh eh eh......not sure if I'd call it "manipulation", (instigation maybe?) but glad I could get a conversation started! ;)
 

krysh

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I disagree with jimis tech. pickups can make a huge difference.

...getting beer and popcorn...;)
 

adorshki

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I disagree with jimis tech. pickups can make a huge difference.

...getting beer and popcorn...;)
:biggrin-new:
I tossed that out there just to see what came back.
It occurs to me that Roger was after all talking about experiments he performed on Jimi's Strats specifically, although it does sound like a generic assertion about the importance of pickups compared to the guitar itself.
Don't know what he'd say about how construction characteristics would affect output, but he does have the engineering creds.
(Remember this guy invented the fuzz box and Jimi's Octavia amongst other things)
In fact I do agree with Greg, because what he explains is in fact correct:
That coil of wire is a very complex thing when it comes down to math and physics. Different coils behave differently and have different resonant peaks (pickups behave better at different frequencies).....How they're wound in what pattern for how long with what wire, etc. etc. Yes, the bobbins, the magnets, and all the parts play a part, as does how tightly wound the wire is going back to the Franz microphonic thing.
And Mad dog's input is worthy of emphasis too:
In setting it up and getting to know the RL-3, I have plugged it in quite a bit. Many cool sounds here, one being a hard to describe little snarl you get when slurring or bending certain notes on the inside treble strings (G and B). I don't hear that sound on my other semihollow guitars, and like it a lot. You can actually hear it unplugged. Rather subtle without the volume, but clearly this sound is related to how the parts on this guitar are interacting when certain strings are plucked.
 
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Quantum Strummer

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Before winding machines with counters came along, the folks guiding the pickup wire just aimed by sight to fill the coils to a certain amount…often as full as they could get 'em. Some coils were wrapped tighter (less prone to microphonics), others looser (more prone). Some coils were wound with the wire distributed evenly, others are less uniform. The sonic differences in all this can be subtle, but they are there.

Err…just noticed most of this post is totally redundant here! :boxing:

-Dave-
 
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