Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions
Posted: Sun 12/05/21 6:42 pm
I've wound a few pickups in my time.
It sounds to me that what you're after more than anything is mismatched coils. Why not get an old sewing machine and hit Mojotone for a kit to build. It's really rewarding. The day you hit an amp with the first pickup you made is utter bliss. If you made the amp yourself too it's even better, probably, I dunno. It's a once in a lifetime experience so you don't get to assess that initial feeling twice.
Mismatching coils is pretty much the secret to the PAF's that actually sounded good.
You're going for around 5000 winds of 42g copper around each bobbin on a balanced pickup. So to mismatch that, I'd be looking at a 15% difference in the number of winds. Say 5500 on your polepiece bobbin and 4800 on the slug bobbin (just to take you over a bit) It seems to edge a humbucker towards what they lose from the single coil sound. Much more than 15-20% and you start introducing noticeable amounts of noise. While that ain't the end of the world. Cos lets face it, single coils sound great, it's enough to make you question the pickup. Dimarzio do this a lot, though they have some mystical way of working it out based on the inductance of the coil. And use the mismatching to shape sounds/character of their pickups to a degree that's beyond me.
It sounds to me that what you're after more than anything is mismatched coils. Why not get an old sewing machine and hit Mojotone for a kit to build. It's really rewarding. The day you hit an amp with the first pickup you made is utter bliss. If you made the amp yourself too it's even better, probably, I dunno. It's a once in a lifetime experience so you don't get to assess that initial feeling twice.
Mismatching coils is pretty much the secret to the PAF's that actually sounded good.
You're going for around 5000 winds of 42g copper around each bobbin on a balanced pickup. So to mismatch that, I'd be looking at a 15% difference in the number of winds. Say 5500 on your polepiece bobbin and 4800 on the slug bobbin (just to take you over a bit) It seems to edge a humbucker towards what they lose from the single coil sound. Much more than 15-20% and you start introducing noticeable amounts of noise. While that ain't the end of the world. Cos lets face it, single coils sound great, it's enough to make you question the pickup. Dimarzio do this a lot, though they have some mystical way of working it out based on the inductance of the coil. And use the mismatching to shape sounds/character of their pickups to a degree that's beyond me.