Mystic

How about these...

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tuners/Guitar,...es.html#details

Here's how I do it.

http://mysticpickups.com/MysticPickups/Assembly.html

It's not as easy as it looks.

I added some assembly pictures to my web site. Here's the link

http://mysticpickups.com/MysticPickups/Assembly.html

Comments? sugestions?

The other thing to remember is that no 2 PAF pickups sound the same. Some sound great and some sound not so good. I've heard sound clips in A/B test and the boutique ones sound just as good maybe even better. (I'm kind of biased though since I make them). The only way I'd spend the money on the real deal is if I was restoring an old guitar that was worth six figures.

There really is an electical reason for the preference for scatterwinding...but you are right. Solid state vs Valve amps have similar origins historically. The way pickups were made in the 50's they could not be helped but be scatterwound, and that became a part of the guitar's sound...similarly, it was hard to get a hi-fi sound from tube amps and even hi wattage amps were pushed because of a lack of PA equipment...

Hand making anything is going to cost money. There is no reason that a perfectly good pickup can't be made cheaply by machine...you pay a lot to have someone put in the extras and hand build to their own sound. There is a lot of voodoo about pickups however and they should not be seen in isolation...they have to match the guitar, the amp and the music you intend to make with them.

I think that far too muc is made of high powered, overwound pickups for instance. I think that lower powered pickups could make for a far superior sound and with the amount of effects and preamplification typically used, there really is no reason not to go down that route. EMG's for instance are popular for their clear articulated sound...they have lower powered magnets and coils but compensate with preamps that easily put out more power than a typical passive...

In the end it is a matter of taste and the extent that you can really hear those differences... pete

Well said.

the other thing to keep in mind is thet pickups which are scatterwound do sound better and a machine has a hard time duplicating that. A lot better? maybe yes maybe no, it all depends on the guitar and most of all your ears. I agree that spending a lot of money on pickups is silly, but not all hand-wound pickups are expensive. I think once you go over $140 per pickup you have entered " Hype land"

I've looking for pickups for a new guitar build. I going to get a pair of humbuckers. After much looking a searching and probably getting more confused, I don't understand the wild variance in prices.

A pickup is basically magnets and wires, no electronic parts. The output is the result of magnet strength, wire gauge and number of coils on a bobbin. Now I can understand there may be a variance in output if the windings aren't exact. What is attributed to a bad pickup vs a good pickup? Magnet quality, wire quality or is it the care of the workmanship?

Here's the low down. I've been debating between GFS (FAT PAFS); at a very reasonable cost of about $60 for the pair and a set of hand wound boutiques by Jon Moore; his V-59 for the cost of about $160.

So I'm really trying to understand if there is a huge difference in sound quality in respect to the difference in cost?

thx

There are over 30 partys in a humbucker pickup. There is a picture on my web site ( http://mysticpickups.com/MysticPickups/pictures.html ) Everything contributes to the "tone" a pickup gets. There are a lot of different types of wire and the wind pattern makes a huge difference (how many wraps per turn, scaterwound, etc). Even cheap ones sound good in the right guitar, but "boutique" pickups have had more R&D go into what they sound like. It takes me about 3 hours from start to finish to make a pickup. Even a few hundred turns + or - makes a difference that can be heard. Whether it's potted or not and "how it's potted makes a difference too. Some cars cost over a million dollars and some cost verry little, It's the same thing with pickups, Made by hand one at a time or made on a machine twenty at a time and assembled in China.

Hi, this is my first post so hello

Probably the most noob question about pickups ever, but i don't care

my question is, say i just wound my own pickups, how do i attach the wires that connect to my 5 way selector and what not, do u just use the wire u used to wind the pickups wih or do u solder a new wire onto the end of it or what, i have no clue, please help

yes, already i know i'm a dumbass.

thanks in advance

here are instructions for humbuckers. There are instructions for other types on this site as well

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_p...61.html#details