Plain Enamel Vs Poly Vs Heavy Formvar In a Guitar Pickup
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2019
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Does the insulation typ on the pickup wire affect your tone?
Poly vs plain enamel, vs Heavy formvar?
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I once asked Jimi Hendrix what wire insulation he prefers in his pickups. He punched me in the face and told me to get out of his dressing room. Eric Clapton was much nicer about it and told me he prefers fat from whales ethically harvested from the northern Atlantic (heavier tone).
If they could have compared both, they would have a favorite too. Huge difference. Just compare some yourself. That is all that matters. Dont believe some guy TALKING about sound, PLAY BOTH STYLES YOURSELF fast 1/b in same guitar, all rest same except the wire. BIG DIFFERENCE
I have a combination of enamel and poly in my one guitar since there are mixed pickup brands. They sound great together. Even though there’s different materials from the different brands, they sound as if it’s all made from the same pickup company. I was actually happily shocked
It's impossible to test side by side because unless the pickup is wound by a computer identically on a mchine with super high tolerances, there is no way to make two pickups exactly for testing purposes alike regsrdless of the coating.
@@email3575 You obviously have not seen Highline Guitars UA-cam Channel, which you should. He winds his own Pickups to great success and has some awesome tutorials on the subject of Pickup winding, so he will surely know the difference. :-)
Also, handwound pickups will ALWAYS sound different from each other. You'd need a complete automated winding process to eliminate the factor of differentiating pickup winding. There might be a difference based on capacitance etc., but if the insulation is the same thickness, very little difference should be noticable.
“It doesn’t matter” - Awesome
All said is true. Only, one thing is still not mentioned here, and that is the so-called "form factor", or, Nagaoka's Factor... That actually playes a role when we talk about different thickness of insulating material. Bottom line here is, how much of the coil is pure Copper, and how much in % is waisted on insulation...😉
Huge difference. Just compare some yourself. That is all that matters. Dont believe some guy TALKING about sound, PLAY BOTH STYLES YOURSELF fast 1/b in same guitar, all rest same except the wire. BIG DIFFERENCE
I totally agree. I only use Poly wire on the pickups I build and they sound fantastic.
There is one element that wasn't mentioned, that is factor in overall tone.
Age.
Plain enamel _deteriorates_ over time and that deterioration can be accelerated under certain conditions. Much more so than the poly coats. This can alter the coil in a major way. Think of it as being like a new building settling in over time.
I tend to like it when this happens because the results tend to lean more towards what I look for in a pickup.
However. The downside to this is that your precious pickup is also one step closer to total failure as a result.
Those great "vintage" pickups that you drool over now (me too) don't sound the same as they did when they were new. And remember, many a good "vintage" pickup, died along the way.
Just go with the poly and build them right to begin with.
Most PAFs died because of this. Poly on the other hand will last centuries.
Thank you Dylan! I love the way you explain it!
I always insist that my pickups are wound by 3 Welsh red-haired virgins at 3.33am on the 3rd day of the month. I CAN HEAR THE DIFFERENCE!
I only use poly on my PAF’s and everyone loves them! Hell, I really love them on my guitars 🎸
Love your videos man, just enough science to get the point across, which means I can point my friends who do not have degrees in the sciences to them, because usually my explanation just leaves them more confused than when we started, lols.... Keep up the good work man. :)
Liking your videos more and more. Getting away from buzz words and sticking to the technical facts. Thanks!
You are 100% correct. Back in the day when I wound pickups I actually preferred poly wire because it is more durable and will last much longer than formvar and plain enamel.
oh man, exactly what i think and what i do, practically no one can hear or feel the difference.
very very good.
Your pickup content is why I subscribe 👍
I rally(!) appreciate your tone man! And you know your subject as well as far as I can tell after 20 years buttering my bread with sound engineering. Of course I will give your sponsors a click when you ask so uncorrupted and nicely! I'm at the moment experimenting with different coil-constructions, and I found good info here. Thanx!
Thank you, Dylan! I love this channel, I'm actually learning stuff and I don't have to listen to the typical superstitious guitarist jargon (well, maybe that's in the comments).
I'm planning to build the pickups on my future builds myself, so I'm very interested in this stuff. This solves the "what wire should I get"-issue. You describing the pickups (transducers!) as very crude does seem right. I remember one guitar builder hobbyist saying that he uses magnets from a hardware store and he gets the results he wants, so it can't really be all that finicky as long as you know what you're doing and understand a little bit of the science behind it.
I love your videos because it is the truth with no BS.
Hi Dylan! Always great videos. One question, are you aware of polyesterimid insulated wire for pick winding? If yes,any hint on what the tone could look like?
I've spun both and why do I notice plain enamel as being brighter and I personally like poly better I think it sounds better, but I guess it could be in my head, I will have to do alittle more testing on my next run of wire.
This is what I love about your channel, fact not fiction. And You are not afraid to go against the grain. Keep it up man!
You gotta love this guy.. lol.. Dispelling myths every episode..
Awesome dude..
Question: I noticed The Stratosphere has some 2014 Gibsons I might be interested in. Can it be a big problem for a set neck guitar to go without strings for that long? I’m not sure if they had strings and were recently stripped or not.
I notice a difference in the pickups I wind, and this is my theory as to why. To me, single/double build poly, enamel, heavy formvar all feel different running through my fingers, poly feels the most sticky and stretchy. How tight the wire is laid on and if the wire is stretching or not would for sure effect tone
I love the "I can hear the difference" guys. I had a guitar come in and the guy wanted all of the typical "mojo mods"... so I put in some cheap China pickups, Js pots, and ceramic tone caps. He LOVED it when he thought it was vintage PAFs, CTS pots, and Emerson oil and paper. Of course I did the work that he wanted, I did it to prove a point. Sadly... those cheap China pickups sounded better than the $400 set that ended up in that guitar... but he will never admit it.
That's the thing, you might be after a cheap China pickup tone. And there is nothing wrong with that, they can be good if it's the type you're looking for. What bothers me is that people will buy factory brands for several hundreds when they could order a custom set from a luthier for the same price, tailored to their taste. But I guess many people don't really know what they're after and keep buying those brand pickups trusting they are good quality even when they should be more concerned about how the pickup sounds. I confess I must have gone with some marketing hype with some pickups when I didn't even know what I was after... I now know better.
@@hannuback I have to admit that I have always been a Seymour Duncan fanboy..... certain combinations just work for certain sounds. I am getting more into boutique builders these days though.
Well, I suppose those brand pickups are a "safe choice" with a good quality control. Also probably a good choice for a beginner not knowing where to start, but I see way too much endorsement for them from experienced players - like they are the best choice and the only viable option. What I'd like to see more is people giving advice to buy custom made pickups from local builders. The prices are usually not much higher, sometimes custom made can be even cheaper.
Very interesting info. So the gold foil pickup gets its inductance from the wide flat coil and the use of 44 AWG wire. What does the ferrite magnet bring to the equation? Why don't more manufacturers use 44 wire. Is it too problematic to work with (breakage) or is it that buyers what vintage tone and Fender and Gibson used a thicker wire? What's the downside to inductance (if any)? I'd love to hear you breakdown a goldfoil pickup and what sets it apart from the different styles. Thanks!
Agree.
PLUS, to be able to conduct energy through lacquer you would have to generate a ton of voltage, which a guitar pickup simply can't do. A passive pickup generates extremely low voltages. That's why you need and AMPLIFIER to listen...
Ok now you may be thinking about active pickups, right? Still isn't enough voltage!
That's my knowledge at least, burn me if you think different.
Peace
Hi Dylan! Love watching your videos and probably you already answered this but I wasn’t able to find an answer going through your videos.
I got the chance to 1-2 the PRS 57/08 (neck) and Iron Gear Tesla Shark (bridge), both into the same Epiphone LP bridge position. On paper, these pickups are very similar: AlNiCo II Magnets, 8.5 Ohm, 42 AWG enamel coil wire and Chrome Covers on both. Both had a similar warm, low output tone but the PRS 57/08 had a clearer, better defined and more complex tone to it. So I guess the question is: what could cause this difference in tone on such similar pickups? (I did use the Iron Gear neck pickup installed in the bridge position because of the similar output to the PRS)
I’ve read on the internet (and I’m taking this with a huge grain of salt) that usually the bad Chinese pickups use an alloy for the coil wire instead of pure copper that lower conductivity and in turn leads to having to do more wraps to get the same output, also that the bobbin poles aren’t pure steel and that can also affect the tone.
Do you think the difference comes just from the winding of the coils or it can be just the difference in the quality of the materials used?
I would love to get your take on this.
Hey Dylan, do you have any video about wood vs tone?
great info .all I want is a wire that solders without scraping or sanding .wichone will do that?
Poly for sure
Glad to hear you call it an inductor. I find it interesting that people measure resistance of a coil. It doesn't tell what you want to know. Coils require a totally different approach to measure henrys. I'm not exactly sure how to measure the effectiveness of a transducer but I'll bet that a human ear is not able to give a quantitative value from nearly similar transducers. The human ear is amazing but it has its limitations. I find some of the pickup comparisons videos almost useless. Show me something on a recording digital oscilloscope and compare the two signals. Anything else is just a bunch of word salad trying to find a description of the difference or just plain hyperbole. In the end it doesn't really matter one little bit because if it sounds good to the user then it is good, all the rest of the minutiae is irrelevant.
Firstly, I love watching your technical videos. Literally, I love them and mostly watch these on your channel.
Secondly, everything you explain makes a great sense. But! I watched this video,. then I saw a vid ('Full Review: Formwar vs. Plain Enamel vs. Poly Pickup Wire') where Schuyler Dean builds 3 pickups that are exactly the same except for the wire. I was listening with my eyelids closed and I promise I hear the difference between formwar, plain enamel and poly -insulated wire. Formwar wasn't a surprise as I'd seen your vid explaining insulation thickness, but I also hear the difference between plain enamel and poly. I hadn't any bias as I hadn't heard anything about what was supposedly what. But I liked plain enamel the best, then poly, formwar the least. I still don't know who tells what, but poly sounds just a bit 'tinny' compared to plain enamel, and I dislike the lows and highs of the formwar.
Please explain what that difference may come from and, if you please, build your own pair you are telling in this video to compare them in your next video
Dylan. I wanted to ask about your wide range rebuild. Since the screws aren't actually screwed in anyway. Could you just replace them with pole magnets and get rid of the bar magnet all together? If thats possible what would it do ti the pickup response?
We have done this. It sounds even more single coily
Okay, so you said the thickness does something to the tone, and in another video you said the further apart the wires are the less interference with the mids and highs there is (or maybe that was someone else's video, IDR), so would that mean could use a 42AWG double billed poly-nylon wire to further enhance the mids and highs in an already mid and high leaning pickup due to the relatively thick gauge? You also said the height vs the width of the coil affects tone, is that why traditional single coils sound thin and hollow to me while P90s are full and bodied?
Anyone disliking this video, doesn't like to be told the truth.
Huge difference. Just compare some yourself. That is all that matters. Dont believe some guy TALKING about sound, PLAY BOTH STYLES YOURSELF fast 1/b in same guitar, all rest same except the wire. BIG DIFFERENCE.
I know this is off topic... I have a Harley Benton TE-52. I have added a Bill Lawerence 5-way circuit. Which set of Dylan pickups would you recommend? I’ll be playing heavy rock and a little bit of country. If that makes sense.
These for sure!!!!! dylantalkstone.com/products/flat-6-tele-pickups
thanks for your vids and teaching me my 1970 strat is not the total piece of junk everyone wants me to believe. Also your So down to earth you could be Australian..hi from Oz keep it up regards
Most musicians will still choose to buy into some strange tone mojo rather than try to educate themselves, despite having great channels like this available for free.
Huge difference. Just compare some yourself. That is all that matters. Dont believe some guy TALKING about sound, PLAY BOTH STYLES YOURSELF fast 1/b in same guitar, all rest same except the wire. BIG DIFFERENCE
True but there are pros who actually listen and stick with standard modern mainstream pickups because many of them are already great.
The comment section under your videos are getting better than those on imgur now. :D You seem to have decent followers.
I'm currently building Jimmie Vaughan Stratocaster replica. The client wants a humbucker at the bridge so he can have it sound like a Les Paul. He also wants to be able to split it with a push poll. I'm going to be winding the pickups and I'm just curious. Being that the pole positions of single coil Strat pickups and the pole position of a Gibson humbucker are slightly different would I be able to used Gibson humbucker bobbins? Or what I have to acquire fender humbucker bobbins. I know the fender humbucker bottoms are quite different then Gibson just wondered if it would make a huge difference.
7:08 About heavy farmvar Vs plain enamel... IMHO the tone changes because of not just a matter of "dimension of the coil" but especially also for the "space between the winds" (gap between turns). Ina few words even though you made an enamel coil identical in size like a farmvar one, they will sound difefrent; because of the *gap between the turns*
the wider the gap between turns is, the lesser the k-ohms resistance is
Pronounced. Pol ee im id. Long e, Short I sound. This is used to coat the top of most computer chips for isolation.
I used to use Plain Enamel when I wound my first pickups because I thought that it was better because it wasn’t coated in Poly. These days I use Poly or Heavy Formav because they last longer
Edit: Formvar
Why and how do they last longer?
@@blop1738 that’s what they said in the video
@@idiosyncraticmushroom3030 on whate minute does he say that? I missed it
@@blop1738 i dont remember
@@idiosyncraticmushroom3030 LoL thanks anyway
Placebo or self mesmerisation is under-rated...... if i think my lucky shorts make me win at tennis then leave me in my dream... hehe
I love how he referenced some butthurt comments from last video when he said "wire radius" instead of the AWG standard measurement.
The people who say they can tell the difference are the same people who can hear dog whistles!!!😂😂😂😂😂
That's because dogs can't whistle.:)
we all hear what our brain tells us to hear. so like what you like and dont condemn someone for like something else. now if you want to be more educated on what you like. then read the engineering books AND listen to people who who know more about it. that being said thanks for the education dylan!
From Leo: Good show. You are a brave man. If you keep telling the truth about all this stuff, how are people going to charge more for the snake oil magic? Usually, people want to believe what they want to believe. Dielectric leakage is usually measured at far higher voltages. At the tiny mV levels in a pickup, the numbers are so low that they are almost impossible to measure. I learned how to measure electrical characteristics with an Oscilloscope in 1972, used one in my job, and still have one. Even a moderately priced oscilloscope is (at minimum) hundreds of times more accurate and has thousands of times more range than any human ear. If I cannot see it on the scope, it does not exist. No invisible magic. I do recognize the stacking of variables, for example an extra limber piece of wood in the neck, combined with a minimum tolerance of turns, with a minimum tolerance of magnetic field, with a minimum tolerance pot and capacitor on a guitar built a "loose" set up, WILL sound different than a guitar build with a stiff piece of wood in the neck and all the parts having maximum spec. That is all measurable. Add to that a good amp with a three band EQ, and it really does not matter much.
I ran into a guy working in a guitar store who said he could hear the difference in the type of finish used on the guitar. I was going to ask him for evidence, but I realized his myths were all he had.
I can only imagine how many heads exploded on this video....👍
Poly kills tone. It doesn’t let the wire “breathe.”
😆
Funny enough, I've never understood why people is so stuck in the old ways (about guitars), it's like the only industry that haven't improved since the 50s. Imagine if guitars had to adapt to the market as cars, PCs or cellphones do~
I'm the kind of guitarist who believes wood doesn't matter, and that a good set of pickups can make your chopstick guitar shine~ But then, someone will come and laugh at me for sticking to alpha pots instead of CTS... xD
Im not so easily convinced.
Where's the bode plots to prove it?
I always question the 'mojo' myths guitar players cling to. I've been building pedals for a few years and I can tell you that 'magic' op amps aren't a thing, I can tell you that mythical diodes aren't a thing.. electrons do not believe in your myths. you can measure and explain everything and recreate anything.
So when I hear the pickup people go on about insulation I am curious as you are messing with inductance and capacitance which will change frequency response so I assume the thickness of the coating of insulation is the real key not what it is made of.
Yet you didn't compare them playing. Huge difference in tone. Just compare some yourself. That is all that matters.
なｎ
How come when I've got a question on all things pickups .. the answer is on DylanTalksTone ... v cool