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previous: Dick Hi All,Why are cheap pickups ru... -- 9/5/2002 12:35 AM

Re: Why are cheap pickups rubbish?

9/5/2002 12:24 PM
Tony@Mastertone	Re: Why are cheap pickups rubbish? Guys Lets look at this from a manufacturers point of view... Company B approaches company A to wind pickups for them... cost limit is set at $1.50 max by company B. What I am going to do... 1. Buy the cheapest wire possible that 'will do the job', just... When you say wire is wire... it isn't, it depends on the accuracy of the manufacturing process and the quality of the insulation. 2. Buy the cheapest magnets... 3. Design a pickup that will give just enough output to be usable and not even consider tone because I am designing for a market and a guitar manufacturer that doesn't understand tone and usually doesn't care. 4. So now I have my components I am going to get the cheapest labour possible, ie India or Indonesia. They dont need to understand what a pickup is let alone what it does they are there to reload the machine when it finishes... Its just a lot of little things...that build up into a nasty piece of equipment.... In regards to scatter winding, you get less of a capacitance build up which makes the pickup more efficient and more natural sounding where as machine winding tends to choke the tone... Now guitars and tone... its a lot like a racing car or any machine that needs to do a job to the best of its ability... Its no good having a racing car with a carby with scatter wound solenoids (hehe) that is capable of 300mph when the tyres have no tread and the suspension is shot.... Its all a balance.... you know how people like SRV got great sounds etc... its because the guitars those guys used and there was usually only a couple of them were setup, adjusted, modified and loved for many years by people who knew their shit... Would you go buy an Indy car off the manufacturers shelf and expect it to win straight up... no. You need to get the thing tweaked and setup properly by experts in that feild and it also helps to have a great driver/(guitar player)... Anyway.. Tone

9/5/2002 12:24 PM

Tony@Mastertone

Re: Why are cheap pickups rubbish?

Guys

Lets look at this from a manufacturers point of view...

Company B approaches company A to wind pickups for them... cost limit is set at $1.50 max by company B.

What I am going to do...

1. Buy the cheapest wire possible that 'will do the job', just... When you say wire is wire... it isn't, it depends on the accuracy of the manufacturing process and the quality of the insulation.

2. Buy the cheapest magnets...

3. Design a pickup that will give just enough output to be usable and not even consider tone because I am designing for a market and a guitar manufacturer that doesn't understand tone and usually doesn't care.

4. So now I have my components I am going to get the cheapest labour possible, ie India or Indonesia. They dont need to understand what a pickup is let alone what it does they are there to reload the machine when it finishes...

Its just a lot of little things...that build up into a nasty piece of equipment....

In regards to scatter winding, you get less of a capacitance build up which makes the pickup more efficient and more natural sounding where as machine winding tends to choke the tone...

Now guitars and tone... its a lot like a racing car or any machine that needs to do a job to the best of its ability... Its no good having a racing car with a carby with scatter wound solenoids (hehe) that is capable of 300mph when the tyres have no tread and the suspension is shot....

Its all a balance.... you know how people like SRV got great sounds etc... its because the guitars those guys used and there was usually only a couple of them were setup, adjusted, modified and loved for many years by people who knew their shit... Would you go buy an Indy car off the manufacturers shelf and expect it to win straight up... no. You need to get the thing tweaked and setup properly by experts in that feild and it also helps to have a great driver/(guitar player)...

Anyway..

Tone