rolling your own

[SkuttleFunk]

anyone up for a thread dedicated to those who roll their own pickups? I know there's misc pickup winding commentary splattered across this sub-forum, but I didn't find a thread dedicated to discussing just this topic

all the best,

R

 

[SkuttleFunk]

I've been working prototypes for introducing several of bass pickups to market, originally with the intent of supplying myself with pickups tweaked for the sonic vision I am chasing with my custom 4/5/6-string bass offerings.

to date I can roll a pair of P-bass coils, magnetize them, solder all of the connecting and lead wires, and pot everything up in the order of about 40 minutes per pickup set. a standard RWRP J-bass set is running me about 30 minutes per set. all of these times do not include any allocation for getting all of the tooling set-up and ready to roll

here's a quick peek of some work from a short time ago

for the moment I'm only rolling bass pickups, but once I have all of the recipes coming together for the pickups I need to cover my bass offerings, I'll start to expand my horizon with offerings for those who play thin strings

all the best,

R

 

[Cagey]

It's an interesting subject that I'm sure some would like to know more about. I know TroubledTreble here is a winder from way back (see Roadhouse Pickups), and does some fine work. Many of us here have bought his parts and I've not only never heard a discouraging word, he has a number of repeat customers.

 

[stubhead]

What are your goals? Different tone, economy, cachet, really really-specific pinpoint custom shaping? There's such a huge variety already out there, the vast majority of them sounding extremely similar... and it can be both a selling point or a detriment, depending on (mostly) the buyer's perspective. I personally have just about zero interest in "classic", standard, "time-tested", ordinary, "exactly duplicating the Formvar wire and bakelite blah-de-blah" retread pickups - starting back in the 1970's Bill Lawrence began improving and "flattening" response and now there are a variety of people making far better pickups for my purposes than anything Fender or Gibson ever dreamed of (until they hired Lawrence themselves, in the 90's and 70's respectively :toothy12. For bass, the EMG's and Alumitones do what I like, but if most of your customers want their bass to sound regular, ordinary, classic, M.O.R., etc., you could probably save a bit of coin rolling your own.

Investing in the kind of research that leads to innovation is pretty expensive. Hiring the guy who writes the ad copy for PRS might be worth it though, it's hard to top zingers like the rolls of aged Soviet Union mil-spec wire discovered in abandoned warehouses! I might have a line on some actual Egyptian sarcophagus mummy-winding wire - FO REAL! - but it's gonna cost ya....

:blob7: :cool01: :headbang: (ROCK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN)  :headbang: :cool01: :blob7: