TECHNICAL

ABOUT MY PICKUPS

All my pickups are hand scatter-wound one at a time, using the highest quality parts sourced from around the world. All the components I use have been thoroughly tested and picked for the best quality and tonal benefits, so it's common for a single pickup to use components from a number of different sources to make sure they are the best they can possibly be. If a part is not good enough for me to use in my own personal pickups it won't get used for yours.

Like all good pickups they respond well to picking dynamics and the use of the volume and tone controls, cleaning up beautifully when the volume is rolled off.

POLE SPACING

The pole spacing of a pickup describes the measured distance between the middles of the two outer pole pieces and can vary due to the style of the pickup, or the style of bridge to be used.

For Fender style pickups this is always the standard spacing for each style suited for a Fender-style hard tail bridge or tremolo.

For humbuckers, a traditional Tune-o-matic style bridge as found on most Gibsons will use 49.2mm pole spacing for both neck and bridge. If the guitar has a Fender style hard tail or tremolo, or a Floyd-Rose bridge, then the wider spacings of 50mm for the neck and 53mm for the bridge will be needed.

HOOK-UP WIRE TYPES

Vintage Style Cloth Push-Back: Normally found on Fender style single-coils like Telecaster, Stratocaster, Jazzmaster and Jaguar. Most often found in a two-wire configuration (black for ground, white for hot), a third yellow wire can also be found on some pickups that have a metal cover or baseplate (for example Telecaster or Jaguar pickups). The third wire is useful to have when purchasing a single pickup, as it allows you to easily flip the phase of the pickup if your installing it with another manufacturer's pickup that has a non-traditional phase, while keeping the cover or baseplate grounded.

Braided 2 Conductor: Traditionally found on vintage Gibson style pickups like Humbuckers, P90s, Mini-Humbuckers and Firebirds, and original 70s Wide Range Humbuckers. The outer braided shield is the ground and the inner cloth coated wire is the hot.

Insulated 2 Conductor: Often used for modern Gibson style pickups, particularly where the hook-up wires have to pass close by the pickup selector switch (for example with Teles, Strats and some PRS models) and braided 2 conductor wire would run the risk of shorting out against one of the selector poles. Also allows for easier phase-flipping as it has a seperate cover/baseplate ground wire.

Insulated 4 Conductor: Used with dual coil Humbucker style pickups to allow splitting the output of each coil or switching between running the coils in series or parallel. I generally advise against using this for Wide Range Humbuckers for coil splitting, due to the stagger that is on the fixed pole pieces - If you only have one coil engaged, then there'll be an imbalance in the sound where the three visible pole pieces are set higher than the three hidden under the cover.

WAX POTTING

Wax potting describes the process of dipping the pickup into a pot of hot wax to seal and hold the components in place to prevent squealing when playing at high volume or with lots of gain.

A lot of people will say that a pickup being microphonic in any way is bad thing, and if you are gigging or playing in a high volume/high gain situation, this can lead to undesirable squealing. However, in other situations, like for recording, playing at home, or if you are able to control it, then not potting the pickup can add another dimension to your tone - it becomes more touch responsive, sounds more "open", and allows some of the acoustic qualities of the guitar to come through. Don't forget, none of those much sought after original PAFs were wax potted!

While I construct my pickups to reduce the chance of unwanted microphonics, I understand that in high volume/high gain situations wax potting can be desirable, so I can pot them at the time of purchase if requested, or will happily pot them for you for free within 30 days of purchase if you decide you'd prefer them to be potted after trying them out (AU$20 per pickup after the 30 days has expired).

I use a paraffin/beeswax mix to pot my pickups and offer three options for potting them:

Unpotted: As mentioned above, this will give a more "open" tone, and is suitable for playing at home, recording or maybe smaller, quieter gigs.

Light Wax Potting: This is just a quick dip to allow the wax to get in between the main components, for example between the bobbins and the baseplate or cover (where most microphonic squealing occurs), but not into the coil windings. This reduces the chances of microphonic squealing at higher volumes, but still retains some of the good microphonics that give you a more open and responsive sound. This is definitely recommended for many Fender-style pickups and Filtertrons where the wax will essentially hold all the components together.

Full Wax Potting: This is a good long soak to allow the wax to penetrate further into the coil itself. It will further reduce the chances of microphonic squealing at very high volumes, but will "deaden" the sound a small amount and reduce some of the harmonic content of the pickup tone. If you're gigging, you like to crank your amp, or ramp up the gain, then I'd definitely recommend this level of potting.

DCR

All DCR values are taken as an average over a number of pickups, and there may well be variances in any pickup you order due to the following:

  - Ambient room temperature and the temperature of the pickup at the time the reading is taken. This will affect the reading with warmer temperatures leading to higher readings.

- As each pickup is individually hand-wound, there will always be small variations in tension or amount of scatter across the wind which will have a minor impact on the DCR reading.

 - Small variations in the diameter of the wire from batch to batch or even with a single batch.

 - Differences in the calibration of the meters used to read the DCR.

PHASE

I wind my pickups to match the phase of the most common pickups - Gibson, Fender, SD, etc. So, if you are purchasing a single pickup it should work fine with most other makes of pickup. However, there are always exceptions to the rule and it's generally a good idea to pick a hook-up wiring option that will allow to you easily flip the phase if you are ordering a single pickup, just in case the other pickup has the opposite phase.

More information on phase >

WIRING COLOURS

For two conductor single-coil cloth-covered wiring, the white wire is the hot, the black wire is the ground. When there is a third yellow wire, as on my Telecaster pickups, this wire is the cover/baseplate ground.

For braided two conductor wiring, the inner, cloth-covered wire is the hot, the outer metal braiding is the ground.

For insulated two conductor wiring, the white wire is the hot, the black is the ground and the uncovered wire is the the cover/baseplate ground where applicable.

For four conductor wiring on humbuckers, I use the same wiring scheme as you would find on Seymour Duncan pickups:

    Black: North/slug coil start (Hot)

    White: North/slug coil finish (Series link)

    Red: South/screw coil finish (Series link)

    Green: South/screw coil start (Ground)

    Bare wire: Cover/baseplate gound (Ground)

ORDERING

ORDER TIMES

While I do sometimes keep a small number of pickups on hand, I generally wind and construct each pickup one at a time to order. This does mean the lead time for orders is usually 3-6 weeks, depending on current workload and component stocks. Please get in touch for an accurate estimate.

WARRANTY

All my pickups are covered by a lifetime warranty against component and manufacturing defects. Accidental or deliberate damage, normal wear and tear, modification or repairs not carried out by myself will all incur a repair charge. Postage costs for the return of any pickup for repair must be covered by the customer.

SHIPPING

All prices on the website are listed without shipping costs, and I use Australia Post to ship all my pickups.

Shpping costs are calculated at checkout.