Bunches of Pickup Questions

[Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame]

It seems like there is still room to make some money and maybe even innovate in the pickup realm.

I see Stew-Mac has a pickup winder for under $400, and you can buy kits for in the vicinity of $25/pickup.

How does one get materals to make pickups from farther up the chain than Stew-Mac? Once you get a little experience, how long does it take to hand-wind a pickup? A Stew-mac testimonial says that his first attempt at winding single-coil resulted in a better pickup than stock pickups...would it be possible to make 100 pickups/month at least the quality of Duncan Design? Easy to do so?

Would it be a Holy Grail Quest-level of improbability to be able to figure out how to make Seth Lover (or other premium level) quality pickups with a year of steady effort (10 hours or so each week)?

Is there any way to learn about the specs other than just winding and trying, rinse and repeat?

What classes should I take and what materials do I need to start working on making a quality acoustic guitar pickup?

I don't like piezo acoustic pickups sound quality, usually. Are the top Fishman or Baggs pickups non-piezo? Tommy Shaw was always able to get a true acoustic guitar sound on his acoustic 12-strings in concert...since those apparently weren't piezo, was it a microphonic pickup or something else? How did he avoid feedback?

Thanks. I'm trying to find a way I can work myself into the instrument production business without investing tens of thousands of dollars while still working full-time. I don't need an immediate return on investment, it can be a hobby for a few years, but I want to eventually be in a position to make a modest yearly income.

Am I smoking crack?

[ArnieZ]

I wouldn't want to discourage you from something you might enjoy. If you're looking to make some money doing this, it will be very difficult. Look at the prices GFS gets for their pickups. They get pretty good reviews from a lot of people and have name regognition. Their marketing is in place. In addition to the manufacturing techniques, you will have to have a good set of ears to figure out how to make your product better. Then you will need the experience to change the specs to achieve the tone you're looking for. Obviuosly others have done it. You might want to contact some of the boutique winders and find out what it takes to do this.

ArnieZ

[Jem]

If your serious about making your own pickups try to find a copy of Jason Lollar's book - it's the bible for making your own...........and no, i don't have a copy of it.

[Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame]

I heard that one of the boutique makers doubled the price of his pickups (Originally $200/set) to reduce demand so he could work on guitars (or something) more, and it didn't reduce the demand at all.

So it seems like there is room for more boutique pickup makers.

I don't know if I have the ears or the ability, but I'd like to try it and see. Thanks for the book suggestion, I will check that out.

When searching for Lollar's book, I found this info (from Seymour Duncan's bbs):

http://music-electronics-forum.com/f11/

Read the p'up making instruction at StewMac:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electron...1.html#details

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electron...7.html#details

Get some books:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Books,_p...d_Magnets.html

http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Magneti...1748985&sr=1-5

P'up making is NOT cheap. You don't do it to save money. It's a lot cheaper to give away $ 400.00 in a set of hand-wound high-end boutique p'ups wound by the very hands of one of the masters (Lollar, Rolph, Shaw, Lawrence, you name it) than getting into p'up making.

I haven't had time to follow the links yet, but I thought someone else might be interested.

[RoyB]

Tom Holmes, Tim White and Jim Wagner all used the idea that raising your price will contain demand for a product, but in all cases it did not work and their pickups kept selling, but you have to understand that was because their pickups had the rep of being THE pickup for years first. Pickup making is hard and you have to spend a lot of time finding something to make you better and get it into the right hands to spread the word. You will make a lot of bad pickups and before you hit on a winner and you will have to work hard to get that magic pickup out there in the public eye.

[Punkavenger]

it sounds like a blast though ...

[JohnnyB]

Pickup making is hard and you have to spend a lot of time finding something to make you better and get it into the right hands to spread the word. You will make a lot of bad pickups and before you hit on a winner and you will have to work hard to get that magic pickup out there in the public eye.

And don't forget to count your windings. What if you came up with a great pickup and didn't track how you got there?

Seymour Duncan used the family record player as his first pickup winder.

[Armitage]

Rinse repeat... rince repeat...

Or do like most people do. Copy a name brand pickup, and when it come out differently, tell people you did that on purpose.

[Armitage]

Tom Holmes, Tim White and Jim Wagner all used the idea that raising your price will contain demand for a product, but in all cases it did not work and their pickups kept selling, but you have to understand that was because their pickups had the rep of being THE pickup for years first.

That reminds me... my first job in school was being a security guard in the mall on Sundays (when they were closed back then). The only place open inside on Sundays was an Ice Cream Parlor. Near the end of the summer I noticed his prices had gone up at least three times during the two months, so I asked him; He said he was having a price war with another Ice Cream shop in the mall. I responded "don't prices go DOWN in a price war?" and he said "it depends, Ice Cream is a luxury product. If you want to imply you're better, you raise your price... everyone does that."

Then he pointed out, "...of course the consumer doesn't know we both sell the same brand ice cream."

After that I had a girlfriend who worked at Levis. At employee pricing, she could get those "Signature" jeans that were so popular in the early '80s SO much cheaper then the regular Levis that normally sold for less then half as much in the store. When I asked about it, she said the signature jeans were made of a much thinner and lower grade denim and the labor costs where the same... and the employee pricing was based on costs. The cutting and sowing machines didn't care if it curved a bit to the left or right...

My brother-in-law is the quality control dude at a clothing manufacturer... it kills him that the golf shirts he sells for $5 each (when you buy a container) sell for between $25 and $75... the only difference is the cuff... and he charges the same for them.

And don't get me started about the difference between a $30,000 car and a $60,000 car made at the same plant, buy the same guys, on the same machinery, using 99% the same parts... Many a plant manager and I have had a big laugh at that one.

Many times, you can simply raise a price, and many people will simply think it must be worth more.

Sadly, Perception is reality for most people.

[Abaco]

Am I smoking crack?

Well, if you are, keep it up. Sounds like you have a good idea (the pickup idea). Smoking crack...cracked me up....

[Disturber]

st.

Many times, you can simply raise a price, and many people will simply think it must be worth more.

Sadly, Perception is reality for most people.

Setting your price level is (in marketing terms) called positioning your brand. Selling less at a higher price can often earn you more money than selling a lot at a lower price. AND you don't have to work as hard

[gorch]

...

Am I smoking crack?

Yes, you do.

See how it started with me. Two years after our second son started learning guitar from the age of six, his teacher came to me asking for better pickups, because they were microphonic and bad sounding anyway. As I did not want to invest too much in this childhood guitar, I trusted in my early learned electronic skills and started with a bay watch. After a short while I found a used set from a manufacturer I had never heard of but seemed to have some reputation. So, I bought the set and made my first steps swapping pickups.

Today, I swap pickups not only with ease, but also developed my personal taste for pickups that lead to a summer project to ask LeoSounds to put one of his VintagePlayer66 singlecoils under a P94 hat in order to have my alder bodied Korean Standard sing like a 64 Strat.

Recently, our oldest son came to me asking if I would do pickup work for other guitarists as well. So it came that his band mate and guitarist popped up and wanted to have his cheap OEM pickups replaced by better ones. No he's happy with his vintage Super Distortions I had laying in the shelf.

This is how it will work for you finally. You may start of with a little investment for private use. If you are happy with your results you will find a guy in the neighborhood who's willing to try one or the other PU himself or herself. If he or she is happy, they will recommend you to their friends and you will find a second contestant yourself. And so on and so forth.

In case you make a good job you will once be able to turn it into income.

From a scientist point of view, I would travel tons of web pages to find out what number of windings plus type of wire plus type of magnet plus factor X plus factor Y would make-up a certain sound. Write that information into an Excel sheet and try to create these sounds. Don't forget the implications of pot resistance values and capacitors, even wood. Look at it 360° not just from a winding point of view. At the end of the day, you create sounds not just pickups.

And: Document properly from the very beginning. Otherwise you will end up like the Hamer support being busy calculating the number of guitars ever produced having a certain painting. We had that discussion in the forum lately.

Have fun.

[Mickb]

Don't waste your money on a $400 winder, an electric drill works just as good if you set it up with a speed controller, it's reversible at the flick of a switch ( great for RW/RP )and easily replaced if it shits itself and goes bang, some kind of electronic counter is a must though,

to fit your bobbins to your drill you will need to get ( or make yourself ) mandrils made up ( no not those baboon things with the big red arses, the other kind of mandrils)

Mojo musical sell pickup parts and on the whole it's a bit more accurate than the stew mac stuff ( I'm talking the single coil stuff here) as you go through and get deeper in to it you will find parts that work together and parts that don't, Guitar jones doesn't seem to bother answering emails much, so i wouldn't waste any time trying there.

allparts is another supplier too but beware of some of their stuff, their jazzmaster covers spring to mind, despite assurances to the contrary they are in fact spaced for the japanese jazzmaster pickups, not the US vintage type pickups,

Above all be ready to deal with some great people and not so great people, don't let the not so greats grind you down, but be prepared to listen to constructive critisism from your customers, I could go on and on but figure you have had enough advice, so good luck with it,

Cheers

Mick

[Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame]

Don't waste your money on a $400 winder, an electric drill works just as good if you set it up with a speed controller, it's reversible at the flick of a switch ( great for RW/RP )and easily replaced if it shits itself and goes bang, some kind of electronic counter is a must though,

to fit your bobbins to your drill you will need to get ( or make yourself ) mandrils made up ( no not those baboon things with the big red arses, the other kind of mandrils)

Mojo musical sell pickup parts and on the whole it's a bit more accurate than the stew mac stuff ( I'm talking the single coil stuff here) as you go through and get deeper in to it you will find parts that work together and parts that don't, Guitar jones doesn't seem to bother answering emails much, so i wouldn't waste any time trying there.

allparts is another supplier too but beware of some of their stuff, their jazzmaster covers spring to mind, despite assurances to the contrary they are in fact spaced for the japanese jazzmaster pickups, not the US vintage type pickups,

Above all be ready to deal with some great people and not so great people, don't let the not so greats grind you down, but be prepared to listen to constructive critisism from your customers, I could go on and on but figure you have had enough advice, so good luck with it,

Cheers

Mick

That's great advice, thanks.

I don't know how I would set up an electronic counter or speed controller for a drill. I did see some pictures of something someone else set up with a drill, so maybe he (or someone else) has some specs.

I'm getting into this slowly. Right now I'm starting with research.

My first book just arrived. It's called Getting a Bigger Sound, by Bart Hopkin. Jason Lollar was involved...

On the way are:

Guitar Electronics Understanding Wiring and Diagrams: Learn step by step how to completely wire your electric guitar

Pickups, Windings and Magnets: ... And the Guitar Became Electric

and

Guitar Amplifier Handbook - Understanding Tube Amplifiers and Getting Great Sounds

I'm trying to educate myself about the supplementary electronics in general...for a couple reasons.

1) It might be easier to find/create some niche for myself in tube amps rather than pickups, or

2) At the very least, I need to be able to test out whatever crappy pickups I end up with on a tube amp, not just the practice amps I have.

At the very least, I end up with some cool skills/knowledge and maybe an interesting hobby for the next 40-50 years of my life.

[SteveB]

Much of the boutique musical instrument business is kind of like the high end restaurant business... a place will become trendy and then flame out just as fast when the next trendy builder comes along. What will you offer than isn't offered by current winders? And more importantly... do you have the ears to understand what you hear from the various differences between magnets, number of winds, types of wire, etc? Its the difference between being a chef and a cook... a cook can follow a recipe and produce stuff that tastes good, but a chef can be given a desired result and know how to put together the recipe to achieve it. If you can be a pickup "chef" and find a way to differentiate your product, you could have a chance.

But you still will probably have to pay a bunch of people at The Gear Page to shill your product.

[Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame]

Much of the boutique musical instrument business is kind of like the high end restaurant business... a place will become trendy and then flame out just as fast when the next trendy builder comes along. What will you offer than isn't offered by current winders? And more importantly... do you have the ears to understand what you hear from the various differences between magnets, number of winds, types of wire, etc? Its the difference between being a chef and a cook... a cook can follow a recipe and produce stuff that tastes good, but a chef can be given a desired result and know how to put together the recipe to achieve it. If you can be a pickup "chef" and find a way to differentiate your product, you could have a chance.

But you still will probably have to pay a bunch of people at The Gear Page to shill your product.

You are probably right that I won't ever get big.

At worst, though, I gain a far deeper understanding of how guitars and the associated electronics work. There are more expensive hobbies that one would get less out of.

I do have a good ear...if I have a problem, it's with my tastes, not with my ability to hear the difference. For instance, I hate the whiny sound lots of guitarists get with their Les Pauls. Jimmy Page often ends up with a tone I can't stand, and Joe Perry sometimes does.

The point is, my financial future is already set, this would be just for fun, and to try to become marginally famous. (The Brainfertilizer Fame just isn't enough for me)