Question about tone and pickup impedence

Cliff Kane · From: the late great golden state

Hi,
I'm clueless as to what to expect a certain impedance pickup will sound like. There are some Emmons single-coils for sale right now that range from 18k to 20k. This seems high for Emmons single-coil? Will these sound traditional, or will they sound more punchy and over-wound? If they will have a traditional Emmons sound, what would be good approximate resisistence for the E9 neck, and what for the C6 neck?

Thanks a lot for your help!
Cliff

John Groover McDuffie · From: LA California, USA

Higher impedance usually results in less high end and more output, other things being equal, (like coil shape, type wire used to wind the coil, single coil vs humbucking, and magnet type and strength, etc).

David Doggett · Posted 29 Mar 2009 7:57 pm

18k-20k will have a fat modern sound with good bass. Older pickups had fewer windings, lower impedance, and a thinner sound. For modern pickups, 16-18k is considered good for E9, and 18-20k is good for C6.

Cliff Kane · From: the late great golden state

thanks guys, that's exactly what I need to know.

Thanks!
Cliff

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

Dissenting opinion.

Pickup impedance has very little effect on tone. It's also not really "impedance" - it's DC resistance.

Example: take a 2.8k DC resistance lap steel pickup from the 50's and play it through an amp, set it for a good sound, then don't move the knobs. Plug in a 6.5k Tele pickup...it has far less output. Or a 9k humbucking - less output. Or maybe MORE output.

Mess with steel pickups - a 22k steel pickup m,ay be a real screamer or may sound dead, while a 12k on sounds loud and clear. I've had 20k MSA pickups that essentially had NO bass- just a huge mid hump and tons of treble.

These are just random examples (based on my own findings) - but it's pretty well known in 6-string circles now (as opposed to 10 years ago) that DC resistance matters more when combining pickups in a circuit that it is any indicator of volume...or tone.

Another example of that - generally, a 9k humbucking is considered to be "less bright" than a 6;5k single coil; yet a 20k humbucking usually has enough treble to tear your scalp off. Again - through "impedance" (resistance) out the window.

There are much more important in pickup output and tone than resistance. Call Bill Lawrence and if you understand some pretty advanced math he'll give you a great lecture about the subject....the point of which is the "voicing" of the pickup, which is why one makers' 15k pickup sounds totally unlike anothers' on the same guitar.
_________________
No chops, but great tone
1930's/40's Rickenbacher/Rickenbacker 6&8 string lap steels
1921 Weissenborn Style 2; Hilo&Schireson hollownecks
Appalachian, Regal & Dobro squarenecks
1959 Fender 400 9+2 B6;1960's Fender 800 3+3+2; 1948 Fender Dual-8 Professional

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Jim is, of course, correct about the distinction between complex (AC) impedance and DC resistance. It's the complex impedance, magnetic sensing window, and so forth that sets a pickup's tonality, and this is influenced by a lot more than just the number of windings and DC resistance. As a physics student back in the early 70s, I had a co-op job in the EE Dept. at MIT, and one of my tasks early on was to write a computer program to model the response of a filter that very much resembled a guitar pickup, and produce frequency response plots for various construction parameters. These plots very much resembled a guitar pickup response.

One thing though - if you take the same identical physical bobbin and magnet structure and now vary only the number of windings, you will tend to see that the pickup becomes less bright as the number of windings goes up. It's a complex issue, but as the number of windings goes up, the output, DC resistance, inductance, and capacitance tend to go up, and these have a significant effect on the complex impedance. Inductive impedance increases as frequency increases, which tends to cut high-frequency response. The Q-factor of the coil also tends to go down as DC resistance goes up, which tends to broaden the main resonant peak of the coil, and tends to thicken the sound of a pickup.

But remember - this is for the same pickup design when increasing only the number of windings (which directly increases DC resistance). Change the pickup design and/or magnet material, and it's a new ballgame. This is how Bill Lawrence and others get highly wound pickups without dulling the high end. To my tastes, Bill gets lots of credit for pioneering this kind of innovative pickup design.

Brint Hannay · From: Maryland, USA

Roger Francis · From: kokomo,Indiana, USA

I put an emmons SC in my Rains about 6 mo. ago and it's been the best PU iv'e had in it so far. It's wound at 19.5. We play every thing from traditional country to rock and i've had no problems getting what i want out of the PU, even using distortion.
It is definitley worth trying. The one i have is the 6190sc on the Emmons web site.

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