pickup coil orientation

Everett Cox · Post by **Everett Cox** » 18 Jun 2015 4:43 pm

On all the pickups I've seen the last several years, the coils are laid on the long axis of the bobbin. That puts them at right angle to the strings. On one of my first guitars in the mid forties (either a Kalamazoo or Epiphone Electar), the coils were wound around the SHORT axis. That put them Parallel to the strings. Seems that would allow for emphasizing certain strings by more or fewer winds at the appropriate places. I like C6th with high G for many songs but that string seems too thin sounding. I only had 6 strings on the early guitar but recall the PU sounding very sweet and clear. Does anyone still offer such a PU? Thx Everett Cox

Tony Glassman · Post by **Tony Glassman** » 18 Jun 2015 6:37 pm

I am definitely no physicist, but I always thought that pickups worked because the individual string vibrations interrupt the magnetic fields generated by the pole pieces which, in turn induces a current and that the windings provide impedance to its flow.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't understand how the orientation of the coils (long versus short axis) would affect things. Maybe one of the electronic forum guys, could elaborate on that.

The humbucker-based pickups (Tonealigner Telonics etc) allow you to adjust the pole pieces to even out individual string signals.

Paul Arntson · Post by **Paul Arntson** » 19 Jun 2015 8:02 am

Very interesting. I've never seen such a thing. Does anybody know if there is a picture anywhere of a pickup like that?

Everett Cox · Post by **Everett Cox** » 19 Jun 2015 4:59 pm

I;m pretty certain the guitar with the pickup in question was a Kalamazoo. There is currently one on eBay that looks like it. Going rather cheap - aprox $120 with a couple days to go. Found a few other hits on Google but nothing specific about the pickup or this style of coil winding. The coil was machine wound (close and even) so capacitance/inductance was probably high. No idea how many turns or impedance. Each coil layer was separated from the next with a continuous strip very thin dielectric material. Never could figure out how they could lay down the wire and the insulator at the same time. Everett