Pick-up windings?

[Roger Rettig]

I know that I ought to be acquainted with these basics by now, but I'm not.

I'm perfectly happy with my stock s/c pickups in my 2000 LeGrande 111, yet I have no clue as to what they may be wound to!

Would there have been a 'standard' winding at the Emmons Co back then?

Is a lower figure (say '15k) brighter-sounding than 20k or is that the other way around?

I tried a 'search' but couldn't find a specific answer.

[J Fletcher]

Yep . 15k is brighter than 20k , everything else being equal , magnets , type of wire , etc .

[Stephen Cowell]

Roger, do you have an ohms meter? DVM's are pretty cheap these days.

[Donny Hinson]

I think that 20k single-coil pickups are fairly rare. Most of the heavy wound single-coils I've seen measured more like 18k. In my experience, you can make an 18k sound pretty much like a 15k with a one-number adjustment of the mid and treble controls. (There's a lot more tonal lattitude in a good amp than there is in a pickup change.)

[Ian Rae]

DC resistance isn't the same as reactive impedance, so you can't directly measure a pickup with an ohmmeter. That will only measure the resistance of the wire, not the inductance of the coil.

[Stephen Cowell]

DC resistance isn't the same as reactive impedance, so you can't directly measure a pickup with an ohmmeter. That will only measure the resistance of the wire, not the inductance of the coil.

Yet it is how we measure them when comparing them.

[Ian Rae]

Yes indeed. There will be a correlation based on the assumption that makers use much the same gauge of wire.

[Bob Hoffnar]

Yes indeed. There will be a correlation based on the assumption that makers use much the same gauge of wire.

Along with the mass of the magnets.