Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Once I get her polished up and ready to go I will, Bob...

some of the 80s toasters and high gains had more coils which made the resistance higher which makes them sound fatter ...

Just a simple thing like changing the tension of the wire that you wind the pickup with will change the sound of it quite a bit, and will also make a DC resistance reading completely different between two pickups wound with different tension. The 80's guitars could have had a different tension when the pickups were wound, and I'm sure the 60's and 70's ones are all over the map.

I played a '79 360 that was incredible trebly, and I would describe as having a lot of "smack", as Paul put it. Is it simply the pickups of the era, or the capacitor?

Both.

Thanks Sergio. Gonna have to start looking for some old higains!

My old 80's group had several RICs. The one we all agreed sounded the best was my '84 Jetglo 370WB.

We had a '87 Jetglo 360 that didn't have the sparkle like the '84 370WB had. We also had a '88 1997RM with overwound toasters that sounded like mud compared to the other two RICs.

Those old style Hi-Gains rock!

Indeed they do. Best pickups RIC ever made IMHO.

Damn right!

Hey Sérg -

In your experience, what are the general sound characteristics of pickups wound with light tension vs high tension?

Well, believe it or not I'm not 100% sure, as I prefer to wind my pickups with moderately high tension. Light tension winding tends to yield a "spongy", less sensitive coil, particularly if you use heavier (e.g. 42, 40) wire gauges or lighter gauges (44, 46) having a heavier coating.

Interesting. Can that analysis be broken down into terms of sound, like: less treble, more treble, sharp attack, soft attack... or is it that simple?

I have two friends (Dave Stephens of SD Pickups) (Wolfe of Wolfetone Pickups) who started out winding everything tight, and then changed over the years to a medium tension, but still scatterwound. I'm not sure what the sound difference is per se although I'll ask and post what I find out, but if you wind too tight, there is the danger of the coil shorting out internally, and you can also stretch the wire a bit. I think that you get a little more high end with a medium tension as opposed to a tight tension, but I don't know from first hand experience.