Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

There is a tendancy today to unwind perfectly good older toasters that have a DC resistance higher than 7.4, to match the specs of todays 7.4 scatterwounds. Many do this to achieve that '60's sound, thinking that this is what the '60's pickups were wound to. When you think that the modern 7.4 was derived as an average of older pickups resistance, it occured to me that many vintage pickups were a lot hotter than this. This is confirmed by JH when he said... "As I said before, you'll find genuine vintage pickups which have a variety of specs . . . sometimes as high as 16K and as low as 7K ohms DC resistance".

People who are unwinding their pickups to 7.4 could find that their '60's guitar playing heros could have been using much hotter pickups than they thought!

I have 3 Ricks with what you'd call vintage toasters. The range on them is 7.1 - 7.5k with two right on 7.4k but it could all come down to who was on the winding machine that day. My assumption is that they counted windings & that was it.

There is also an evidence to suggest that pickups lose some of their DC resistance over time, so when new, they could have been a tad more powerful than they are now Gerry.

The 7.4 was supposed to be an average, so I'm not saying that vintage toasters are all screamers, I am just suggesting that probably a lot of them were when new & it COULD just be that some of the artistes who's '60's sound we all admire, had those pickups in their Ric!

I think anything is possible, especially considering vintage pickups. Nothing was real consistant back in the old days and anything could've happened - operator losing count of windings, magnets and wire being off spec (+ or -) a bit, etc. (also the aging factor too, although that's even more ambiguous). That's why the sound of old pickups varies so much. And it goes for virtually every big name manufacturer.

It's also what created the aftermarket pickup scene too. Somebody would find a great sounding pickup and try to copy it. Some being more successful than others. But that's never stopped anybody yet.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here, but my guess is that, when Rickenbacker came out with the V Series, those first toasters were wound just like the then current Hi-Gains but put into toaster covers. The "look" was vintage, but not the sound.

Then a bunch of Ric fanatics measured their real vintage/original toasters and discovered the resistance difference. Hence the unwinding craze.

So, in response to customer demand, Rickenbacker started making the scatterwounds.

Now my question is: Is there really any tonal difference between an "unwound" toaster and the newer scatterwound versions?

We could go on for months about this; sound is so subjective.

No one has really done any laboratory grade tests on the various pups, except maybe Rickenbacker themselves, and I even doubt this, as I believe that most tests of this sort have been subjective, too.

It is a bit tough to "lose count" of winding numbers, as every pup winder I've ever seen has a sort of odometer mechanical counter linked to the winding shaft. Click, click, click, etc.

Also, can we not say that the magnets used in the 1960s pickups and even in the 1970s are different that those that are used today. Long pole, short pole, different material, etcetera. It seems to me that there is more to the sound of pickups than just the number of windings.

I would think that magnets lose some of their flux density over time.

Flux capacitor!

"Rick To The Future"?