Plain Enamel Vs Poly Vs Heavy Formvar In a Guitar Pickup 

I once asked Jimi Hendrix what wire insulation he prefers in his pickups. He punched me in the face and told me to get out of his dressing room. Eric Clapton was much nicer about it and told me he prefers fat from whales ethically harvested from the northern Atlantic (heavier tone).

I always insist that my pickups are wound by 3 Welsh red-haired virgins at 3.33am on the 3rd day of the month. I CAN HEAR THE DIFFERENCE!

I totally agree. I only use Poly wire on the pickups I build and they sound fantastic.

“It doesn’t matter” - Awesome

This is what I love about your channel, fact not fiction. And You are not afraid to go against the grain. Keep it up man!

There is one element that wasn't mentioned, that is factor in overall tone. Age. Plain enamel _deteriorates_ over time and that deterioration can be accelerated under certain conditions. Much more so than the poly coats. This can alter the coil in a major way. Think of it as being like a new building settling in over time. I tend to like it when this happens because the results tend to lean more towards what I look for in a pickup. However. The downside to this is that your precious pickup is also one step closer to total failure as a result. Those great "vintage" pickups that you drool over now (me too) don't sound the same as they did when they were new. And remember, many a good "vintage" pickup, died along the way. Just go with the poly and build them right to begin with.

Love your videos man, just enough science to get the point across, which means I can point my friends who do not have degrees in the sciences to them, because usually my explanation just leaves them more confused than when we started, lols.... Keep up the good work man. :)

I only use poly on my PAF’s and everyone loves them! Hell, I really love them on my guitars 🎸

oh man, exactly what i think and what i do, practically no one can hear or feel the difference. very very good.

Liking your videos more and more. Getting away from buzz words and sticking to the technical facts. Thanks!

You gotta love this guy.. lol.. Dispelling myths every episode.. Awesome dude..

I've spun both and why do I notice plain enamel as being brighter and I personally like poly better I think it sounds better, but I guess it could be in my head, I will have to do alittle more testing on my next run of wire.

Most musicians will still choose to buy into some strange tone mojo rather than try to educate themselves, despite having great channels like this available for free.

I love the "I can hear the difference" guys. I had a guitar come in and the guy wanted all of the typical "mojo mods"... so I put in some cheap China pickups, Js pots, and ceramic tone caps. He LOVED it when he thought it was vintage PAFs, CTS pots, and Emerson oil and paper. Of course I did the work that he wanted, I did it to prove a point. Sadly... those cheap China pickups sounded better than the $400 set that ended up in that guitar... but he will never admit it.

You are 100% correct. Back in the day when I wound pickups I actually preferred poly wire because it is more durable and will last much longer than formvar and plain enamel.

Agree. PLUS, to be able to conduct energy through lacquer you would have to generate a ton of voltage, which a guitar pickup simply can't do. A passive pickup generates extremely low voltages. That's why you need and AMPLIFIER to listen... Ok now you may be thinking about active pickups, right? Still isn't enough voltage! That's my knowledge at least, burn me if you think different. Peace

Okay, so you said the thickness does something to the tone, and in another video you said the further apart the wires are the less interference with the mids and highs there is (or maybe that was someone else's video, IDR), so would that mean could use a 42AWG double billed poly-nylon wire to further enhance the mids and highs in an already mid and high leaning pickup due to the relatively thick gauge? You also said the height vs the width of the coil affects tone, is that why traditional single coils sound thin and hollow to me while P90s are full and bodied?

The comment section under your videos are getting better than those on imgur now. :D You seem to have decent followers.

Your pickup content is why I subscribe 👍

I rally(!) appreciate your tone man! And you know your subject as well as far as I can tell after 20 years buttering my bread with sound engineering. Of course I will give your sponsors a click when you ask so uncorrupted and nicely! I'm at the moment experimenting with different coil-constructions, and I found good info here. Thanx!

Thank you, Dylan! I love this channel, I'm actually learning stuff and I don't have to listen to the typical superstitious guitarist jargon (well, maybe that's in the comments). I'm planning to build the pickups on my future builds myself, so I'm very interested in this stuff. This solves the "what wire should I get"-issue. You describing the pickups (transducers!) as very crude does seem right. I remember one guitar builder hobbyist saying that he uses magnets from a hardware store and he gets the results he wants, so it can't really be all that finicky as long as you know what you're doing and understand a little bit of the science behind it.

Thank you Dylan! I love the way you explain it!

Anyone disliking this video, doesn't like to be told the truth.

I notice a difference in the pickups I wind, and this is my theory as to why. To me, single/double build poly, enamel, heavy formvar all feel different running through my fingers, poly feels the most sticky and stretchy. How tight the wire is laid on and if the wire is stretching or not would for sure effect tone

The people who say they can tell the difference are the same people who can hear dog whistles!!!😂😂😂😂😂

Glad to hear you call it an inductor. I find it interesting that people measure resistance of a coil. It doesn't tell what you want to know. Coils require a totally different approach to measure henrys. I'm not exactly sure how to measure the effectiveness of a transducer but I'll bet that a human ear is not able to give a quantitative value from nearly similar transducers. The human ear is amazing but it has its limitations. I find some of the pickup comparisons videos almost useless. Show me something on a recording digital oscilloscope and compare the two signals. Anything else is just a bunch of word salad trying to find a description of the difference or just plain hyperbole. In the end it doesn't really matter one little bit because if it sounds good to the user then it is good, all the rest of the minutiae is irrelevant.

Firstly, I love watching your technical videos. Literally, I love them and mostly watch these on your channel. Secondly, everything you explain makes a great sense. But! I watched this video,. then I saw a vid ('Full Review: Formwar vs. Plain Enamel vs. Poly Pickup Wire') where Schuyler Dean builds 3 pickups that are exactly the same except for the wire. I was listening with my eyelids closed and I promise I hear the difference between formwar, plain enamel and poly -insulated wire. Formwar wasn't a surprise as I'd seen your vid explaining insulation thickness, but I also hear the difference between plain enamel and poly. I hadn't any bias as I hadn't heard anything about what was supposedly what. But I liked plain enamel the best, then poly, formwar the least. I still don't know who tells what, but poly sounds just a bit 'tinny' compared to plain enamel, and I dislike the lows and highs of the formwar. Please explain what that difference may come from and, if you please, build your own pair you are telling in this video to compare them in your next video

Hi Dylan! Always great videos. One question, are you aware of polyesterimid insulated wire for pick winding? If yes,any hint on what the tone could look like?

I love your videos because it is the truth with no BS.

Very interesting info. So the gold foil pickup gets its inductance from the wide flat coil and the use of 44 AWG wire. What does the ferrite magnet bring to the equation? Why don't more manufacturers use 44 wire. Is it too problematic to work with (breakage) or is it that buyers what vintage tone and Fender and Gibson used a thicker wire? What's the downside to inductance (if any)? I'd love to hear you breakdown a goldfoil pickup and what sets it apart from the different styles. Thanks!

Hi Dylan! Love watching your videos and probably you already answered this but I wasn’t able to find an answer going through your videos. I got the chance to 1-2 the PRS 57/08 (neck) and Iron Gear Tesla Shark (bridge), both into the same Epiphone LP bridge position. On paper, these pickups are very similar: AlNiCo II Magnets, 8.5 Ohm, 42 AWG enamel coil wire and Chrome Covers on both. Both had a similar warm, low output tone but the PRS 57/08 had a clearer, better defined and more complex tone to it. So I guess the question is: what could cause this difference in tone on such similar pickups? (I did use the Iron Gear neck pickup installed in the bridge position because of the similar output to the PRS) I’ve read on the internet (and I’m taking this with a huge grain of salt) that usually the bad Chinese pickups use an alloy for the coil wire instead of pure copper that lower conductivity and in turn leads to having to do more wraps to get the same output, also that the bobbin poles aren’t pure steel and that can also affect the tone. Do you think the difference comes just from the winding of the coils or it can be just the difference in the quality of the materials used? I would love to get your take on this.

Pronounced. Pol ee im id. Long e, Short I sound. This is used to coat the top of most computer chips for isolation.

Placebo or self mesmerisation is under-rated...... if i think my lucky shorts make me win at tennis then leave me in my dream... hehe

I ran into a guy working in a guitar store who said he could hear the difference in the type of finish used on the guitar. I was going to ask him for evidence, but I realized his myths were all he had.

Hey Dylan, do you have any video about wood vs tone?

7:08 About heavy farmvar Vs plain enamel... IMHO the tone changes because of not just a matter of "dimension of the coil" but especially also for the "space between the winds" (gap between turns). Ina few words even though you made an enamel coil identical in size like a farmvar one, they will sound difefrent; because of the *gap between the turns*

Question: I noticed The Stratosphere has some 2014 Gibsons I might be interested in. Can it be a big problem for a set neck guitar to go without strings for that long? I’m not sure if they had strings and were recently stripped or not.

great info .all I want is a wire that solders without scraping or sanding .wichone will do that?

Dylan. I wanted to ask about your wide range rebuild. Since the screws aren't actually screwed in anyway. Could you just replace them with pole magnets and get rid of the bar magnet all together? If thats possible what would it do ti the pickup response?

I know this is off topic... I have a Harley Benton TE-52. I have added a Bill Lawerence 5-way circuit. Which set of Dylan pickups would you recommend? I’ll be playing heavy rock and a little bit of country. If that makes sense.

From Leo: Good show. You are a brave man. If you keep telling the truth about all this stuff, how are people going to charge more for the snake oil magic? Usually, people want to believe what they want to believe. Dielectric leakage is usually measured at far higher voltages. At the tiny mV levels in a pickup, the numbers are so low that they are almost impossible to measure. I learned how to measure electrical characteristics with an Oscilloscope in 1972, used one in my job, and still have one. Even a moderately priced oscilloscope is (at minimum) hundreds of times more accurate and has thousands of times more range than any human ear. If I cannot see it on the scope, it does not exist. No invisible magic. I do recognize the stacking of variables, for example an extra limber piece of wood in the neck, combined with a minimum tolerance of turns, with a minimum tolerance of magnetic field, with a minimum tolerance pot and capacitor on a guitar built a "loose" set up, WILL sound different than a guitar build with a stiff piece of wood in the neck and all the parts having maximum spec. That is all measurable. Add to that a good amp with a three band EQ, and it really does not matter much.

thanks for your vids and teaching me my 1970 strat is not the total piece of junk everyone wants me to believe. Also your So down to earth you could be Australian..hi from Oz keep it up regards

I can only imagine how many heads exploded on this video....👍

I used to use Plain Enamel when I wound my first pickups because I thought that it was better because it wasn’t coated in Poly. These days I use Poly or Heavy Formav because they last longer Edit: Formvar

I love how he referenced some butthurt comments from last video when he said "wire radius" instead of the AWG standard measurement.

we all hear what our brain tells us to hear. so like what you like and dont condemn someone for like something else. now if you want to be more educated on what you like. then read the engineering books AND listen to people who who know more about it. that being said thanks for the education dylan!

I always question the 'mojo' myths guitar players cling to. I've been building pedals for a few years and I can tell you that 'magic' op amps aren't a thing, I can tell you that mythical diodes aren't a thing.. electrons do not believe in your myths. you can measure and explain everything and recreate anything. So when I hear the pickup people go on about insulation I am curious as you are messing with inductance and capacitance which will change frequency response so I assume the thickness of the coating of insulation is the real key not what it is made of.

Im not so easily convinced. Where's the bode plots to prove it?

Funny enough, I've never understood why people is so stuck in the old ways (about guitars), it's like the only industry that haven't improved since the 50s. Imagine if guitars had to adapt to the market as cars, PCs or cellphones do~ I'm the kind of guitarist who believes wood doesn't matter, and that a good set of pickups can make your chopstick guitar shine~ But then, someone will come and laugh at me for sticking to alpha pots instead of CTS... xD

Yet you didn't compare them playing. Huge difference in tone. Just compare some yourself. That is all that matters.

なｎ

How come when I've got a question on all things pickups .. the answer is on DylanTalksTone ... v cool