The Answer Is Blowing in the Wind(ing)

Feel trapped with your guitar’s tone? Think your only options are sticking with your current sound or buying a much more expensive guitar?

The answer may be in your pickups’ winding.

By adjusting the windings in your existing pickups—or by buying new pickups that are wound to your specifications—you can radically improve your guitar’s tone.

First, decide whether you want your guitar to be overwound (hot) or underwound (less hot) compared to your existing setup. (It helps to know the output, in ohms, of your current pickups. A guitar technician can do this for you, or you can do it yourself.)

Then, do something about those pickups. If you’d like a free evaluation, send them to us. We’ll thoroughly inspect your pickups’ output and contact you with our suggestions. One may be to underwind your existing pickups (we can’t add windings). Depending on the condition of your pickups, we can modify them by removing wire from -1% to -2% percent.

Another option is to purchase the appropriate Fervor pickup(s). We can recommend a pickup and, if needed, a customized winding for the sound you’re looking for.

If you simply want to replace your existing pickups with new Fervor pickups, our online store makes it easy to choose the precise amount of over- or underwinding you’re looking for—if our standard outputs don’t work for you.

The most critical step, though, is deciding on the sound you want to achieve. Once you figure that out, we can help you get it.

Overwound and Underwound, Explained

You often hear tone-centric guitarists talking or blogging about over- or underwound pickups. What’s it all mean?

A critical part of any pickup’s construction is the wiring, usually copper, that’s wound around the magnetized pole pieces under each string.

An overwound pickup has relatively more windings of copper wire around those pole pieces—anywhere from 2% to 5% more wire—than a standard, stock pickup. An underwound pickup has fewer windings, in about the same proportion.

Here’s how it translates to sound: Overwound pickups are “hot.” They’re bold and powerful, with a punch that clearly distinguishes them from today’s store-bought guitars. The extra wire produces more tone, in higher ranges. Lead guitarists love hot pickups.

On the other hand, underwound pickups produce a milder, less forceful sound that many rhythm guitar players prefer.

That’s the simple version, anyway. Achieving the perfect tone requires a lot of trial and error, and can be a lifelong pursuit. In my next post I’ll talk more about how over- or underwinding your pickups can get you there faster.