Unpotted vs. Potted Pickup Audio Test

[kingvox]

Was gonna post this in another thread, but I figured I'd share it in its own thread for its own discussion.



I would've just put captions saying "Unpotted" or "Potted" but..."Video Editor" in Windows 10 sucks, and I couldn't figure out how to do that. Sorry!

I was digging around my computer and found a recording I'd made a month or so ago. I made a Strat pickup and did a series of recordings before potting it.

Then I potted it, and, maintaining the exact same pickup height, microphone positions, amp settings, and even sitting in the same position in my chair, I re-recorded the same parts to the best of my ability. There are a couple minor discrepancies in my playing, a flub or two, but overall I felt confident in replicating the same lines with the potted pickup.

I didn't record a "tap test," but the unpotted pickup definitely picked up a lot more noise from tapping the pickguard, or using the pickup selector switch. The tapping of the pickguard and flicking of the selector switch definitely had more clarity and high end and loudness. As for the tonal effect on actual playing of the guitar, you be the judge.

Also, the unpotted pickup was extremely prone to ear-piercing squealing when using overdrive and fuzz, especially stacking them together. I did not do any recordings where I experimented with Hendrix style gain stacking and feedback. Maybe another time.

So. Just my own way of doing as objective a comparison as I can. I'm not making any claims about anything.

Recorded in stereo with a Sennheiser E906 front and center on the speaker, and a 3U audio Teal CM-1 condenser mic as a room mic placed about 5 feet away from the amp and a couple feet above it.

 

[Golem]

I thought somehow this thread would be about this video:



Thanks for posting something new! Also, the thing with the harmonics is where the differences really stood out the most for me. Although I really like Seth Lovers I'm generally leaning towards potting anytime I have the option.

 

[Antigua Tele]

Sound aside, I'm afraid I couldn't really figure out when it was presenting a recording of potted versus unpotted. I'd settle for time stamps.

 

[Antigua Tele]

I thought somehow this thread would be about this video:



Thanks for posting something new! Also, the thing with the harmonics is where the differences really stood out the most for me. Although I really like Seth Lovers I'm generally leaning towards potting anytime I have the option.

The thing about his videos is that he's playing both sides of the field; selling expensive PAF replicas, but then acting as an objective PAF historian, and so there's a conflict of interest, in which to say "original PAFs were special in all sorts of ways, and only I have taken such care to recreate those special details". If he know which pickups are which, he might play the guitar in a way that produces the outcome he would expect, or might want. For example, someone said the unpotted pickups sounded "more lively", he might have plucked the strings harder, and that caused them to be "more lively". It's hard to ask someone to be unbiased when their paycheck depends on them being biased. It would have been better if he had a friend play with the two pickups, and didn't tell that friend which was which. It's even better still, and considered scientifically rigorous, to have neither party know which is which.

 

[hamerfan]

PAFs are machine wound tight coils. There mechanical parts like magnets, keeper bare and pole screws are the culprit. Fender does handwinding loose coils, while the magnets and fiber are fixed with lacquer.
That means to me you have to pot the Fender style coils, on humbuckers you can wax the magnet and the metal parts only to get 'light' potting.

 

[Antigua Tele]

PAFs are machine wound tight coils. There mechanical parts like magnets, keeper bare and pole screws are the culprit. Fender does handwinding loose coils, while the magnets and fiber are fixed with lacquer.
That means to me you have to pot the Fender style coils, on humbuckers you can wax the magnet and the metal parts only to get 'light' potting.

As a practical test, I was playing some unpotted Strat pickups (incidentally I bought them from OP) and they did squeal with stacked gain, but I also have Seth Lovers and they don't squeal quite as easily, and in addition to the PAF bobbins being machine wound and tensioned, they have tape around the coils, and the bobbins are thinner. The Strat coils are a lot more exposed and a lot less self-supporting. With the double stacked overdrive, it squealed a lot, but I could talk into it, and so I'm sure some acoustic portion of the strings made its way into the signal, but my contention is, in order to get the microphony to the point where it might matter, the guitar becomes unusable. Also, with single coils, the AC noise with stacked gain at high volume is a totally disgusting sound that would get you booed off any stage. People would shout "fix you f**ing guitar!"

The loose magnets and screws are definitely a cause for feedback, as are the base plates on a Tele bridge if they comes loose. Anywhere in which there is a varying capacitive potential there can be a source of feedback.

Besides, if the sound of clean and distorted tone mixed together sounds good, there are easier ways to do it. In fact, a Tube Screamer does this already.

Here's a product idea for a pedal maker; I realized that the microphonics of a pickup are faaar from flat. It's not like a fancy condenser microphone, but rather it delivers frequencies from around 150Hz up to 1.5kHz (when you talk into the pickup it sounds like a tin can), and it chops off sounds above and below. Those figures aren't exact, that's just roughly what I saw most prominent in testing. So do this: make a pedal like a Tube Screamer that mixes in some clean signal, but give the clean signal a tone control that is separate from the tone control of the clipped signal. That would let you give the the clean part of the signal a constricted frequency band, just like real microphonincs. You could advertise it as "unpotted pickups in a box", and you can get as much of that sound as you want with none of the drawbacks.

 

[EsquireBoy]

Thanks for taking the time to do the test, it's very well done and really allows to compare both.

That totally confirms what I already knew: I much prefer slightly microphonic pickups, wether it comes from them being unpotted or from whatever other reason. They always have an "airy" quality, as if a built-in reverb, and make a solidbody guitar sound more acoustic.

As stated above, it's all the more obvious with the natural harmonics at the beginning, but it's clearly noticeable on the other parts too. And I'm sure it's feel wise that the difference is the most noticeable.

I understand why people usually prefer potted pickups, and how they can be good "platforms", but to me they sound a bit sterile. These days I like to go direct guitar -> amp, with no reverb, and I like the liveliness of a microphonic pickup.

 

[Antigua Tele]

Whether it really makes a difference or not, it seems to me that the unpotted pickup market is very underserved. The only way I can get them is by winding them myself or special ordering them from someone like OP, who makes some pickups to order. Even those $12 specials on Amazon are wax potted. There's no such think as "light wax potting", either, because the outside of the coil gets waxed first and the outside of the coil is where it is the most loose and sensitive to changes in air pressure. I think kingvox could get an edge on the market by selling straight up unpotted pickups. They will squeal like an MF, but they will give you "an airy quality, as if a built-in reverb, and make a solidbody guitar sound more acoustic." That sounds like a solid value proposition right there. The customer will know what they're getting.

I bet you'd get a good six months of TGP clout before Seymour Duncan comes along and steals your idea out from under you.

 

[11 Gauge]

Here's a product idea for a pedal maker; I realized that the microphonics of a pickup are faaar from flat. It's not like a fancy condenser microphone, but rather it delivers frequencies from around 150Hz up to 1.5kHz (when you talk into the pickup it sounds like a tin can), and it chops off sounds above and below. Those figures aren't exact, that's just roughly what I saw most prominent in testing. So do this: make a pedal like a Tube Screamer that mixes in some clean signal, but give the clean signal a tone control that is separate from the tone control of the clipped signal. That would let you give the the clean part of the signal a constricted frequency band, just like real microphonincs. You could advertise it as "unpotted pickups in a box", and you can get as much of that sound as you want with none of the drawbacks.

One of my favorite pedals for distortion and OD is a Rat. Unfortunately, it has a high-pass filter with a cutoff freq. of ~1.5 KHz, and it will induce squealing in any microphonic pickup, even with the dist/gain set low.

The ultimate challenge for me is to have a Tele bridge pickup (and assembly - baseplate, bridgeplate, and hardware must all be rattle free) that won't squeal when I'm using a Rat (even if set for low gain, like how John Scofield or Bill Frisell use it).

 

[BorderRadio]

With the double stacked overdrive, it squealed a lot, but I could talk into it, and so I'm sure some acoustic portion of the strings made its way into the signal, but my contention is, in order to get the microphony to the point where it might matter, the guitar becomes unusable

“Unusable” for any player who needs lots of volume and/or gain. There are better ways to amplify an acoustic guitar, I get it, but the extra ‘presence’ might be desired, say an archtop with DeArmonds. Low volume playing, enough to have acoustic presence, and some acoustic ‘information’ being amplified by a microphonic pickup with a small octal amp. That or insane people who like to squeal when not playing through a fuzz at high volume

 

[Antigua Tele]

“Unusable” for any player who needs lots of volume and/or gain. There are better ways to amplify an acoustic guitar, I get it, but the extra ‘presence’ might be desired, say an archtop with DeArmonds. Low volume playing, enough to have acoustic presence, and some acoustic ‘information’ being amplified by a microphonic pickup with a small octal amp. That or insane people who like to squeal when not playing through a fuzz at high volume

I don't believe you hear any difference at low gain. For example, talking into the pickup only works if you have it running high gain. Some have noted that an unpotted pickup makes a louder clicking sound when you tap it with the pick, but that's a transient and a physical shock, in order to simulate the sound of guitar strings without playing, your voice talking into the pickup is a much closer approximation, and that only works for me at higher gain levels that also result in a lot of noise in general.

I even mounted an upotted pickup under a nylon string guitar, it took a very high amount of gain to hear even the slightest sound from the plastic strings.

Note that this is an upotted coil, and not an unpotted cover. A cover might be more senstitive, but it works both ways, it would also be more prone to feedback. I had a loose cover on a humbucker, and it was a nightmare, it squealed at low gain / high volume.

 

[BorderRadio]

I don't believe you hear any difference at low gain. For example, talking into the pickup only works if you have it running high gain. Some have noted that an unpotted pickup makes a louder clicking sound when you tap it with the pickup, but that's a transient and a physical shock, in order to simulate the sound of guitar strings without playing, your voice talking into the pickup is a much closer approximation.

I even mounted an upotted pickup under a nylon string guitar, it took a very high amount of gain to hear even the slightest sound from the plastic strings.

Note that this is an upotted coil, and not an unpotted cover. A cover might be more senstitive, but it works both ways, it would also be more prone to feedback. I had a loose cover on a humbucker, and it was a nightmare, it squealed at low gain / high volume.

The difference is small, not earth shattering. The player’s perception is key to this, which should be the disclaimer put under the heading of any guitar forum lol. I can test for this (no harm in that), or I can play for it, meaning I’m still a fan of low volume, low output, unpotted Filtertrons over the potted counterparts in a full hollowbody for the added ‘liveliness’. I personally can’t quantify or demonstrate this, but it’s not a full blanket “doesn't matter since it’s not shown on ‘paper’“ kind of thing either.