Differences in new and old MFD single coils

I have looked at the pickup database and there is not a lot of info on there or in other places around the net for differences between the different types of single coil MFD pickups (I am guessing pre and post BBS), I noticed that the early ones have a lower impedance as opposed the the newer ones that G&L is selling that have a higher impedance.

I was wondering what the differences are or what tonal differences would be between the older ones with the lower 4.3 compared to the newer ones that are rated at 5.4.

last questions is......would the lower output (older) pups work in the neck and middle position with a higher output (newer) pup in the bridge.

DKA-65

I hope this (almost?) full compendium of pickups used on G&L instruments will help you. The main difference between pre-BBE and BBE-era pickups is not the cause of wire used but rather its insulating sheath: plain enamel(PE) with its purplish appearance on the older ones and golden brown looking polysol on the newer. Of course you might already have noticed the large variability in DC-R resistance; the number of turns has never been an exact science

last questions is......would the lower output (older) pups work in the neck and middle position with a higher output (newer) pup in the bridge.

It could but no success guaranteed on how well they all balance. You'd have to do the experiment. But a famous example is the swapping out the "standard" Z-3 bridge pickup for a much hotter Will Ray Z-coil which works out fabulously!

- Jos

See this post: List of pickups used in G&L guitars, as I recently added a couple of links to posts from longtime G&L Historian Gabe Dellevigne (aka GPD) for the G&L Magnetic Field Design™ Strat style single coils and G&L Magnetic Field Design™ soapbar style single coils pickups.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the replies the links were helpful, the second one I had already found but the 2 together answered most of my
questions. I got what I think was a good deal on a neck and mid pickups from newer stock to go with my 5.1 ohm bridge pickup that is also a newer one.
There are two older ones that are for sale on Reverb that have green and yellow wiring and are both 4.1 ohm but the owner does not know if they were neck,mid, or bridge. These are the two that I was wondering if they would play nice with the 5.1 bridge as well as if anyone knows what position pickups they might be from the wire color.
https://reverb.com/item/22953297-g-l-early-pickup-set-patent-no-4220069-1980s-black

Someone can correct me - I think there would be no difference between bridge and neck in those years? A mid would be RWRP, easy to tell by checking whether the magnet repels the other pickup.

Thanks for the replies the links were helpful, the second one I had already found but the 2 together answered most of my
questions. I got what I think was a good deal on a neck and mid pickups from newer stock to go with my 5.1 ohm bridge pickup that is also a newer one.
There are two older ones that are for sale on Reverb that have green and yellow wiring and are both 4.1 ohm but the owner does not know if they were neck,mid, or bridge. These are the two that I was wondering if they would play nice with the 5.1 bridge as well as if anyone knows what position pickups they might be from the wire color.
https://reverb.com/item/22953297-g-l-early-pickup-set-patent-no-4220069-1980s-black

Those two pickups are for the middle (RWRP) position. See this in our Gallery: USA S-500 Picture Diagram.

Hope this helps.

Those two pickups are for the middle (RWRP) position. See this in our Gallery: USA S-500 Picture Diagram.

Hope this helps.

This is the verification I was looking for, I was 99% sure that is what they were......but a heck of a lot can go astray in that last 1%.

I also want to ask one more questions, or at least expand on something I wanted to know.....but first I also want to say thank you to everyone that chimed in and gave links to read.

So the question goes out hopefully to people that have played new and old (as well as lower vs. higher ohm) pickups.
Is there are great sound difference or output difference between the two? If I have a standard Alnico pickup with all other things being close to equal I can at least have a rough guide to what it would sound like if you changed from higher to lower (or lower to higher) output, but with the MFD's being a bit of a different animal for me I was hoping someone would chime in with their opinions.

I also want to ask one more questions, or at least expand on something I wanted to know.....but first I also want to say thank you to everyone that chimed in and gave links to read.

So the question goes out hopefully to people that have played new and old (as well as lower vs. higher ohm) pickups.
Is there are great sound difference or output difference between the two? If I have a standard Alnico pickup with all other things being close to equal I can at least have a rough guide to what it would sound like if you changed from higher to lower (or lower to higher) output, but with the MFD's being a bit of a different animal for me I was hoping someone would chime in with their opinions.

I'd like to pay homage to ohm-age.

If two pickups use the same bobbin, and the same type and size (gauge) wire, and one has a larger impedance value than the other - it means that more wire was wrapped around the pickup with the higher impedance than was wrapped around the pickup with the lower impedance. More wire in the coil is like having a larger antenna - it 'catches' more signal than the same pickup with less wire.

That being said, the same coil of wire (same impedance) around stronger magnets (ie. magnets that produce greater flux density in the field) will pull more signal out of the strings (as it were) than weaker magnets - picking up, as it were more nuances (harmonics) from the strings. So you can have the exact same coil, with the exact same impedance, sounding hotter or cooler depending on the magnets.

Were that not enough - the material used in the coil changes the impedance. Copper is more conductive than Aluminium, for example. That means that a copper wound pickup with 8K ohms impedance has more winds than an otherwise identical pickup wound with Aluminium at the same impedance. Likewise the 8K ohms Aluminum pickup will have more winds than a similarly wound 8K ohm Nickel pickup, since it is less conductive than Aluminium.

The Impedance for all three pickups is identical - but since Copper is a better conductor it would takes more copper wire to give an 8K impedance than it would for an Aluminium wound pickup with the exact same impedance value. More wire means more winding, and more winding means more signal being induced into the coil. The copper version of the pickup would be louder/hotter than the Aluminium version, and the Aluminium version would be louder than the Nickel version.

The impedance (ohm) of a pickup is only an accurate way of comparing very, very similar pickups (same wire gauge, bobbin size, (height, width, thickness), and metal).

All that is to say that comparing MFDs to Alnico's on the basis of impedance values wouldn't (IMO) really tell you much. They're different animals.

As far as I understand it, and I am open to correction on this, MFDs were designed to allow a much stronger magnetic field without significantly impeding the vibration of the strings within that field. I expect a fair bit of (and trial and error) goes into sculpting that kind of set up. All I know is they sound freaking awesome compared to anything else I've heard.

On a side note - I'd love to have an ASAT special with silver wound MFDs. (Silver is a significantly better conductor than Copper - meaning the same impedance values would require more windings and capture even more signal - turning these tone monsters into tone super-monsters!)

On a side note - I'd love to have an ASAT special with silver wound MFDs. (Silver is a significantly better conductor than Copper - meaning the same impedance values would require more windings and capture even more signal - turning these tone monsters into tone super-monsters!)

I've always wondered how the MFD Jumbos (or the S500) pickups would sound like with Alnico magnets. An Alnico 8 would be particularly interesting as it is closest to ceramic. Does anyone know if BBE has experimented with Alnico magnets in the MFDs?

On a side note - I'd love to have an ASAT special with silver wound MFDs. (Silver is a significantly better conductor than Copper - meaning the same impedance values would require more windings and capture even more signal - turning these tone monsters into tone super-monsters!)

I've always wondered how the MFD Jumbos (or the S500) pickups would sound like with Alnico magnets. An Alnico 8 would be particularly interesting as it is closest to ceramic. Does anyone know if BBE has experimented with Alnico magnets in the MFDs?

See this post: Did anyone catch this on Facebook? Alnico Soapbar?.

Wonder if that’s technically an ‘MFD...’

Wonder if that’s technically an ‘MFD...’

I was thinking about the same exact MFD construction/architecture with the same size bar magnets in alnico 8 instead of ceramic 5s....
No idea how that would sound in reality but seems like it might produce interesting sounds.

Because lower frequencies have longer wave lengths, the dampening effect of a magnetic field (on a guitar string) affects the lower frequencies sooner, and more significantly.

The stronger the magnetic field, the greater this effect is.

On the flip side, the stronger the magnetic field, the greater the amplitude of the signal transferred to the pickup's coil.

The yin/yang of it is this: the magnet that inhibits the signal the least (i.e. captures the full range of frequency the best) simultaneously transfers that signal to the coil the poorest.

A stronger magnet inhibits the signal more, but produces a 'louder' signal.

Of course, if you increase the number of winds in a pickup - you'll capture more signal, so an over-wound pickup with Alnico 2's can sound fuller and hotter than a sparsely wound pickup with Alnico 3's. But it would take a lot of copper to get an Alnico 2 to sound as hot as an Alnico 5, etc.

The point is that pickup design has always been an effort to maximize both the quality of the signal and the amplitude of that signal.

That's why the MFDs are so freaking amazing.

Because the ceramic bar magnet sits below the coil - bathing the coil in a strong magetic field. The pole pieces however are soft iron, so they are less magnetic that the bar magnet beneath them. They don't pull on the strings with the same strength as the ceramic they sit above - and so you have less hindrance on the strings, coupled to a stronger signal in the coil.

That makes MFDs sound they way they do, lots of tone, coupled with a big sound.

Now you over wind those pickups and you get even more signal (I'm looking at you ASAT Special!).

Replacing the ceramic bar with an Alnico 8 bar would (IMO) be a step backwards. Ceramics are more uniform and consistent (translation, more uniform magnetic field), and because of this they preserve bass and mid tones better than Alnico 8s. In higher frequencies, where wave lengths are so small they are effectively negligible - the Alnico 8's would be better - but only slightly, not enough (in my opinion) to warrant the trade off in mids and bass.

That being said, in theory if one lucked out with a Alnico 8 bar magnet whose through some fluke of nature was able to have a uniquely uniform distribution of ferrite material, it may well perform on par with, or even slightly better than, a ceramic. But these would be rare. So freakishly rare, that mass producing them would only render a handful of these freaks.

That's how I, some random guy on the Internet without any (stated) credentials, understand it at least.

Dan
I'd like to share my experience and thoughts on MFD design pickups.

We have no idea what the saturation point of a particular string is where increasing the magnetic field has no impact on the temporary magnetic strength of the string. Nor do we have any idea where Stratitis (wolf tones) occur for a particular magnetic strength for the same string. These values aren't published. The magnetic strength is dependent upon the materials our string is made of; Stratis occurs due to the string length, string gauge, string tension and the position of the magnet (i.e. somewhere between the nut and the bridge). Stratitis is a dramatic effect, magnetic saturation isn't.

Lets take a Strat style pickup and raise it towards the string. We reach a point where the strings vibration is inhibited by it's magnet and we get an unusable sound. So we lower the height a bit and check the other strings and if none have Stratitis we've set our pickup at its maximum height. Treble strings are impacted first and when using staggered magnet pickups with magnet closest to its associated treble string is likely where Stratitis appears first. So we've set the height of the entire pickup based on avoiding Stratitis on a single string. The relative string volumes are now based on whatever magnetic energy each string has and it's distance from the top of the coil. If we have a flat pole pickup we'll still hit Stratitis somewhere on a treble string and again we've set the coil height based on that limit. Strat pickup makers use a single material in their pickup, the length is based on the spacing of the coil form to get all the wire on the coil that's desired, and all the magnets are fully charged after installation in the flatwork in a charging machine.

I converted my Tribute S-500 into a Commanche VI using a Chandler 6204 pickguard, 2 Z Coils and 1 Will Ray Z coil. I had Stratitis over the entire range of the neck with all the pickups set level with the pickguard. I couldn't play the guitar acoustically or electrically because of it. I next removed the bar magnets and moveable pole pieces, performed lots of calculations for the expected magnetic field, and installed 1/8" x 1/8" magnets in the tops of the stationary pole pieces and found that I still had Stratitis with the pickups set near the strings but it disappeared as I lowered the pickups (as predicted by the calculations). Stratis wasn't present on the wound strings so I was able to pitch the pickup up towards the wound strings. With the coils closer to the wound strings they're louder, in hindsight smaller magnets (3/32" or 1/16") under the treble strings would get that side of the coil up and give me a better balanced tone. But what I have is very much like a typical Strat or Tele and I'm happy with it for now.

If we knew where Stratitis appears for a given string gauge we can select individual string magnets (within the limits of what's being commonly made) that reach the Stratitis magnetic field level at the same height across the 6 strings (taking into account the string radius into the calc). We'll get the maximum output level out of our pickup for each string. Or we can select magnets to pitch the coil up towards the treble strings and try to balance the string outputs out of our pickup, but that gets complicated by the inductance of our coil and it's parasitic capacitance. But at least we'd have the Stratitis magnetic field limit to start with and our other design parameters are known.

If we want to design the best coil we've got to figure out what the magnetic field level of our charged strings are. I presume it's 20 times or less than the magnetizing force but who knows (no published data). Small magnetic fields don't have much reach, so our Strat 1/2" or 5/8" coil height means most of the coil isn't involved with receiving the strings signal. Here a broad flat coil receives more string signal but that may or may not sound good to us.

My experience with these Z Coils has taught me a lot. The Z Coil design (at least in the recent build versions of these pickups) has way too much magnetic field strength. The string magnetic strength is so high that the treble strings are received by the bass portion of the pickup which is RW, every time I played a treble string I could here the out of phase portion of the signals in the output - this is even more apparent for Comanche VI owners, you here significant treble string signal when playing with just a bass 1/2 coil selected.

Summarizing we'll hit Stratitis before we hit string saturation. The magnetic field causing Stratitis depends on guitar and string design and there's no published data on that. The maximum induced magnetic field strength for a string depends on the strings materials and config (wound/unwound/and wrap), again with a value that there's no published data for. Most of the coil of tall Strat/Tele style coils don't receive much string signal but that's what were used to, broad flat coils pick up more string signal but only if the induced magnetic field of the string is very long (like a P-90 design). Broad flat coils have their own sound that I'm not a fan of.

For me Stratitis sets the limit of how high I can move a magnet relative to it's string. When that level is determined our only option to change output level is coil placement relative to the magnet.

The MFDs pickups give us a unique opportunity to use different magnets in our pickups, even different magnets for each string on a given pickup. We can vary the magnetic field strength at each of our strings for each pickup position. Careful selection of different length Neodyium (or AlNiCo 5 if you can find them) magnets will allow us to provide magnetic field strengths at our strings that are the same as AlNiCo 2, 3, 4, and 5 magnets as used by Fender in the past. We can balance the magnetic field at each string based on where Stratitis occurs for that individual string. We can take fingerboard radius into account. We can take pickup position into account. All of these things are something the manufacturers can't do.

I'm a big fan of the MFD pickups as well as the bathtub route Strat body Tribute models. Both provide a paradise for those who want to experiment.

I've got some info in the Project Page on my mods to my Comanche VI+, as well as photos in Gallery of the modifications. I've fooled around enough with my Z Coils to bring you some of my experience.

Happy trails.