Nerd stuff: I plotted all the Dimarzio humbucker DCR and mV values

[Lemonbaby]

Dimarzio is the only manufacturer that makes it very clear that DC resistance may not have much relationship with hotness

HS-3 is a vintage output pickup, but its specs make it look like it's very hot:

Wiring: 4 Conductor
Magnet: Alnico 5
Resistance: 23.72 Kohm

Seymour's P90 Stack has 31.6k DC resistance which, in some people's heads, would make it a burning hot metal pickup. However, it just sounds like a twangy P90. Thin wires, tons of windings, weak magnets.

DC resistance doesn't know if it's caused by a very looong linear wire, a somewhat shorter wire wound to a coil or an even shorter wire wound to a coil with a magnet in the middle.

 

[Excruciator]

Pickup resistance does correlate to output if you normalise the magnet strength/type and for wire gauge, and general construction, and only compare like for like (i.e. not comparing humbuckers to stacked singles especially).

In reality this isn't really possible because pickup manufacturers know customers won't/aren't prepared to deep dive on this kind of stuff. I've asked some of the bigger builders for this kind of information in the past, and some of them will give it out. Even when you have done your research, it still doesn't tell you how a pickup is going to sound or feel. Some like to suggest Inductance as a metric for output, but to be honest it's just as bad as resistance as a measure of output. Listening to clips online tells you a bit less than nothing about how it's going to sound, and nothing about how it's going to feel feel, so there's that. In reality, only actual experience is going to count for anything, it's an uncomfortable reality due to the cost and perceived risk of purchase.

As far as pickup tone curves, if you ever looked at bode plots, it's not surprising they don't get posted, since they pretty much all come out as a mid peak somewhere in the 1.8- 3khz region of varying height and Q, which isn't exactly intuitive when everyone's been programmed to think in a bass/mids/treble mindset. Nor do they account for things like magnet strength or interaction. Pickups may only be wire, metal and magnets, but they have some very complex interactions and dynamics.

It's important to remember, when resistance was very prominently used as an analogue for output to customers, it was at its peak maybe 25-30 years ago, when a huge chunk of the pickup market was only interested in either EMG's or paf's. If you are a paf guy, 99% of the time the resistance is going to be a good indicator of output within the group of potential pickups you have to choose from.

As far as the Super 3, extrapolating from the resistance, from Dimarzio's output claims, and having seen how ultra skinny the coil is on those pickups, I'd say it's a reasonable guess they have 46 awg wire, which is exceptionally thin, thinner than a Warpig even. Assuming they are that gauge, a Nailbomb or perhaps even a Duncan Custom would likely have comparably more turns.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

@ExMachina
Here's all the dimarzio pickups listed outputs vs their listed treble scores. Slightly stronger correlation than output vs DCR, but still not significant enough to be really useful.

humbuckers only:

The only really strong correlation between output and treble I found is with the Rail strat and tele pickups, which has an R of .9069. Granted it's a significantly smaller data pool, but stacked singles and such are more in line with the overall correlation when isolated, and they also had quite small data pools.

 

[ExMachina]

Here, I made one that shows the inductance vs resonant frequency. Pretty solid coefficient of det at 0.896. Also, not really surprise given the physics of this stuff. If you're not sure what a resonant peak is, see below (it's the thing at f_0)

 

[narad]

I'm just gonna reiterate that even though putting labels on these sorts of plots naively leads to text garbage, there are strategies to correlate dots with pickup names, be it labels or different symbols or different colors. Personally if I'm trying to understand the physics of pickups more, these plots support acquired internet wisdom, but when it comes time to think about what pickup might be cool, or relate my experience with subsets of pickups to this data, I can't get there without labels. If I'm the only one, fine, no bother, but I have to feel I'm not alone on this one.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

Here, I made one that shows the inductance vs resonant frequency. Pretty solid coefficient of det at 0.896. Also, not really surprise given the physics of this stuff. If you're not sure what a resonant peak is, see below (it's the thing at f_0)

View attachment 129167

View attachment 129168

Where are you sourcing the resonant frequency data?

 

[ExMachina]

I'm just gonna reiterate that even though putting labels on these sorts of plots naively leads to text garbage, there are strategies to correlate dots with pickup names, be it labels or different symbols or different colors. Personally if I'm trying to understand the physics of pickups more, these plots support acquired internet wisdom, but when it comes time to think about what pickup might be cool, or relate my experience with subsets of pickups to this data, I can't get there without labels. If I'm the only one, fine, no bother, but I have to feel I'm not alone on this one.

I got you my dude, make me open vscode and do work...Sorry some are a bit jumbled. I think you can guess the brand by the color

 

[narad]

I got you my dude, make me open vscode and do work...Sorry some are a bit jumbled. I think you can guess the brand by the color
View attachment 129170

The only downside is that after seeing these names, I realize I basically never used any of these

 

[ExMachina]

Where are you sourcing the resonant frequency data?

Guitar Pickup Database

Compare all available electric guitar pickup specifications in an a simple data table. All pickups, easily compared.

guitarpickupdatabase.com

 

[ExMachina]

The only downside is that after seeing these names, I realize I basically never used any of these

So since the r2 is pretty good, you can get a rough idea where a pickup is on the curve. Basically, correlate the output on the Seymour Duncan or dimarzio sites with the H value on the plot, find where the pickup of interest would fall to get an idea.

You'll notice that for the same reason freq you can have higher output, I'm guessing this is due to the magnet size.

 

[narad]

So since the r2 is pretty good, you can get a rough idea where a pickup is on the curve. Basically, correlate the output on the Seymour Duncan or dimarzio sites with the H value on the plot, find where the pickup of interest would fall to get an idea.

You'll notice that for the same reason freq you can have higher output, I'm guessing this is due to the magnet size.

Yeaaa, but it's nice seeing them all in one plot. If only they took all the 3-4 major variables of pickups and made that all available. Would there be a faster way to make sense of what pickups you might like than the plots of these things across manufacturer's? Of course I'm assuming your guesses from looking at those plots would be useful inferences, and there's no telling that.

 

[Whoman Bean]

I can't get there without labels.

This.
Seeing all of those blue dots on a white background tells me absolutely nothing at all, what's even the point of doing that?

 

[ExMachina]

Lundgren analysis, feel like in hijacking the thread


Also this guy has inductance https://darthphineas.com/

 

[Antiproduct]

These data and plots are fun and all but let's keep in mind that what actually hits the amp will be vastly different because the EQ/resonant peak will be heavily affected by pot and cap values, pedals and cables. There should be a guide on how these parts influence each other but then PU makers wouldn't sell as much products lol

 

[ExMachina]

These data and plots are fun and all but let's keep in mind that what actually hits the amp will be vastly different because the EQ/resonant peak will be heavily affected by pot and cap values, pedals and cables. There should be a guide on how these parts influence each other but then PU makers wouldn't sell as much products lol

Pretty sure these are loaded for testing, pedals are totally external to the system, not even gonna touch on cables.