Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: metalmaniac93 on November 05, 2011, 02:37:45 AM
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Here are two excerpts from another forum stating that Tim does not wind BKPs that much anymore due to high demand for his product. Not to cause a huge issue, but it this true?
"I have a couple older Nailbombs and they are great. They work best in very bright guitars. Lots of harmonics, very full sounding, nothing frequency-wise that is scooped or spiked. Because they are so dynamic under distortion, they feel like they are high output, which they are not. If you could picture a more musical sounding, clearer, lower output Tone Zone you would be close.
The older BK pups are very special. The newer ones, not so much. Tim no longer winds these himself, and he has changed some of the components and materials used. With the exchange rate, Bare Knuckles can be very expensive."
"Hmmm... I've got an Air Zone, it's not that.
You have to find one that's at least 3 years old, that's when the demand forced Tim to change everything. If you could play one that Tim did himself, you could see why the hype started. For a while, you could beg him to make your order personally, but he doesn't do that anymore. I'm happy for his success, but the product is not the same.
Just like Seymour, I remember in 1981 the humbucker he made for my Tele, it was awesome! But now, I really haven't found anything in the catalog I like, and a lot that IMO is just plain bad".
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As they say on wikipedia
[citation required]
I very much doubt the person who posted the original allegation has any knowledge of what goes on in the BKP workshop. Vapourware, rumour, the internet's full of it.
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Of course there are other winders. There have been for rather a long time, longer than 3 years, and yeah, the number has increased with time.
FFS, think about it. BK make thousands of pickups, how the hell does one man wind all of them? This shouldnt come as a shock.
Are tims own better and/or has BK quality slipped as a result....I've been buying them for about 6 years now and certainly havent noticed that. Well, I havent got any in the last year-ish, but the doznes of others all sounded exceedingly BK to me. There was no step change in quality, or overall degredation (I've had BKs that were made 5-6 years ago alongside ones that were made 18 months to 2 years ago: I only know for sure that 4 out of dozens were made by tim as well, many/most of the others probably not). I dont see Tim training inadequately, either.
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Just like Seymour, I remember in 1981 the humbucker he made for my Tele, it was awesome! But now, I really haven't found anything in the catalog I like, and a lot that IMO is just plain bad".
This is my favorite part :lol:
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Mmmm... he might be talking about those Chinese clones that are making way to the streets...
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this kind of discussion is just what happens.
Tbh i think BKP raised the bar, now everyone else is trying to reach it - and some are not doing too bad a job.
I remember my first BKPs being a magical moment, i dont quite get the same response from them now but i dont think its because the pickups are any worse. Just that they have changed the perception of what a good pickup is.... fitting a BKP isn't always impressive for me any more because i just expect them to be that good!
and i suppose the more people who have BKP's the more you will find who simply don't appreciate them.
and i suppose many more people may have chosen based on the brand name, hype, bit of info on the website. it doesn't always mean they have the BKP that will most suit their guitar and playing style. anyone with sense does a bit of research or asks a few questions before shelling out a couple of hundred on a set of pickups... but there will always be just as many who dont because they assume paying the price will make any guitar sound perfect - if only that were true!!
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Typical internet BS. "You have to get an old one bro, they're the good ones!"
Spouted by people who have no personal experience and repeated by the clueless masses...
It's not just BKP, it's every brand. The "older is better" credo is a tough one to eradicate.
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^This
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Typical internet BS. "You have to get an old one bro, they're the good ones!"
Spouted by people who have no personal experience and repeated by the clueless masses...
It's not just BKP, it's every brand. The "older is better" credo is a tough one to eradicate.
+1
It's the most common guitar myth in general and very popular.
These myths are also repeatedly sqashed by comparison tests; I distinctly remember a comparison of the old Rectifier in a mag - on forums always supposed to be the better sounding one - where the newer model was just soooo much better in all respects.
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I saw that thread on the other forum. I did post in the thread saying all my BKPs sound awesome, but I had to hold myself back from getting into an argument about the 'older is better' myth!
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Someone should do a graph of "how good it sounds" plotted against "how old it is".
That's the only way this can be scientifically proven. I might do that right now.
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People often ignore the woods and the rest of the guitar's part in that equation and they do so at their peril
Unless the guy swapped out an old nailbomb and put a new one in THE SAME GUITAR and did a back to back test then the discussion is a bit bogus.
If you are comparing a memory of an old pickup to how you feel a new pickup is sounding that is unreliable too.
It only works in a back to back test with the same guitar on the same day with recorded eveidence
Clips or it didn't happen!
Pickups by their nature are just magnets, wire, baseplates etc
Did any materials change ?
They did about 6-7 years ago when Tim started having all his own bits made - much closer to what Gibson made than he had been able to source previously
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It does sound a lot like a new urban myth in the making.
The guitar world is full of "that particular period was magic" stories, and they get perpetuated because people read them and repeat them, based on no personal experience whatsoever. And eventually, it becomes "fact".... whether there was any truth in the original story or not.
Who knows, maybe things at BKP have changed, but it would be very difficult to prove it one way or another. Maybe I'll get another Riff Raff sometime and compare it with the one I've got now.
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My recent purchase, VHII and Mother's Milk, have flabbergasted collegue-guitarists. Some of them lend my strat and are totally in love with the sounds. That doesn't say all, but shows nevertheless BKP's are (still) highquality products.
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fortunately all of mine are great and bought reletively recently (last 2 yrs), i say fortunate 'cause i don't know how the
'old' ones sound :D
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I believe that
I mean... I've been using 3 months old strings now in my gibson les paul custom
newer strings just don't sound the same
I heard all brands are now using new metal alloys that don't resonate through the crystal lettuce structures the same way
just bought an epiphone special (THICK PLYWOOD BODY! YEAAH) with new strings and they don't sound awesome like the great vintage 3 months old strings in my gibson
no mojo :/
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to be honest i have found this to be true to an extent.
But not in a bad way
the miracle man i got in 2005 sounds far better (even in the same guitar) than the two i have bought since then.
The other two however did still soudn great.
That one just had that special something
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Yeah, I know that Tim has other winders and that is expected given the high demand for his pickups. I was just thrown for a loop when this person mentioned that the older BKP pickups are better due to Tim not winding them and the use of different materials for the new pickups. I know it is only one persons opinion, I like my HDs, I have heard the RY in my buddies guitar through my rig and they also rock, and I am waiting for my ESP Horizon NTII so I can put an A-bomb/CS neck in it. So, I am a BKP fan, but do like and use other pickups.
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to be honest i have found this to be true to an extent.
But not in a bad way
the miracle man i got in 2005 sounds far better (even in the same guitar) than the two i have bought since then.
The other two however did still soudn great.
That one just had that special something
I've certainly heard better and worse examples, to my ears, of the same pickup, but a lot of the time the better one has been newer.
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weather this is true or not they still cr@p all over anything else in the market
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So, by the same coin are newer custom guitars poorer in quality, creativity, craftsmanship, and playability than older customs from whatever brand? That may be apples to peanuts but I don't buy this arguement.
There are some better sounding pickups than others, but I've seen both as well: some great older ones, some great newer ones. None of them fail to kickass and do what they were built to do.
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It would be very interesting to see what Tim has to say about this story.
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So, by the same coin are newer custom guitars poorer in quality, creativity, craftsmanship, and playability than older customs from whatever brand? That may be apples to peanuts but I don't buy this arguement.
There are some better sounding pickups than others, but I've seen both as well: some great older ones, some great newer ones. None of them fail to kickass and do what they were built to do.
Great points well made
If I look at my own guitar making - things actually IMPROVE as time goes on
My earlier work is good but over time I learn things that I can apply to my craft that improve the product
Because of my ethos I never look to cut corners , or quality of components - in fact the opposite is true
I know a few of the bigger companies (Gibson and Fender etc during the 70s are notable here) who increased their profits by cost cutting by using cheaper components - and on a big scale saving $0.99 on a component stacks up if you make 250,000 guitars a year, but this is not the case with me and also not with BKP
Tim has turned to having more of his own components specially made to ENSURE quality and being able to get parts made the way he wants them.
Now there have ben a few minor spec changes over the years, as certain pickups are refined to serve their niche in the range .
And some may have preferred the older spec version whilst others favour the newer.....but it is not a decline in quality
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I do wonder though - if scatter winding a pickup is an art then some artists are going to be better than others. So, has Tim taught his staff to wind pickups as well as he does himself ? I know others have raised the question of consistency as well. How do you guarantee a scatter wind to be the same every time ?
Don't get me wrong - I have no intention of buying any other pickups.
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I got my first Bareknuckles in 2004 and I have tried pretty much every pickup since. Because of my playing style I tend to prefer the Alnico magnets to the ceramics. The first holydivers I heard were in a left handed Feline Lion at LGS in 2005, and I didn't like them, but I have a new voiced Holydiver that I love. Tim has revoiced some pickups through the years, but all the changes have been for the better, as he heard them through different amps and in different guitars.
I probably have around 40 sets of BK's, some are not in guitars at the moment, I have changed some around too, but what I can say is that the newest pickups sound just as great as the old pickups. I might be one of the few people who has been to the BK workshop and to Tim's house. He has also been to my house here in the States. Earlier this year I was there to pick up some pickups and to order some more. I'd also taken an old JBJ Seymour Duncan for repair. Tim checked it and realised it needed a coil rewound, and did it for me that afternoon.
Over a couple of beers that night we were discussing pickups (as you do tend to do with Tim!), and different sounds and I have to say that he is as enthusiastic now as he was when I first spoke with him. He might not make all the pickups, but the guys who make the rest were all taught by Tim and he still checks things out that they do all the time. He also still winds a lot of pickups (I also know this because they had a large order they were making and Tim was doing about half the pickups).
I can definitely say that the pickups now are just as good as the old ones. Also Tim only made some of the pickups from the start. The other original winder is still with the company.
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Its true that BKP has grown well over the passed years but the only reason BKP has been so successful is because of Tims dedication to quality and tone. He has invested a lot of time and money into tooling the business so it is able to produce its own materials to keep quality at an all time high. Tim also takes a full hands on approach when it comes to the business, as well as running BKP he still winds as much as he can and keeps involved in every aspect of BKP. He also trains his staff to his personal standards and reguarly checks the quality of the products before they get sent to customers (even though every pickup is checked before it goes out anyway).
I do wonder though - if scatter winding a pickup is an art then some artists are going to be better than others. So, has Tim taught his staff to wind pickups as well as he does himself ? I know others have raised the question of consistency as well. How do you guarantee a scatter wind to be the same every time ?
Don't get me wrong - I have no intention of buying any other pickups.
Scatter winding is exactly that..scattered. There is no specific way or pattern to it. The skill is being able to get the wire on neat enough and with the right amount of tension so not to stretch the wire or wind the coil far to thick. Tim will spend months teaching staff how to wind constantly checking the quality of their work to make sure it is up to his personal standards.
I hope this helps towards any questions you guys have/had.
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I'd just like to confirm that I still do 'very' much wind here at BKP - in fact I wind more now than I've ever done due to the ever increasing amount of pickups we make and the fact that in the past year I have employed someone to handle the enormous task of answering phone calls, processing orders, invoicing etc that was soaking up huge parts of my time.
My average working week is in excess of 70 hours, the majority of which I spend winding and making pickups - exactly the same way I always have. To say that I don't and to say that older BKPs are in some way different/better than newer ones is absolute nonsense. For the past 7 years we have made all of our own parts, we buy our wire from the same source, likewise our magnets and I constantly check the quality of what we are supplied to ensure that production remains consistent and true to my original designs. I still use my original winder that I put together almost 10 years ago - nothing has changed at all, I even took the work bench my winder is set into when we moved to Cornwall from Devon 6 years ago!! The rest of the team that wind use the same machines as me and I personally teach them how to wind using my method of scatterwinding and building up the coil, completely by hand - just as I've always done and always will do.
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Amen.
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I'd just like to confirm that I still do 'very' much wind here at BKP - in fact I wind more now than I've ever done due to the ever increasing amount of pickups we make and the fact that in the past year I have employed someone to handle the enormous task of answering phone calls, processing orders, invoicing etc that was soaking up huge parts of my time.
Yes - being in a similar position myself at times I can see that hiring Ben will have made a huge difference and allowed Tim to be back at the bench as much if not more than he would have been in previous years.
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" Scatter winding is exactly that..scattered. There is no specific way or pattern to it. "
This is what I didn't understand. So does this mean that Tim's scatter winding technique is the same regardless of the pickup being wound ? So, is the scatter wind not a factor in creating more bass, less mids etc i.e. he does not use a different wind to create different tonal emphasis ?
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" Scatter winding is exactly that..scattered. There is no specific way or pattern to it. "
This is what I didn't understand. So does this mean that Tim's scatter winding technique is the same regardless of the pickup being wound ? So, is the scatter wind not a factor in creating more bass, less mids etc i.e. he does not use a different wind to create different tonal emphasis ?
A perfect question to add to this thread:
http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=25817.0 (http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=25817.0)
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A perfect question to add to this thread:
http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=25817.0 (http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=25817.0)
Thanks a lot Philly, I somehow managed to miss this thread and the 7string interview.
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Scatter winding is a method of winding the coil wire onto the bobbins/coil formers in a random pattern so that as the coil of wire is built up each turn of wire and each layer is non uniform. This doesn't create bass, mids , treble etc - remember a pickup is a transducer and translates what comes off the string and cannot generate frequencies that don't exist - however you can extend the frequency range that the pickup is capable of 'hearing' from the string by scatterwinding. As each turn and layer of wire isn't so tight to each other and is crossing at random points, thousands of microscopic air gaps are created in the coil which helps prevent the build up of capacitance(as capacitance increases, treble response decreases). Therefore scatterwinding produces a wider frequency response and subsequently a clearer, more dynamic tone.
It is true to say that no two scatter wound coils are the same - it would defeat the point if they were - and no two winders scatter in the same way. This doesn't mean that the wire can be guided on in any old way as you'd end up in a right mess - tension, how much scatter, coil shape and the way the coil is built up are all crucial factors in producing a good, and more importantly, consistent scatter wound pickup.
I do teach my way of scatterwinding to the rest of the team that wind alongside me and coils are checked rigorously throughout the process for consistency and quality - ultimately by finally play testing every pickup before we ship.
Is my way of scatterwinding the best? Who knows. All I will say is it's the only way I know how to wind, it's the only way I've ever wound and it's the way I and the rest of my staff will always continue to do so as I personally believe it produces the best results.
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Thanks Tim!!! Excellent information as always!!!
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so if the winding is random, how do you know which pickup you're making? apart from magnets and output, what determines the voicing of each pickup and how to you keep them consistant?
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so if the winding is random, how do you know which pickup you're making? apart from magnets and output, what determines the voicing of each pickup and how to you keep them consistant?
Presumably wire type/gauge (42 / 43), number of turns, whether HB coils are symmetrical or asymmetrical, baseplate metal, magnet type/size, slug/screw type size ?
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so if the winding is random, how do you know which pickup you're making? apart from magnets and output, what determines the voicing of each pickup and how to you keep them consistant?
I don't think it is random as in "let's put the wire in some criss-cross fashion on the coil and see what happens" but rather as in "we use a pattern that does not put the wire turns cleanly side by side". In order to have some consistency between examples of the same model I believe you need a consistent wiring process - even if it appears to be random.
Thanks for the explanation, Tim!
Cheers Stephan
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Thanks very much to Tim for his input. I'm sure I remember reading that Tim has a great deal of respect for Tom Holmes. This is an excellent article:
http://www.tonequest.com/pdf_pubs/TQRJan09_proof.pdf
Here's a guote from Tom Holmes:
" Most of my customers want their pickups scatterwound. I’m not sure if it makes a big difference in tone, but it
likely does something. "
Tom appears to know pickups inside out so it surprises me that he appears to be indifferent on the subject of scatterwinding.
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... I still use my original winder that I put together almost 10 years ago - nothing has changed at all, I even took the work bench my winder is set into when we moved to Cornwall from Devon 6 years ago!!
Finally we get to the bottom of it, it was the climate in Devon that made the pickups so special in the old days, the terroir of the region is noted for it. Cornwall just doesn't have the right weather conditions for good pickup cultivation...
On a more serious note, I've bought BKPs on and off for about eight or nine years and never has the company let me down in terms of either the quality of their product or, and as important, the quality of the customer care: always taking time to make sure I selected the right pickup for the tones I had in mind. It's no good making the best pickups if people aren't given the guidance to select the right one for them. This dual tack of a great product and great service is what keeps BKP getting my custom and that looks like continuing long into the future.
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On a more serious note, I've bought BKPs on and off for about eight or nine years and never has the company let me down in terms of either the quality of their product or, and as important, the quality of the customer care: always taking time to make sure I selected the right pickup for the tones I had in mind. It's no good making the best pickups if people aren't given the guidance to select the right one for them. This dual tack of a great product and great service is what keeps BKP getting my custom and that looks like continuing long into the future.
I am a pretty new customer still, but I see it the same way.
The qulity is undeniable, but what really puts BKPs to the next level is the service. It´s a factor that a lot of companys tend to not give much of a $%&# about, which is unfortunate for them.
With this exeptional service one notices that the people really care, which is such a great asset.
Come for the quality, stay for the service...probably for many years.
Also this forum (with all the information, experts and the general tone) is testament to what BKPs does right.
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When I first started thinking about BKs I sent an e-mail about the Irish Tours and was amazed and pleased to get a reply from the man himself. Same when I got my RYs. Great customer service leaves you feeling really good. Other companies I've had great service from in recent years have been Cornford, Anderton's and Hot Rox. I also was treated very well by the Police when I thought my son had gone missing. The worst service I've had (music related) was from Watford Valves. I phoned with a simple enquiry and the guy I spoke to was indescribably rude and abusive. Guess who won't be getting any more of my custom ?
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True, the Dimarzio service isn't too bad though. Not anywhere close to BKP levels though.