This is when i would be taking the pickups out by clipping them off and hurling them into the neighbours yard and buying new pots and pups.

 

Could pots have anything to do with this?

 

Afficionados of vinyl will know there are two broad categories of tonearm cartridges: moving magnet and moving coil. A well-behaved guitar pickup is a moving magnet arrangement, although it is the movement of a ferromagnetic string near a coil with a magnet in it, that creates the voltage. A microphonic pickup is essentially like a moving coil cartridge. How so? If the coil is loose, or even just a few turns are loose, loud amplifier volume can make it wiggle, and generate a voltage in the process.

In rare instances, ceramic tone caps can be or become microphonic, but that's much less common.

One of the things I like to use to reduce microphonics in pickups is teflon plumber's tape. It's cheap, widely available, just the right width, involves NO adhesive, and can easily provide some tension on the coil in a nondestructive way. It stretches, but until you reach the tearing point it provides gentle force to the outside of the coil, packing it in a little tighter. It's no miracle cure, but it can help in many instances. If you can (safely) remove the tape off the pickup coils, you do so, then use the teflon tape to tighten it up, and reapply the original tape so that the cosmetics are restored.

I try to pot pickups I wind for myself. The inner turns on a coil are generally pretty tight. It's the outer 1/3 of the coil where one's troubles lie. since there isn't much coil on top of it to damp vibrations and prevent any wiggling turns. So when I pot my pickups, I lie the pickup on its side and use a heat gun to melt candle-wax over the coil (from about 6" away). It's obviously not going to seep in as fully as soaking the coils in paraffin bath, but it soaks into the outer half of the coil pretty well. Good enough for me.

As an aside, some here may remember the Toronto "psychedelic" band The Paupers. I went to see them at Expo '67. Their lead guitarist had a Telecaster SOOO microphonic, he could whistle into it. He did, and I witnessed it. Although I think the "whistling effects" on the record were achieved differently.

 

I don't know the technical cause of this, but the quickest and easiest solution (for me) would be to just replace the pickups and pots.

I suppose if the pickups were something special you could try to pot them, but that's a pain in the ass. Break out the soldering iron and throw a couple of Duncans or DiMarzios in it, or even EMGs.

That's a nice looking guitar and probably plays great and stays in tune, worth the money to replace the pickups in my opinion.

Problem solved.

BTW, who is "we"?

 

I don't know the technical cause of this, but the quickest and easiest solution (for me) would be to just replace the pickups and pots.

Pickups replaced. Pots are next.

BTW, who is "we"?

It’s my son’s guitar.

 

I’m still shocked that even some mid-quality, potted pickups are THAT microphonic. That’s why I thought I’d see if there was some other possible contributing factor.

 

One of the things I like to use to reduce microphonics in pickups is teflon plumber's tape.

So when I pot my pickups, I lie the pickup on its side and use a heat gun to melt candle-wax over the coil (from about 6" away).

Two great pieces of advice. Thanks, I'll go to bed less dumb tonight.

I'm now tempted to wrap the 490's in my Gibson SG Tribute with pink plumber's tape.

 

Aren't these guys the Monkees ?

​

I’m still shocked that even some mid-quality, potted pickups are THAT microphonic.

Maybe badly potted ?

​

 

I would say that it's 100 percent the pickups, except for the new, potted pickups. Pots don't vibrate. It could theoretically be the trem springs, but I doubt that your son was playing at a volume where it comes into play.

Try eliminating other things, like the springs (wedge a bunch of toilet paper under the cover). What happens when it's feeding back and he mutes the trem? Does it act funny on both pickups?

 

". Long story short, itdidn’t work. Maybe I didn’t do it right?"

-2manyGuitars

We don't know how you did it
It's certain that you didn't do the job correctly otherwise it would have worked.

I have waxed pickups several times to remove the microphonics and it has always worked.
I had studied the procedure carefully and obtained the right equipment.

 

". Long story short, itdidn’t work. Maybe I didn’t do it right?"

-2manyGuitars

We don't know how you did it
It's certain that you didn't do the job correctly otherwise it would have worked.

I have waxed pickups several times to remove the microphonics and it has always worked.
I had studied the procedure carefully and obtained the right equipment.

Double boiler, wax at 155 degrees, removed the outer wrap from the pickups but each individual bobbin still had a thin wrap, submerged for 10 to 12 minutes.

The possible mistakes I made;

• Leaving the inner wrap on so maybe there was minimal penetration
• I took the pickups out after the 12 minutes so maybe the wax was still too runny and most of it came out

But the second set was clearly factory potted and those are the ones in the video I posted.

 

Another, stinkier option is epoxy potting. Get some epoxy and soak the coils in that stuff. Of course, that's one course of action where there's no going back.

 

Garbage In, Garbage Out.

 

Also, the original pickups behaved exactly the same way at the store with a different amp at much lower gain and still at “bedroom volume”.

He also uses a couple other guitars with the same stock, Jackson pickups. None of them exhibit the same issues.

 

For the sake of clarity, I did not intend to imply that Jackson pickups are all garbage.

It's just a commonly used term used in IT and mass production (and I would think other) professions.

 

I apply wax to most coils, chokes and transformers now. It may be tedious however, it reduces vibrations and helps to seal the device. I buy wax pellets and melt them with my temperature controlled iron set to 200°C, into the air gaps.

 

At 50 bucks for the pair, I figured it was something we could try right away and at minimum, they’re cheap spares to have around in a pinch.

Keep them with the dead batteries you're hoarding.
(No seriously, throw them out and take your impatience lumps. I've been trying to figure out what kind of pinch these would be useful for - got nothing).

 

Could loose pole pieces or loose magnets cause microphonics? Something has to move with the acoustic sound or vibrations from the strings to cause feedback. If it’s not the wires, it’s the magnets?

 

In theory, yes. Again, I repeat the parallel with "moving magnet" and "moving coil" turntable cartridges. The question is "How?".

Alnico polepieces would be held in place by the wire around them. Cunife polepieces in WRHBs are threaded, and screw, rather tightly, into a nylon-like bobbin. Perhaps the horizontal bar magnets on P90-type pickups might jiggle, but they are generally glued in place, not just sitting loosely. The bar magnets that couple the two rows of slugs in a PAF-type humbucker or two blades in a dual rails, are also secured.

I suppose one way that "magnet jiggle" could be created might be where there is a ferromagnetic baseplate, or something like the "claw" in a Jaguar pickup, and the contact between that baseplate and the magnet they are supposed to be in contact with is somehow compromised.

That's clearly not the full spectrum of pickup types, but it covers an awful lot of pickups and guitars. Regardless of form-factor, they all have wire coils, that can either be loose from the start, or become loose over time. So my money is on considering the coil first, and then moving on to other potential sources of microphonics.

That said, I wonder if a Lace Alumi-tone has ever been or become microphonic. They have VERY short coils.
.

 

The Fishman Fluence system uses a multi-layered PCB to form the coil around the pickup...no wire movement from vibration.