{"id":3647,"date":"2013-04-04T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/?p=3647"},"modified":"2013-04-03T15:23:33","modified_gmt":"2013-04-03T20:23:33","slug":"whats-a-scatter-wind-and-why-does-it-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/gear\/electronics\/pickup\/whats-a-scatter-wind-and-why-does-it-matter.html","title":{"rendered":"What’s a “Scatter Wind” and why does it matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have noticed on products such as the Seymour Duncan Antiquity Series<\/a> that part of its selling point is this thing known as “scatter wind” manufacturing process.<\/p>\n

What is scatter winding?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When wire is wound into coils on a pickup, the most basic definition of scatter-wound means “non-uniform.” <\/p>\n

Imagine a spool of thread that doesn’t have thread on it yet that you’re going to wrap thread around. <\/p>\n

If you were to wrap that thread in a uniform way, you would start the wrap on one side, with each consecutive wrap following the other until you reach the other side, then start wrapping in the other direction and crisscross until you were finished.<\/p>\n

If you were to wrap the same thread in a non-uniform way where you wrap a few times on one side, then go straight to the other side and get a few wraps there, then to the middle and “fill” the spool in a non-uniform way, that’s a scatter-wind. <\/p>\n

Does scatter winding have a “standard?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. Scatter-winding is particular to manufacturer. Seymour Duncan will scatter-wind differently than Lindy Fralin and differently than other pickup makers and so on. In addition, there are also pickup makers who scatter-wind by hand, and still others who will use a machine. There is no single “right way” to scatter-wind.<\/p>\n

What pickup makers do is experiment with different scatter-wind techniques until they find one they think works well, and go with that.<\/p>\n

Is scatter-winding basically picking voicing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Partially. What scatter-winding does, depending on pattern used, is that it will give a pickup a more “bright” (as in TREBLE) tone to it. However, voicing is also adjusted by which type of magnet is used.<\/p>\n

On the Antiquity Series, for example, the magnets used in those pickups are purposely aged to have less magnetic pull, very similar to how a real-deal vintage pickup’s magnetic pull would be today. (The goal is not for the Antiquity to sound “like it was new in the 60s,” but rather “like a real 1960s pickup would sound now in modern day with natural aging.”)<\/p>\n

Are scatter-wound pickups “better” than uniform-wound?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scatter-wound is not better nor worse than a uniform-wound pickup; it’s out there because there are players that want pickups with a lot of treble response to them. And for vintage enthusiasts that like the “bite” of older pickups, a scatter-wind with a magnet that’s been aged correctly can reproduce some very good vintage tones.<\/p>\n

What do you think of scatter-wound pickups?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Good? Bad? “Depends on what it’s used for?” Let us know by posting a comment or two below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have noticed on products such as the Seymour Duncan Antiquity Series that part of its selling point is this thing known as “scatter wind” manufacturing process. What is scatter winding? When wire is wound into coils on a pickup, the most basic definition of scatter-wound means “non-uniform.” Imagine a spool of thread that … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}