Wax on wax off? (Page 1 of 2)

I saw a thing on Seymour Duncans website explaining what the differences are.  The wax simply keeps all the coils from moving around that could be loose.  It might not feedback at first but with louder volumes the guitar pickup picks up on its signal its already sent out, this causes the coils to vibrate, and as they vibrate they reach a point where they vibrate so fast that it cause microphonic feedback.  It depends on a couple of things such as how tight the coils are wound, and VOLUME.  The louder the worst it is.  So the wax capsolates coils so that they can not move freely. 

Some people believe that unwaxed pickups have an open airy sound that wax pickups lack.  This makes sense because your coils are vibrating and could add to your sonic spice of life.  I can't say what is better because all my pickups have always been wax potted.  I think its fair to say if an unwaxed pickup sound open and airy, then a waxed pickup is closed up and focased.  It all goes back to the cup of tea, you may like it, you may not, then again you might have a pickup thats non-wax potted that is really uneffected by microphonic feedback.  I know Burst Buckers have a very good tolorence to feedback and most of them are not wax potted.  Joe doesn't seem to have a problem with them in his Signature models with 100 watt heads turned wide open.

BBs that are factory installed on a custom shop LP are wax potted, and have been for a few years. The confusion has always been that BBs purchased aftermarket are not.
Unless Joe specifically requested unpotted, the pickups in his guitar would be potted just like all the other CS models.

Thanks for the responses all!
"Some people believe that unwaxed pickups have an open airy sound that wax pickups lack."
Ah thats what I was wondering-will the wax fundamentally give you different tone irrespective of other factors.

"This makes sense because your coils are vibrating and could add to your sonic spice of life."

This leads me to wonder- Does that lack of potting and the coils vibrating contribute to the "blooming overtones" I hear mentioned when it comes to a Vintage Les Paul? People say that an original 1959 Les Paul sounds so different to a modern replica and I realise some of that is down to tonewoods, construction, lacquer and aging etc. I guess what I am getting at is whether no wax potting is a key ingredient to vintage tone or whether it is incidental.

No not winding my own pups, just looking at a few aftermarket/boutique pup companies that offer the wax potting as an option.

AD3THREE
Thanks very much for that info!

To my surprise, I've just managed to pickup a Vintage V100 Lemon Drop (Peter Green) model for a very tidy price and am hopeful that it will get me  the sound I'm looking for. It has PAF styled pickups and also does the out of phase sound the middle position.

According to this little bit of info on a review site:

Hi, Dennis Drumm, MD of Vintage guitars here!!

Just a comment on the pickups on the "Lemon Drop", the reason they sound soooo good, is that we use exactly the same bill of parts and materials, as the inventor, Seth Lover, specified. even down to a solid nickel silver cover and base plate.

It's an interesting back story; Seth Visited Trev one day, in California, to see an old armature winding machine that Trev had picked up at a swapmeet, turned out to be the very same machine the "G" guys had used to wind those early PAF's, The exact "recipe" for a PAF was give to Trev by Seth during that meeting, and it's that recipe we use to-day on the Lemon Drop. No rocket science, no smoke and mirrors, just doin' it right because we can.....ENJOY!! http://leftyfretz.com/review-vintage-v1 … op-guitar/

This chimes with what Wilkinson say about their pickups in their marketing blurb, so I'm expecting some good tones to come out of this beast.

My Wolfetone Dr V's in my R8 are un potted and I have no problems with microphonic feedback, however the Seymour Duncan Antiquity Firebird pickup in my Tokai FB squeels like a YOUCANTSAYTHATHERE. It'll be taken out next week and potted!

Must be a quality issue to do with quality , eg how tight the windings are. My Epiphone SG (Korean, Samick plant) is fantastically finished cosmetically but goes microphonic at the drop of a hat despite being potted. Its a strictly home player only.

+1

Tim will take them back and wax pot them if you need it - but you won't.  Every '59 LP you could think of has unpotted pups.

Vintage fender always did this in the 50's and 60's even before it was known to do such a thing.  They did it differently though. They would wind to a number then pant over the coils to hold them in place like a clear coat.  They stopped doing this in the 70's and wound less winds on the pickups. Result was a noiser weak pickup.