Wax Potting
Most of our pickups are wax potted by default with a Bee and paraffin wax combination to reduce the influence of any microphonics. We do offer the option of leaving our pickups unpotted and some (such as the vintage spec P90) will come unspotted by default. 50s/PAF era Gibson® pickups were not potted. Some feel that an unpotted pickup is more responsive and reactive to playing styles but this is not necessarily a good thing in higher gain or high volume settings.
Wiring
We use various types of hookup wires in our pickups:
Vintage Cloth: As used in most vintage Fender® pickups, this is push back cloth covered single conductor wire, pre-tinned and very easy to use. Standard hookup will be black to ground and white to hot. Please refer to pickup’s “additional information” tab for polarity and phase info. In general we follow vintage Fender® spec.
Vintage Braided: As used in most vintage Gibson® pickups, this wire is a single cloth covered conductor surrounded by a braided, tinned shield. The braid should be connected to ground, inner conductor is hot. Please refer to pickup’s “additional information” tab for polarity and phase info. In general we follow vintage Gibson® spec.
Modern Two conductor: This is a modern PVC jacketed wire with two internal conductors plus and additional bare ground wire and foil shield. Standard hookup will be black to ground and white to hot and the ground wire to ground. Please refer to pickup’s “additional information” tab for polarity and phase info.
Modern Four conductor: This is a modern PVC jacketed wire with four internal conductors plus and additional bare ground wire and foil shield. These are used to enable more complex wiring in humbucker pickups. Standard hookup will be black to hot, green to ground and white and red connected. The bare shield wire always goes to ground. This wiring convention matches Seymour Duncan®’s standard. Please refer to pickup’s “additional information” tab for polarity and phase info.