Winding

The wire coiled around a pickup's magnetic core, or the wire wrapped around a string's core, since the same word describes both.

In a pickup, the number of turns and the wire's gauge set the coil's inductance and output, which is why a pickup's voice is largely decided during winding, and machines can lay the turns in neat layers or scatter them unevenly. On a string, the winding is the outer wrap around a plain core, and its profile decides feel and tone: round-wound strings are bright and produce finger noise, while flat-wound strings are smooth, darker and preferred for jazz and some bass playing.

Example: a flat-wound set on a hollowbody removes the squeak of sliding fingers along a round-wound string.

Winding

See also