Making a Pickup

[Polyamarous]

So when it comes to makin a pickup, I've established that the basic routine is to coil the wire around the magnet, ok here are the Qs.


What difference in sound does the shape and size of magnets make? Depth and width, even shape?
Differenyt magnetic metals, whats the sound difference?
Whats the deal with bar-magnets?
Number of coils, how does this affect the sound? Partially coiling around the magnet? Leaving gaps? What does this do?
Thickness/type of coiling wire, how dies this change the sound
Once I have coiled my selected wire around the selected magnet, how do I connnect these to output wires.
Sorry if that seems alot but given the answers it might be worth trying.

Any help appreciated,
Cheers

[sunshineplaysbass]

I don't know if i can cover all of these but, here's what i do know:

The more coils you have around the pickups the "hotter" it will sound
For example, if you wanted a clean sound, you would do as little wraps as it took to adequately cover the pickup. For a "hot" sound, i.e. AC/DC, you would stuff as many wraps as would fit on it.

Also, i believe the thicker the wire the more output it has.

Finally, for wiring, can probably get diagrams on the web (actually you definitely can. I believe the output wires are just soldered to the pickup and they actually contact the magnets, not the coils. Not sure on that one though.

[Son of Magni]

I think you should get a book about winding pickups. It's way too much work to leave to chance. Also do some research on mimf.com, I know some people there wind their own pickups, including at least one of the mods.