How Can Wax Potting My Guitar Pickups Help My Sound?

If you've ever witnessed a guitar player struggling to stop the terrible whistling and howling of electronic feedback blasting out through the onstage amplifier, you will have very possibly been looking at an electric guitar with pickups requiring wax potting. It's worth noting that there are needless to say a few other explanations why an electric guitar may possibly feedback too much, for example if a guitar player is facing their amplifier at close distance, whilst performing at high volume. This can create a feedback loop between the pickups and the amplifier.

So what has wax got to do with the guitar's pickups and how on earth can it help out?

When wax potting a pickup it is submerged into a molten mix of 80% paraffin wax and 20% beeswax, and the temperature within the molten wax must be somewhere around 140°F. This temperature is significant as if it's too low the wax is not going to circulate, and too high can damage the pickup's component parts. The primary reason for combining paraffin and beeswax is that this mixture appears to saturate the coils efficiently but will become hard but not brittle.

Almost all guitars on today's market will come wax potted as standard. For certain types of guitar pickups, like the bridge pickup on a Fender Telecaster, the process is more significant than ever due to this pickup being particularly vulnerable to microphonic feedback. Fender pickups have always been wax potted, even back in the wonder times of the 50s.

Interestingly the legendary Patent Applied For humbucker produced by Gibson in the 50s was un-potted. Some guitarists love how they sound as for some, these pickups produced an airiness to their sound that may be lost in the potting process. Because of this some replacement pickup companies produce humbucker products which come un-potted. Numerous guitarists think the heavy potting process can sometimes dull the sound, other people think that the process is crucial for problem-free performing. Another standpoint is that for guitar players who only play at low volumes, the waxing process isn't so necessary.

Even top rated guitarists who make use of humbucking pickups differ in their thoughts and opinions of this, which signifies that this is not something which is written in stone. Some guitarists even utilise microphonic squeal as part of their sound.

So to summarise, it seems that Fender style electric guitars should be wax potted for problem-free playing whilst the humbucking pickups of Gibson style guitars is still very much an individual preference, based on the volume you'd be playing at along with the sound you are seeking.




The author has played in various bands over the years and owns a variety of guitars. He loves to customise his instruments and strongly recommends visiting: http://www.tubguitarpickups.co.uk for excellent replacement guitar pickups.

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