First, let’s define some terms. “Machine Winding” – a machine spins the bobbin and moves back and forth at a regular pace, distributing the wire evenly across the bobbin. “Hand Winding” – a machine spins the bobbin, but the magnet wire goes through the hands of an operator who distributes the wire along the bobbin. This is how the earliest pickups were wound. “Scatter Winding” (Also called “Random Wrap”) – a machine spins the bobbin, and the magnet wire goes through the hands of an operator (named Seymour) who distributes the wire along the bobbin in an intentional scattered or random pattern. All scatter wound pickups are hand wound. Not all hand wound pickups are scatter wound. Scatter Winding has a few effects on a pickup’s tone. First of all, when you scatter wind a pickup, you’re not placing the wire as close to itself on each layer as you would with a machine. The effect is to create more air space in the coil. This lowers the distributed capacitance. The best way to think of distributed capacitance is like a little tone control in the pickup. When the capacitance is lowered, the result is that more treble will come through and the resonant peak of the pickup will increase slightly. Secondly, each scatter-wound pickup will sound slightly unique. You can scatter-wind ten pickups with the same wire and number of turns, but each will sound different.