Humbucker questions...

[bhuether]

I am about to redo the wiring on one of my guitars. I am putting in either 2 Dimarzio humbuckers, 2 Bill Lawrence humbuckers or a combo. I am trying to get a deep understanding of how the pickups work so I can better understand the wiring up of switches.

The first thing I am trying to understand is the notion of the north/south start finish (which I see people sometimes referring to as adjustable/slug pole). As laid out on the guitar, should one expect certain orientations? I just ran a compass across two of my 2 humbucker guitars. For one of them the compass did a 180 degree flip when it moved over the other humbucker but in another it stayed the same. Both these guitars had 2 dimarzio humbuckers...

So right off the bat I am confused about placement... I don't notice any thin tone from either guitar so I don't think there is a phase issue but who knows...

I suspect that there is a certain degree of arbitrariness to wiring humbuckers because for a given website's description of say wiring a coil cut or other common mods, when I look at the wiring in my guitars I see varied approaches. So while Dimarzio might say green should go somewhere, I will see instead the red being used.

So in genreal I am trying to understand the pickups ewnough so I can forget about everything I am reading online and just wire it up based on principles that I can work out for myself.

thanks,

brian

[Possum]

....

You should try to get wiring diagrams for your buckers, there is no standard wire code. Most buckers will have a screw pole orientation of South, but don't forget that under the cover the slug poles are North and will grab the compass needle too. If you are just doing a 2 lead wiring (not split humbucker) you can use an analog needle ohmeter connect the ground to your ground lead the red to hot lead, then push a piece of iron down at the screw pole, the needle will either jump left or right. If the two different pickups both move the needle in the same direction they will be in phase. Split buckers I don't know much about there.....

[David Schwab]

The first thing I am trying to understand is the notion of the north/south start finish (which I see people sometimes referring to as adjustable/slug pole). As laid out on the guitar, should one expect certain orientations? I just ran a compass across two of my 2 humbucker guitars. For one of them the compass did a 180 degree flip when it moved over the other humbucker but in another it stayed the same. Both these guitars had 2 dimarzio humbuckers...

Unlike single coils, humbuckers present a composite signal from the two coils. So whereas the magnet polarity might make a difference phase wise, it's easy enough to flip the polarity of the two pickups in the wiring and they will still be quiet of course.

So right off the bat I am confused about placement... I don't notice any thin tone from either guitar so I don't think there is a phase issue but who knows...

I suspect that there is a certain degree of arbitrariness to wiring humbuckers because for a given website's description of say wiring a coil cut or other common mods, when I look at the wiring in my guitars I see varied approaches. So while Dimarzio might say green should go somewhere, I will see instead the red being used.

I find that generally different brands of pickups work together with the default wiring. I've mixed Duncans and DiMarzios and they are in phase with the standard wiring. I haven't tried Lawrence and DiMarzio.

Here's a couple of good charts to see what color codes different makers use. As Possum said they don't follow the same codes at all.

Color Codes (Stew-Mac)

Pickup Color Codes (Duncan)