Why are my pickups noisy?

[David Schwab]

I realized after I posted that that the DiMarzio's probably have the green/white as south and the red/black as north on both pickups, even though you generally rotate one pickup around so the screw poles are facing away from each other.

But since many DiMarzio's don't have a screw and slug coil, you can orient the pickups so they are S/N-S/N from neck to bridge (or vice versa). That way when you use the two outside coils (or two inside coils) you will have a hum canceling pair.

I set my pickups up so that they have their magnet poles are that way, since I don't flip one around to get the screws facing a certain way.

As far as getting certain tones... it's a lot of train and error mixed with experienced hunches. After you make so many pickups you start to get a feel for what a certain combination will sound like, or you just try new things out and see what you get.

[bhuether]

Interesting that you make this post because I was talking with Seymour Duncan tech support to see if my Dimarzio wiring scheme will adapt to their pickups, and they basically said what you just said. This is what they wrote:

"wanted to let you know the only way to get the two stud coils or the two screw coils (when used together slug/slug or screw/screw) is to reverse the polarity on one of the pickups. In order to do this you need to take the magnet out and flip it 180 degrees or order it like that. I have attached a diagram with the color codes from Dimarizo to Duncan. Wire it up using the color translation and it will give you the proper coils but won't be humcanceling with out the polarity flip. "

Good thing I now realize this about the Seymour Duncan pickusp otherwise I would have been quite confused...

Though I still am a little confused about the relation between the magnetic properties and electrical properties and how those relate for hum cancelling.

thanks,
brian

[David Schwab]

Though I still am a little confused about the relation between the magnetic properties and electrical properties and how those relate for hum canceling.

OK, it works like this. You have two coils, and one is a North and the other is a South. So they pick up the string oppositely.. think of one going positive and the other negative. If you mix them together they would be out of phase.

So you wire one coil in reverse. This brings them back into phase as far as sensing the strings. But any common mode noise that enters both coils is now out of phase, and cancels out. The noise doesn't rely on the magnets to be induced into the pickup, but the strings do.

So with humbuckers the two coils are opposite magnetically, and also opposite electrically. Either opposite puts them out of phase, so the two opposites puts them back in phase in regards to the strings. But they are out of phase to noise.

It's real easy to flip magnets, just loosen the screws on the bottom and slip it out and flip it over.

I first came up with that wiring for two Duncan Basslines Music Man pickups, which have both pickups with the same magnet polarity. I just changed the colors to match Dimarzio, since that's the color code I use.

[bhuether]

Ok, so as long the pickups are placed (from neck to bridge) like

S-N S-N

or

N-S N-S

you will get hum cancelling inner or outer coils without the need to flip a magnet. The only time you need to flip a magnet to get hum cancelling is if you had

S-N N-S
or
N-S S-N

and wanted to get inner or outer coils hum cancelling.

thanks,

brian