Asymmetrical Humbuckers

[mickmutante]

... if you mismatch the coils you get less treble cancelation, so the pickup is brighter.

I have been making all my humbuckers mismatched, and I found the same effect, less treble cancelation, and more armonics, more bight, but with nice puch and well defined bass (is difficult to describe a sound)... Specially with a 7 string "Umbucker" my client was really happy... I used 43AWG, one coil had 8000 turns (7.88KΩ) and the other 7600 (7.45KΩ), 5% mismatching.

[David King]

I've been doing offset bass humbuckers for a while in the hopes of gaining a bit of treble in series mode. My counts are 10% off on this most recent set and they're are quite noisy for my taste. The inside and outside coils do match so I get very quiet single coil pairs and both humbuckers together cancel fully. These are my hybrid A2-A5 coils and I've been putting the higher turns on the A2 coils to help them match the A5s in output. I think I'll go back to 5% offset. There's not much of a signal level difference between the A2s at 1200G and the A5s at 1600G (saturation). I think noise is more acceptable on a guitar than a bass.

[Chuck H]

We should get past the "oh no, hum!!!" thing... I'm sure many of the winders on this forum own classic single coil loaded guitars and "accept" that they pick up noise as a concession to the tone they provide. I've also read a few posts here about how most hum cancelling methods seem to skew the tone of P90 type P'ups as well. So what if a mismatched dual coil pickup hums a little more? maybe it's OK as long as it "sounds" the way we want it to. Humbuckers aren't just about cancelling hum anymore, this style of pickup has become a higher output, warmer sounding and often more agressive option other than single coil P'ups. I don't even think most players consider the name sake when discussing humbuckers. It's become a moniker like "Cresent" wrench. Adjustable wrench is correct, Cresent is a brand. So why not just design pickups any way that sounds good? Of course we want to build quiet guitars. But you can still get pretty quiet with a pretty large mismatch. Especially when you consider that the inductance can be manipulated in other ways besides winds.

When I was young (16 or so) I wanted my guitar to sound more "open" with more bottom and top but still with higher output and less hum than a typical single coil. Even then I understood some of the concepts of how things work so I measured a couple of humbuckers I had on hand. Both had nearly symmetrical DCR on each coil but one was much higher than the other... So I took them apart and rejoined the mismatched halves together. They sounded great. I used them for many years all the way into my late twenties. They hummed a little more than symmetrical coil P'ups but I didn't mind. I still have them (though they're loaded in a guitar I'm not using). I think with todays innovations like the Suhr BPSCC we realize that we can still cancel hum without matching winds. This would be a good thing to experiment with. But, even if a design does hum a bit I think that's OK too as long as it sounds good.

JM2C

[Steve Conner]

Yep, in guitar at least, you choose humbuckers for the tone, and if they actually cancel hum that is a bonus.

Case in point, I removed the buckers from my favourite guitar and replaced them with some new ones. The old ones didn't hum at all, but I never much liked the way they sounded. The new ones hum a little but I much prefer the way they sound. If it were all about hum cancellation, I'd have returned them and put the old ones back.

In basses I guess hum cancelling is more important.

[David Schwab]

I've been doing offset bass humbuckers for a while in the hopes of gaining a bit of treble in series mode. My counts are 10% off on this most recent set and they're are quite noisy for my taste.

Are they shielded? Are you grounding the magnets?

[David Schwab]

We should get past the "oh no, hum!!!" thing... I'm sure many of the winders on this forum own classic single coil loaded guitars and "accept" that they pick up noise as a concession to the tone they provide.

I don't. All my guitars with "single coils" have some kind of hum canceling pickups. I get the same tones but no noise. I do a lot of recording in an environment close to my audio gear, so I can't use noisy pickups.

I test the bass pickups I make by moving them close to my CRT monitor.

[Chuck H]

+++
There are (what seem to be) many great noise reduction systems around. I haven't tried any of them so I can't report on how any of them do or don't change the sound. I do know that most discriminating players don't seem to care for any of the "noiseless" pickups. The Suhr backplate system is said to be about the best but costs as much as a car payment. You probably know a good DIY solution... Care to share it??? Still, most pro's known for their "tone" don't use any noiseless system. Hmm...

[big_teee]

+++
There are (what seem to be) many great noise reduction systems around. I haven't tried any of them so I can't report on how any of them do or don't change the sound. I do know that most discriminating players don't seem to care for any of the "noiseless" pickups. The Suhr backplate system is said to be about the best but costs as much as a car payment. You probably know a good DIY solution... Care to share it??? Still, most pro's known for their "tone" don't use any noiseless system. Hmm...

I've sold several Vintage type Strat Sets, to replace the fender Noiseless Pickups.
The Musicians around here hate the noiseless stuff. They want the tone.
They don't even want the RWRP Middle Pickup. I usually talk them in to that though.
Terry

[Ward]

I've sold several Vintage type Strat Sets, to replace the fender Noiseless Pickups.
The Musicians around here hate the noiseless stuff. They want the tone.
They don't even want the RWRP Middle Pickup. I usually talk them in to that though.
Terry

+1 to all that mate. Noiseless schmoizless

[Chuck H]

I ask after the noiseless systems (not so much the pickups) from the perspective of a sheer novice. I've never looked into them at all so I'm only able to theorize about how they work. With this base I'm inclined to think that they all detriment vintage tones to some degree. So if vintage tone is your only goal maybe noiseless is bad. I don't know. BUT, tone is subjective. If a noiseless system gives you the tone you want (and other obvious advantages, like being noiseless) then that's even better I suppose. I'd be interested in trying it which is why I asked after a DIY approach. I could certainly just wire up a dummy coil using an old pickup but that has to be pretty rough compared to the level you guys here at the pickup forum are at.

[David Schwab]

I do know that most discriminating players don't seem to care for any of the "noiseless" pickups.

Sure, if you compare a real single coil and a noise canceling "single" coil next to each other, they will sound somewhat different. But this is like saying there's only one guitar tone, and you must get that. The difference is probably that I don't care if my guitar sounds like a 50s Strat or something. I just want to get tones I like. Too many guitar players get hung up on trying to recreate the tones from the old recordings they grew up with, instead of finding their own sound.

If everyone ends up sounding the same, that's boring.

[mickmutante]

If everyone ends up sounding the same, that's boring.

+1

[Ward]

Sure, if you compare a real single coil and a noise canceling "single" coil next to each other, they will sound somewhat different. But this is like saying there's only one guitar tone, and you must get that. The difference is probably that I don't care if my guitar sounds like a 50s Strat or something. I just want to get tones I like. Too many guitar players get hung up on trying to recreate the tones from the old recordings they grew up with, instead of finding their own sound.
If everyone ends up sounding the same, that's boring.

When talking single coils you'd have to be - insert derogatory term - not too reckon the passive noisy pickup just has more bloody tone. People won't sound the same because they don't play the same through the same gear with the same vibe or lack there of. If the passive single had any competition at all it would already be dead n buried. Or course, this is just my opinion. There are countless people out there who want the noise issued settled first before they think about the nuances of fine tone. Let's face it, how many people do you hear that have a really good tone as opposed to the ones who don't.

[big_teee]

I agree with Ward. There will always be single coils, as long as we have Passives, because they sound good.
You don't have to be following the crowd to like the old SCs of the 50-70s. Just ask Jimi & SRV, oh I forgot!
T

[Chuck H]

I don't care if my guitar sounds like a 50s Strat or something. I just want to get tones I like. Too many guitar players get hung up on trying to recreate the tones from the old recordings they grew up with, instead of finding their own sound.

In response to what I said:

"If a noiseless system gives you the tone you want (and other obvious advantages, like being noiseless) then that's even better I suppose."

And I followed with:

"I'd be interested in trying it"

I don't mind if you quote me (and respond contrary) to make a point. Really. But I do not wish to be represented as a stodgy purist with a closed mind. At least I hope not to be percieved that way. My design work on amps certainly doesn't represent any purist ideology. For the record, my view is that if it sounds good, it IS good. There's enough cork sniffing in this arena. I drink beer.

That said...

I have played identical guitars (well, as identical as guitars get considering that they're made of wood), one with current P90's and the other with P100's... My conclusion is that P90's sound good and P100's don't. I'm not a purist. That's just the the sonic facts of it for me.

But I'm still open to other noisless options. Having only eliminated one is not reason enough for me to poo poo the whole idea.