Single Coil with Humbucking Effect

[shane1b4u]

The few stacked coil experiments i did always seemed to sound really sterile and lifeless... that's why they were few.

[David Schwab]

The few stacked coil experiments i did always seemed to sound really sterile and lifeless... that's why they were few.

Actually the Duncan and DiMarzio stacks sound very good, especially the DiMarzio Virtual Vintage pickups.

The Kinman stacks sound good too.

Stacks are also very popular in Jazz Bass pickups.

Stacks tend to sound very bright unless you wind more wire on them.

[Mark Hammer]

No they will subtract from one another! They are out of phase. If you can keep the bottom coil from sensing the strings the low end wont get canceled out. In a side by side humbucker, each coil has opposite magnetic polarity, which adds the signals when the two out of phase coils are summed. Electrical interference enters the coils with the same phase, and is canceled out when summed.

Well that helps explain a rather positive result I obtained, even though Evans himself told me it would sound bad. I stuck some polepices I purchased from Evans (and don't ask what type of Alnico they were, because I didn't kow enough to ask either when I bought them) through a pair of Gibson bobbins I had. The polepieces were obviously not long enough to pass through both bobbins completely, so I gather the lower bobbin provides less of the overall audio signal. It actually souds reasonably decent. YMMV.

[David Schwab]

Well that helps explain a rather positive result I obtained, even though Evans himself told me it would sound bad. I stuck some polepices I purchased from Evans (and don't ask what type of Alnico they were, because I didn't kow enough to ask either when I bought them) through a pair of Gibson bobbins I had. The polepieces were obviously not long enough to pass through both bobbins completely, so I gather the lower bobbin provides less of the overall audio signal. It actually souds reasonably decent. YMMV.

I made two variations of a stacked Tele lead pickup. I had a blade running though both coils, with two ceramic magnets on the bottom facing the blade, P-90 style. I was surprised how bright sounding the pickup was. So I would another one with more turns, and two different gauge wires (larger on the bottom) and that was more balanced, but still not what I wanted. I needed to make a new taller pickup, but just replaced it with a dual rail pickup I got cheap.

I had a similar experience with a prototype stacked Jazz Bass pickup. Really bright sounding, but not in a good way!

I did once stack two Gibson patent decal pickups on top of each other, so I could switch to either stack, and I remember that sounding pretty cool. I had the screws in both bobbins and they went through both coils.

Of course now I think about how much those pickups are worth! They were in a Sekova Les Paul copy along with a 70's P-90 at the neck, which I ended up getting rid of when I got married. The Mrs said I had too many guitars laying around!

[voodoochild]

Split Strat Pickups

CurtisNovak.com - Pickups and Guitars:Hum Canceling Strat (HC-Strat)

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I'm surprised to see anyone market this as a product. No offense to Mr. Novak but isn't it obvious that it doesn't work when you bend strings. It fades out really bad. That is why it only makes sense on bass because bending strings is rare for bass.

[David Schwab]

I bend strings on bass... but that's not the reason why it works on bass. The strings are farther apart. Also if you look at a P bass pickup, the coils are offset, so there is more overlap.

G&L has pickups like that.



I had a stereo Vox Phantom with split pickups, and that worked like a humbucker in mono.

[David King]

I'm surprised to see anyone market this as a product. No offense to Mr. Novak but isn't it obvious that it doesn't work when you bend strings. It fades out really bad. That is why it only makes sense on bass because bending strings is rare for bass.

To further what David is saying,-it actually doesn't work that well on a bass, I just finished up my latest, most evolved split coil Jazz pickups for 4 string bass and even though the pickup heights are staggered to match the 9" Fender fingerboard radius, there is a marked drop in volume on the A and D strings.

[David Schwab]

To further what David is saying,-it actually doesn't work that well on a bass, I just finished up my latest, most evolved split coil Jazz pickups for 4 string bass and even though the pickup heights are staggered to match the 9" Fender fingerboard radius, there is a marked drop in volume on the A and D strings.

David, are you doing two poles North and two poles South? That's how a lot of the commercial jazz pickups are, like the DiMarzio Model J and Nordstrand, and even some Barts, and they don't have reduced volume in the middle. Bart makes the coils longer and angles them.

You can also do all the magnets the same. That will make one half of the pickup out of phase with the other half.

These were some of the issues why I didn't bother with the split coil setup with my Jazz pickups, and I wasn't totally happy with the stacked prototype either. So I just made mini humbuckers. But they took some tinkering to get them to sound the way I wanted,

[David King]

You can also do all the magnets the same. That will make one half of the pickup out of phase with the other half.
,

The two halves out of phase is a reasonable solution I think (it simplifies magnetizing and re-magnetizing certainly) -until someone wants to mix in a different type of pickup.. I think Fender had a PJ set that reversed the polarity on the out-of-phase half when the two pickups were used together. That turned it back into a conventional single coil pickup but when soloed via the selector switch it became a humbucker.

I'll have to try the all-north-up and see if the adjoining coils are still messing with each other. I can see where the opposing magnetic fields sort of short circuit the magnetic lines under the A and D strings. I don't know if the out-of-phase coils in close proximity can interfere with each other. There will be some cancellation of any "crosstalk" (where the A coil is picking up some D and vice versa).

[David Schwab]

The two halves out of phase is a reasonable solution I think (it simplifies magnetizing and re-magnetizing certainly) -until someone wants to mix in a different type of pickup..

I suspect Delano does that, because they say you can't mix the split coils with the dual coil pickups.

I think Fender had a PJ set that reversed the polarity on the out-of-phase half when the two pickups were used together. That turned it back into a conventional single coil pickup but when soloed via the selector switch it became a humbucker.

That's certainly an idea. Doesn't help with blending though.

I'll have to try the all-north-up and see if the adjoining coils are still messing with each other. I can see where the opposing magnetic fields sort of short circuit the magnetic lines under the A and D strings. I don't know if the out-of-phase coils in close proximity can interfere with each other. There will be some cancellation of any "crosstalk" (where the A coil is picking up some D and vice versa).

Yeah, try some different things. I used to use the Dimarzio J's, and they worked fine. They are pretty straight forward.

Here's how Bartolini does it.



Those would be some narrow coils!