Single from humbucker?

[Artie]

Do you think this would work? Taking the stud-coil from a humbucker, and mounting its original magnet underneath, on end, like this:



Of course, you'ld have to fabricate a mounting bracket. But would it sound like the original humbucker split?

[Dr. Guitar]

it would work. Don't understand why you want to do this.

[Artie]

I know it sounds weird, but lets say, that in the process of assembling hybrids for folks, you somehow ended up with an orphan coil. Perhaps from a humbucker that had a bad coil. And say you wanted to do a real simple, clean wiring design using a volume, tone, and DPDT switch in an HS or SH configuration, like a Cyclone for instance.

This might sound pretty cool. A bridge humbucker, and a virtual split humbucker. "Split" as in the two coils separated by some distance. You'ld "share" the string vibration form the neck and bridge and avoid that slight darkness, or muddyness that plagues many neck 'buckers.

Just a thought.



Artie

Edit: Btw - that design should work equally well with a carefully selected RW/RP single.

[Artie]

In fact, you could simplify that to a SPDT switch with a minor wiring change. The phase stays the same wired like this:



But now, I'm wandering off course of this forum.

[Zhangliqun]

Welcome, Artie, wiring guru from the Duncan forum. We make pu's here but Artie is great with wiring schematics. Name the craziest switching or tone altering ideas and if it can be done, Artie will draw it up for you so clean even a dufus like me can understand it.

Anyway, yes I think your idea would sound like a split humbucker but there are better ways of getting a less muddy bucker sound out of the neck, like taking a full coil and then taking a second coil and removing about half the turns off it and reassembling it as a standard humbucker. That's pretty much the idea behind Fralin's Unbuckers.

I've been pondering making something like that for people who want a humbucker for the neck of their Tele that doesn't overpower the bridge, or even tapping one of the coils about halfway so that an 8k bucker can suddenly become 6k with the throw of a switch, so you don't get that weak 4k single coil tone with a normal split. I've got a guy who wants something like that so we'll see how it turns out.

I'm wondering how you would keep the magnet in place with it standing on end like that though, plus the pu cavity might have to be routed a little deeper. You can get slightly more narrow Alnico bars -- I have some that are 3/8" wide instead of the standard 1/2".

[Mark Hammer]

Why not just leave the bar magnet on its side and let the sensing area be between the outside-lying pole and the top of the polepieces? It would still be closer to a single-coil than to a humbucker.

[Zhangliqun]

The other thing to do would be just to put some .187" Alnico rods in place of the slugs. You might have to ream the slug holes, depending on how snug the fit is, but it would work.

[black_labb]

Why not just leave the bar magnet on its side and let the sensing area be between the outside-lying pole and the top of the polepieces? It would still be closer to a single-coil than to a humbucker.

or get a flat magnet that is magnetised along its height, then it wouldnt have to be too high or wide, and those magnets are more common anyway (just not for pups)