anyone here build split coil for stratocaster?

[murof]

hi,

anyone here build split-coil for guitar in stratocaster cover?
is it possible?
i need a noiseless stratocaster pickup with a little more balls....

thanks and excuse my english.....


bye

[Peter Naglitsch]

Not to fit in a standard strat cover. I have done it in a P-bass style. A5 magnets for the wound strings and A2 for the unwound. Pretty overwound bridge and slightly overwound for neck, mid somewere in between. Dead quite, no treble attenuation and an open, rich tone.

[murof]

Not to fit in a standard strat cover. I have done it in a P-bass style. A5 magnets for the wound strings and A2 for the unwound. Pretty overwound bridge and slightly overwound for neck, mid somewere in between. Dead quite, no treble attenuation and an open, rich tone.

a guitar pickup in precision style cover???

[David Schwab]

hi,

anyone here build split-coil for guitar in stratocaster cover?
is it possible?

It's been done a bunch of times in the past. There was a couple of commercial pickups on the market made that way. There are still some out there. I don't recall which makers still do it at the moment.

The problem lies in bending the string over the opposite magnets. it works well when the strings are spaced farther apart, like on a Jazz bass.

You are better off stacking the coils.

i need a noiseless stratocaster pickup with a little more balls....

Get a Dimarzio Virtual Vintage Solo Pro. Sounds like a noiseless P-90 in a Strat size cover.

a guitar pickup in precision style cover???

That's been done a bunch of times too. Vox did it. Fender did it. Here's a G&L:

[murof]

The problem lies in bending the string over the opposite magnets.

why? what's the problem?

I need only for strat bridge position where the string can't bending over opposite magnets... do you think it could work well in that position?

thanks a lot
your post are always many interesting....

[Peter Naglitsch]

a guitar pickup in precision style cover???

Without covers, but you got the right image in your head. Think the G&L guitar pictured above with open, visible coils, only protected by fabric tape.

The problem lies in bending the string over the opposite magnets.

There might be a problem with split coil pickups made to fit in a standard Strat cover, but with mine split-bucker ™ that is no problem. I do not know either why there should be a problem or why it is not a problem with my pickups. The only thing I know is that there is no problem with far stretched sting bending on, say the g string, when the sting move into the sensing area of the bass string coil. No problem at all. I think that might either be something for Muthbusters to investigate. Or I have been extremely lucky with my pickups and unknowingly stumbled over the magic recipe of doing split strat pickups without the described problem.

[David Schwab]

why? what's the problem?

The magnets on the top three strings is opposite polarity to the lower three strings, so when you bend across you get a little drop out. This is because the field is nulled at that point. If you aren't mixing the pickups with other pickups, you can make the magnets the same and reverse the coils, but that would render three strings out of phase with regular pickups.

I need only for strat bridge position where the string can't bending over opposite magnets... do you think it could work well in that position?

You can give it a try.

I do not know either why there should be a problem or why it is not a problem with my pickups. The only thing I know is that there is no problem with far stretched sting bending on, say the g string, when the sting move into the sensing area of the bass string coil. No problem at all. I think that might either be something for Muthbusters to investigate. Or I have been extremely lucky with my pickups and unknowingly stumbled over the magic recipe of doing split strat pickups without the described problem.

It's been done a zillion times already... Both Lover and Fender patented the idea.

If the magnets are not right next to each other you don't have an issue. Also as I said if you keep all the magnets the same polarity and make the two halves out of phase it also works, but you have to have all your pickups the same.

This is why it was never a popular design for guitar. It's used for many bass pickups though.

Evans pickups used to be made like this, but they had the coils overlapping.

This is from the Evans FAQ:

Question:
Why should I never use an Evans LEAD pickup in a RHYTHM position?

A set of Evans Eliminators consists of two pickup designs, each for a specific function. The Lead pickups are designed with higher output to match the lower string movement that occurs in the bridge position. For the two coils in this design to work correctly, the strings have to be directly over the rod magnets, (one for each string).

In the neck position, and to some extent in the middle position, strings can be bent between the D and the G string. If a lead pickup was used in the neck position some fade out would occur at this point. The rhythm designs have twice as many magnets and have overlapping magnetic fields so no fade out occurs. This gives a lower output than the lead designs but creates a compensated set as far as performance goes. The greater string movement in the forward positions requires a lesser output pickup to come up balanced with the bridge sound.

Here's one company still making one (Haeussel):



And here's a humbucker version:

(Fralin)


It's the same basic idea with the Duckbucker (though the coils might be full length):

[Peter Naglitsch]

you have to have all your pickups the same.

That part I don’t really get. Do you mind expanding a bit?

[murof]

That part I don’t really get. Do you mind expanding a bit?

if you build your "strato split" with opposite magnets and revers coils you will have dropout in center of D & G but you will can mix it with any other normal pu and they will be in phase....

if you build your "strato split" with all magnets in same direction and reverse coils you will not have dropouts but half of this pickup will be out of phase with any normal pickup....

then, if you want use the second option, all pu in you guitar must have this same construction...

excuse my english....


here's mine.....

[David Schwab]

Exactly what he said.

[Peter Naglitsch]

Yeah, I understand exactly what you say, but not why it would happen. That is: Why would there be cancelations/dropouts when bending a string into the “other” coil when using opposing polarities for the two coils.

Trying to wrap my mind around the physics here…

[murof]

Yeah, I understand exactly what you say, but not why it would happen. That is: Why would there be cancelations/dropouts when bending a string into the “other” coil when using opposing polarities for the two coils.

Trying to wrap my mind around the physics here…

....not "into the other" but in center of G & D magnets where opposite pole make null the field....


anyway i think that same pole and reverse coils also is not a good idea because when bending string in center of G & D magnets, both coils receive vibrations and make two signals out of phase.....

[David Schwab]

Yeah, I understand exactly what you say, but not why it would happen. That is: Why would there be cancelations/dropouts when bending a string into the “other” coil when using opposing polarities for the two coils.

Trying to wrap my mind around the physics here…

You end up with an area with no magnetic field, so the sound fizzles out as you bend past there.

There are workarounds... I'm actually working on a set of these that won't be strat sized, but small. It should be interesting.

[Peter Naglitsch]

What you both say is perfectly sound and sane, but a bit too theoretical and only applicable to a perfect world. In the real world there is no such thing as a perfectly cancelled magnetic field, or a perfectly out of phase signal.

Anyway, I use offset coils (P-bass style), different windings for bass and treble coils and to top things off A5 magnets for the bass strings and A2 magnets for the treble strings. I have no problems at all with cancellations.

To get back to the original question, using up to 9000-9500 turns on the bridge coils, 8500 turns on the neck coils and somewhere in the middle for the mid coils I can get exactly what you asked for: Noiseless Strat pickups, without the loss of treble response as in a traditional stacked humbucker, no problems with cancellations and with as much balls as you would like.

Still wont fit in a standard Strat cover…

[David Schwab]

It's because you use off-set coils. it's also why the original patent for a split coil humbucker (Seth Lover's patent) has the coils off-set, as well as Leo Fender's later patent on pretty much the same thing, though his patent was not claiming hum cancelation, but wider tonal response because the coils were off-set.

You bring up an interesting point too, as I've been mumbling for years now, it's time for more form factors for pickups. It's good to see G&L and Rickenbacker still making their own proprietary shapes. Music Man still has their famous bass pickup, but now that's also generic.

However, if you are making replacement pickups for Fenders and Gibsons you have to stick to those shapes. If you are making custom instruments, you can do what ever you wish.

I'm working on single coil sounding pickups in non-Fender form for a project. In this particular case, Strat pickups wouldn't work anyway, so I have to change the shape.

You can of course fit off-set coils in a Strat cover, but they have to be small coils, and that's going to change the tone from the stock Fender tone.