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Vintage threads from the first ten years

previous: Mick Re: Single coil pickups and humcancelling types. -- 1146692895

I've had supper, so....

5/3/2006 5:31 PM
Mark Hammer	I've had supper, so.... Just to give this "discussion" (more like a drool-fest if you ask me, ) a quarter twist, let's keep in mind that hum rejection IS possible with honest to goodness single-coil tone if you are using two SC pickups at the same time and one is RWRP relative to the other. The "holy grail" search is for a SC pickup that will deliver tone but not hum on its own. Still, there are a lot of two-pickup sounds that are damn fine and can see you through a lot of tunes. I have my little "Nashville-ized" Turser Tele wired up with the bridge pickup RWRP relative to the other two (unlike those Strats that have the middle PU as the RWRP unit). I also have the 5-way switch wired up with the middle and bridge pickup leads flipped so that I can get N+B as well as M+B, both of which are hum-cancelling...thank goodness. The stacked-humbuckers-just-won't-cut-it credo is not a new one. Some 20 years ago, I found myself living in the same city where Evans pickups (a now defunct company) were made. I dropped in one day to buy some polepieces and had a pleasant discussion with the two guys who were the company. At the time, I had a "brilliant" idea (boy oh boy, knowing less sure gives one a lot more enthusiasm for one's own ideas, don't it?) for a 3-coil pickup that consisted of a stacked humbucker and a 3rd coil beside it, such that one could flick a switch and go from stacked to side by side humbucker. Like many at the time, I was in search of something that would let me go from HB to SC tone, and clearly coil cancelling wasn't doing the trick, since you lost a huge part of the signal and earned back all that hum. Chatting the idea over with the guys earned me some discouraging head shakes. "Stacked humbuckers just don't cut it", they said. "Why?" I asked. "Don't know" they said "It just doesn't have any 'soul' to its tone". And that's where it ended. As luck had it. I used the polepieces I bought to make myself some stacked humbuckers with some bobbins I bought from Gibson at the Kalamazoo plant just before they closed. And you know what? They sounded...okay...and they certainly didn't have any hum, but the guys were right. No soul.

5/3/2006 5:31 PM

Mark Hammer

I've had supper, so....

Just to give this "discussion" (more like a drool-fest if you ask me,

) a quarter twist, let's keep in mind that hum rejection IS possible with honest to goodness single-coil tone if you are using two SC pickups at the same time and one is RWRP relative to the other. The "holy grail" search is for a SC pickup that will deliver tone but not hum on its own. Still, there are a lot of two-pickup sounds that are damn fine and can see you through a lot of tunes.

I have my little "Nashville-ized" Turser Tele wired up with the bridge pickup RWRP relative to the other two (unlike those Strats that have the middle PU as the RWRP unit). I also have the 5-way switch wired up with the middle and bridge pickup leads flipped so that I can get N+B as well as M+B, both of which are hum-cancelling...thank goodness.

The stacked-humbuckers-just-won't-cut-it credo is not a new one. Some 20 years ago, I found myself living in the same city where Evans pickups (a now defunct company) were made. I dropped in one day to buy some polepieces and had a pleasant discussion with the two guys who were the company. At the time, I had a "brilliant" idea (boy oh boy, knowing less sure gives one a lot more enthusiasm for one's own ideas, don't it?) for a 3-coil pickup that consisted of a stacked humbucker and a 3rd coil beside it, such that one could flick a switch and go from stacked to side by side humbucker. Like many at the time, I was in search of something that would let me go from HB to SC tone, and clearly coil cancelling wasn't doing the trick, since you lost a huge part of the signal and earned back all that hum. Chatting the idea over with the guys earned me some discouraging head shakes. "Stacked humbuckers just don't cut it", they said. "Why?" I asked. "Don't know" they said "It just doesn't have any 'soul' to its tone".

And that's where it ended. As luck had it. I used the polepieces I bought to make myself some stacked humbuckers with some bobbins I bought from Gibson at the Kalamazoo plant just before they closed. And you know what? They sounded...okay...and they certainly didn't have any hum, but the guys were right. No soul.

Replies:

Mick You mean like position 2 or 4 on a ... -- 5/4/2006 1:40 AM
David Schwab On 5/3/2006 11:31 PM, Mark Hammer s... -- 5/4/2006 6:58 AM
Hummer But Evans pickups, not to disrespec... -- 5/4/2006 7:44 AM