Seymour support just told me something I have doubts about - can you confirm?

[mistermikev]

so... I've got a fairly complex wiring setup that I'm doing for a guitar build. It involves using the vintage stack tele set... and using every possible variation on 2 vs 2 hum cancelling coils.


Long story long - support is telling me that in every single seymour duncan pickup set - that when you split the coils according to all seymour diagrams (shorting red/white to ground) you DON'T get hum cancelling between the two remaining single coils (ie you get two north/fwd wound singles??). I don't know that I've ever done that wiring... but it would seem pretty silly to not get hum cancelling with the two remaining coils. Can you confim?

"Correct,
On our diagrams, when using standard coil split wiring, a humbucker will split to the North/Slug Coil being active.
If splitting 2 pickups using the same wiring, they will both split to the North Coil." - Jeff C

edite: before you tell me I can just reverse the wires and go white/green/black/red... I know that!

[beaubrummels]

That is correct. You'd have to split one of the pickups to a different coil (and possibly coupled with some magnet orientation changes) to get hum-cancelling. There's at least a half a dozen threads on this just within the last few months. But for a stack it might be more complicated because it's only valuable to split to the top coil of a stack. Not sure what additional steps could get hum-cancellation on a pair of split stacks.

[PFDarkside]

For Humbuckers that’s correct. A Duncan slug coil uses Black/White and is North, a Duncan screw coil uses Red/Green and South. If you split to two slug coils, it won’t cancel hum.

Now the stacks are usually the same magnetic polarity as well. That’s why the Stack Plus has a STK-S4M for middle that is RWRP to cancel hum when split.

I’m a little concerned with your plan, you are using two Vintage Stacks for Tele? Usually you wire them per the diagram and don’t split, etc. While splitting will give a different tone, it’s not like a full sized Humbucker that can generally be series/parallel/split to either coil. What is your plan?

[mistermikev]

That is correct. You'd have to split one of the pickups to a different coil (and possibly coupled with some magnet orientation changes) to get hum-cancelling. There's at least a half a dozen threads on this just within the last few months. But for a stack it might be more complicated because it's only valuable to split to the top coil of a stack. Not sure what additional steps could get hum-cancellation on a pair of split stacks.

thanks for the reply
I'm floored. ever seymour diagram that splits coils is useless then, IMO. Doesn't hurt me as I alway roll my own diagrams but I'm just surprised.
afa stack - well wiring up bridge top/north to neck bot/south and voilla - additional hum cancelling positions.

[mistermikev]

For Humbuckers that’s correct. A Duncan slug coil uses Black/White and is North, a Duncan screw coil uses Red/Green and South. If you split to two slug coils, it won’t cancel hum.

Now the stacks are usually the same magnetic polarity as well. That’s why the Stack Plus has a STK-S4M for middle that is RWRP to cancel hum when split.

I’m a little concerned with your plan, you are using two Vintage Stacks for Tele? Usually you wire them per the diagram and don’t split, etc. While splitting will give a different tone, it’s not like a full sized Humbucker that can generally be series/parallel/split to either coil. What is your plan?

hehe, I don't wire anything per diagram. I've wired up reg humbuckers before with the same setup... just haven't done it with the stack. as I understand with the stack... the reason it cancels hum... is that the bottom coil is actually closer to the south polarity. if it cancels hum by itself it will cancel hum combined with one or the other coils of the opposite pickup.

[DavidRavenMoon]

There’s very little reason to split a stack. Also the volume changes quite a bit as the two coils cause phase cancelation of the lows and you lose some output.

Seymour has a wiring diagram for a “power boost” where you put the bottom coil in phase which makes it much louder.

On a humbucker if you want to split the other coil, connect the series connection to hot instead of ground.


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[beaubrummels]

thanks for the reply
I'm floored. ever seymour diagram that splits coils is useless then, IMO. Doesn't hurt me as I alway roll my own diagrams but I'm just surprised.
afa stack - well wiring up bridge top/north to neck bot/south and voilla - additional hum cancelling positions.

It's not useless, just what you're trying to do requires a different approach. Half the usage of split are the individual pickup/coil by itself, so the hum-cancel point it moot. For hum-cancelling when mixing other pickup coils, Duncan offers reverse-wound/reverse polarity pickups to help solve that, or for humbuckers there's flipping the wires and flipping the magnets, which are easy solutions. But people don't normally split stacks in the first place. All you're going to get is the same sound but possibly slightly weaker and have to deal with how to get rid of the hum again.

[mistermikev]

in fact... looking around the room... I have a seymour jb/jazz setup on a rotary like prs... as I recall I did have to do some reconfiguration on that... probably was making wrong assumptions about the neck. lol, now I know.

[mistermikev]

There’s very little reason to split a stack. Also the volume changes quite a bit as the two coils cause phase cancelation of the lows and you lose some output.

Seymour has a wiring diagram for a “power boost” where you put the bottom coil in phase which makes it much louder.

On a humbucker if you want to split the other coil, connect the series connection to hot instead of ground.


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well, in my wireup I combine a toggle and 5 way rotary. i've used this on countless guitars. the rotary changes how the toggle works. basically the toggle with operate in 5 modes. mode 1 will be std tele with both vintage stacks split to single. I've had a bintage stack bridge in another guitar combined with a p90. it sounds a lot like a broadcaster when split. it's 9k so plenty of output.
mode 2 is typically inside coils vs outside coils in parallel. with the stack... it will have to be top bridge + bot neck vs top neck + bottom bridge. I'm guessing it's going to yield a bridge heavy vs neck heavy sound that is slightly more like the middle postion of a tele.
mode 3 is typically just both bridge coils in parallel vs both neck coils in series. I've wired the stack bridge before in both series and parallel - sounds fine.
mode 4 is typically inside vs outside in series... but with the stack it will be bridge-top + neck-bot series vs bridge-bot vs neck-top series.
mode 5 will be std series.

if it sounds absolutely terrible (unlikely) I'll just wire it up some other way. I suspect what I'll get is slightly more hum cancellation than just a single and slightly less than a humbucker.

[ArtieToo]

If you match a slug coil with a screw coil, they will be hum cancelling and no mag flip is required. Just short red/white to green, (which is the same as ground), for the slug coil, and red/white to black, for the screw coil.

[DavidRavenMoon]

If you match a slug coil with a screw coil, they will be hum cancelling and no mag flip is required. Just short red/white to green, (which is the same as ground), for the slug coil, and red/white to black, for the screw coil.

Which is what I just said.


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[ArtieToo]

Which is what I just said.

Oops. Sorry. I thought I read every word.

[DavidRavenMoon]

Oops. Sorry. I thought I read every word.

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[Bill Dennis]

thanks for the reply
I'm floored. ever seymour diagram that splits coils is useless then, IMO. Doesn't hurt me as I alway roll my own diagrams but I'm just surprised.
afa stack - well wiring up bridge top/north to neck bot/south and voilla - additional hum cancelling positions.

They are not useless. They are consistent which makes getting the standard stuff easily compatible. The most typical HSH setup is best suited to how SD does things. Most user do not split anything and Its nothing to invert the wiring on one humbucker to get what I want. It would be a lot more difficult if they were all over the map in how they wired things