resistor between humbucker coils?

[Supernautilus]

This is a vague question, but I could have sworn I read something at some point about putting a resistor in between humbucker coils to mismatch the coils. Or something like that. My memory is failing me. Has anyone here heard about this? Or am I completely misremembering something?

[Chistopher]

Take the red/white link on an SD humbucker and solder it to one end of a resistor and the other end of the resistor to ground.

It doesn't so much mismatch the resistor as it brings it closer to a single coil sound. 4.7k is what I use, larger values sound more like a humbucker, smaller values sound more like a coil split.

[Supernautilus]

Take the red/white link on an SD humbucker and solder it to one end of a resistor and the other end of the resistor to ground.

It doesn't so much mismatch the resistor as it brings it closer to a single coil sound. 4.7k is what I use, larger values sound more like a humbucker, smaller values sound more like a coil split.

Sorry, I may not have explained my question right. I don't mean a partial coil split. I mean putting a resistor in line with the series link in a humbucker. So the signal comes out of one coil, through the resistor, and into the second coil.

[Chistopher]

For the purposes of a passive guitar circuit, the order of the components in a series circuit don't matter. Putting a resistor between the coils of a humbucker would be identical to putting it after both coils, ie it would be the same as rolling your volume pot down by a set amount.

[Supernautilus]

For the purposes of a passive guitar circuit, the order of the components in a series circuit don't matter. Putting a resistor between the coils of a humbucker would be identical to putting it after both coils, ie it would be the same as rolling your volume pot down by a set amount.

Ok so what would happen if you wired a resistor after both coils and then wired it normally? It would lower the output?

[Chistopher]

Yup

[ehdwuld]

I think PRS does something like this
with their Tuned Capacitence something
pickups

I seem to remember they alter the inductance or something by addiing a resistor at the end of the signal from the pickups

[freefrog]

Ok so what would happen if you wired a resistor after both coils and then wired it normally? It would lower the output?

It would lower the output and darken a wee bit the tone - been there, done that. :-)

If the idea is to mimic DiMarzio Dual-Resonance, it won't work with only a series resistor, whose influence is only to increase the overall DCR of a humbucker - its transfer function involving alternative current.

Granted, Dual-Resonance relies on coils with different resistances (12k vs 5k for instance, with a same number of turns and for a similar inductance, making the 12k weaker and with another Q factor than the 5k one)... But the main effect of such dissimilar coils is due to their different parasitic capacitances, creating a double-tuning effect, so to speak.

This double-tuning effect adds itself to the same effect already due to the complex parasitic capacitance of 4 conductors cable... When generated by the coils themselves, it can be used either to aggravate the hi-harmonics comb-filtering due to the cable, either to correct it. DiMarzio seems to use both strategies IME.

No work has been done here on PRS "TCI" but to me, it appears to rely on a similar principle (since suggestively, "Tuned Capacitance & Inductance" doesn't refer in any way to DC resistance). I doubt it uses a series resistor but maybe it involves a resistor in parallel with one of the two coils? I don't know.

In any case, it's useless IME to experiment with such things without a way to measure electrically induced resonant peaks: wether it's due to the wire used or to a 4 conductors cable, a few pF of difference in the parasitic capacitance of one coil can largely alter the response of a whole humbucker.

I've already shared repetitively a link to the article that I've devoted to this question on another forum. See the post 23 especially to see what I mean in my last statement above...

https://music-electronics-forum.com/forum/instrumentation/pickup-makers/pickup-theory/964621-inner-stray-capacitance-of-passive-mag-transducers-a-few-thoughts?p=966921#post966921

FWIW and HTH, as usual.

[marcello252]

Ok so what would happen if you wired a resistor after both coils and then wired it normally? It would lower the output?

it's the same thing happening with a volume pot, lowering the level is equal to put a series resistor (and decreasing the one from the point you pick the signal to ground), if you want to count the tone pot too think a 50s wiring schema