Does turning an unbalanced humbucker upside down affect the tone?

[avereste]

So, with a humbucker with very unbalanced coils, where one has way more turns that the other, turning it upside down (ala greeny) affects the tone, or it stills works as a single unit no matter what?
What's the theory?

[ArtieToo]

In any "normal" twin-humbucker guitar, the neck is rotated 180 deg's from the bridge. It doesn't affect the sound. But in your example, it might. Each point of a string has a slightly different node of vibration. It's what makes a Strat middle sound different than a Strat neck, even if they're the same pickup. On a 'bucker, with significant winding variance, you might be able to hear a difference. It would be subtle.

This is the kind of thing you'd need to try, then tell us.

[GuitarDoc]

It can theoretically, but probably not enough to notice. It would be more noticeable when split.

[GuitarDoc]

I just saw Artie's post...yes, he is correct.
There might be a difference because the coil with the higher winds would pick up more of the string vibrations. And if that coil is under a node more when it is rotated it will pick up more of the string's sound.

[freefrog]

There's already a difference in Gibson humbuckers because even if both coils are identical, having slugs or screw poles makes them behave differently: a same coil is magnetically more efficient and sonically "brighter" with slugs than with screws.

As the screws compensate their relative inefficiency by being often closer to the strings, this difference is subtle. Listen here: https://youtu.be/r9L8om-TXIo?si=z7QbFXnKps9peGZR&t=197

Now and to reply to the original question: in a humbucker whose coils are not balanced, potential differences are more complex IME than a question of unbalanced outputs and harmonic nodes... Asymetrical coils have most often different parasitic capacitance values + potentially different inductance values and it generates a dual-tuning effect possibly noticeable in the audio range (depending on the exact design involved: it would be a non-sense to generalize).


Maybe it will help to recall once again that I've devoted a topic to this question elsewhere. The post 23, especially, should illustrate what I mean:

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: my 2 cents.

EDIT - beyond and beside the main resonant peak of any passive pickup, the dual-tuning effect possibly due to unbalanced parasitic capacitance cooperates more or less nicely with the "other" comb filtering effect due to the shape + location of pickups under the strings and whose effect is interestingly simulated in this page:

https://till.com/articles/PickupResponseDemo/index.html

FWIW, bis...

[ehdwuld]

In the greeny example of the OP
the "backwards" is a wiring thing
not the physical pickup being backwards

the Greeny sound is from the pickup wiring being out of phase
Not how the pickup was mounted

If you had a set of Prails
With a p90 and a rail pickup both in a humbucker sized package
It would make a difference in sound
Very subtle

more so if you split the coils

Like your asymmetric coils
Splitting to one or the other would make a much more noticeable difference
Than which coil is half an inch closer to the bridge

[Chistopher]

If we address the original post, yes, turning a humbucker with very imbalanced coils will produce a different sound. Look up sound clips of the DiMarzio Crunchlab if you want to see an example. P-Rails will also sound very different if you rotate them 180 degrees. The change is more obvious in a bridge humbucker.

[ehdwuld]

Is it really that much different?

[maug2122]

I noticed a big difference when I flipped around an old Bill Lawrence XL-500 on the bridge....

[ehdwuld]

I identify as shocked

[freefrog]

As I said in my first post, it depends on the design involved... and even on individual pickups (!), as explained in the section 2 below.


Examples.

1-A DiMarzio Dual-Resonance is designed to have dissimilar coils - with the lower resistance coil being paradoxically the louder, since it has the same number of turns / same inductance than its neighbour... :-P

Such a design has a good chance to sound different when the pickup is rotated in its cavity... albeit the goal of Dual-Resonance designs seems different from one DiMarzio model to the next: in fact, the Dual-Resonance principle appears to be applied to achieve almost opposite effects, either symetrizing the response of coils beyond the main resonant peak and in loudness relatively to their position, either aggravating the comb filtering of high harmonics due to the unbalanced capacitive loads of 4-conductors cables.



2-A Bill Lawrence L500 has symetrical coils but still works with the unbalanced capacitive loads of its 4-conductors cable: depending on the remaining lenght of this 4-conductors cable and therefore, on the parasitic capacitance measured on each wire, it can generate the same kind of dual-tuning effect than between unbalanced coils... In such a case, the symetrical coils of a L500 have been made randomly unbalanced by external means, so to speak, and the sound also changes when the whole PU is flipped...


Non limitative list, to be continued or not.

[freefrog]

Side note - I can't upload no more any pic on the SD forum. The pop-up screen mentions a missing security token. Annoying when one tries to share for free and only to help other people...

[jeremy]

that is odd... how do you share pics? are they hosted or uploaded directly?

as far as flipping a pup with two different coils, yes, it makes a difference. how big a difference is due to things people already talked out. coil, wire, poles, turns, etc...

dimarzios dual resonance pat is two wire gauges but similar number of turns on each coil. they have a bunch of other pats too

[freefrog]

Hi Jeremy,
I used to upload pics directly on the SD forum but my last attempts have systematically failed...

[ehdwuld]

you may have reached the storage limit