Removing pole piece to make a split humbucker

[Fusion1]

If you remove 3 pole pieces from opposing sides of each coil of a Screamin Demon would you in effect get a larger Duckbucker? Would it still be useable or basically yuk?

Would this be the same effect as the Tele humbuckers of the 70's?

[Fusion1]

Re: Removing pole piece to make a split humbucker

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=22670&item=3728650284&tc=photo

That's a link to show what I mean in case I didn't make sense.

[HolyDirt]

Re: Removing pole piece to make a split humbucker

i think it would, but it'd be hotter i would guess... just an educated guess..

[Naps]

Re: Removing pole piece to make a split humbucker

that's a good question. I wounder if it would hum. it would still have two wound coils, just not the poles. My guess would be that it hums.?

[Fusion1]

Re: Removing pole piece to make a split humbucker

Anyone have a Screamin Demon or other pickup with 12 adjustable poles to try this out?

[HolyDirt]

Re: Removing pole piece to make a split humbucker

that's a good question. I wounder if it would hum. it would still have two wound coils, just not the poles. My guess would be that it hums.?

i'm almost 100% possitive it wouldnt hum, because the 2 coils are still cancelling eachothers hum out.

[Kent S.]

Re: Removing pole piece to make a split humbucker

The Fender humbuckers that you soke of do have all 12 polepiece, you just can't see the one under the cover. You can take out the adjustable poles if you want as the stud poles still pick up sound (if you have everything about even in a 12 adjustable pole pup it doesn't make any real difference). If you take out the poles though, say on one coil, that coil do longer pickups up the signal from the strings ... so it acts as a dummy coil. removing say the upper three poles on one coil, and the lower three poles on the other coil the pup won't pick up much signal at all from the missing pole strings (or shouldn't) for that coil. Essentially, yes to your question ... on something like the SD Screaming Demon, you have a whole host of tonal options ... will it sound like the FWR humbucker ...er ... no, will it open up other tonal avenues ... yeah.

[southadc]

Re: Removing pole pieces to make a split humbucker ALA DuckBucker

If you remove 3 pole pieces from opposing sides of each coil of a Screamin Demon would you in effect get a larger Duckbucker? Would it still be useable or basically yuk?

Would this be the same effect as the Tele humbuckers of the 70's?

Doesn't the duckbucker still have the other 6 poles, just at a reduced height, so that the magnetic field hitting the strings resembles that of a single coil? So I'd have thought that the pole pieces needed to be replaced with lower-height polepieces. Here's some pictures from the patent for that kind of design (US 5,525,750):

[southadc]

Re: Removing pole piece to make a split humbucker

i'm almost 100% possitive it wouldnt hum, because the 2 coils are still cancelling eachothers hum out.

I always thought that humming was to do only with the wire coils, not with the magnets. A wire coil will pick up interference (it's basically an antenna), so having two wired in opposite directions will 'buck the hum.'

I've never understood that term though, 'bucking' the hum - sounds several letters of the alphabet short of how I would describe it

[HolyDirt]

Re: Removing pole piece to make a split humbucker

I always thought that humming was to do only with the wire coils, not with the magnets. A wire coil will pick up interference (it's basically an antenna), so having two wired in opposite directions will 'buck the hum.'

I've never understood that term though, 'bucking' the hum - sounds several letters of the alphabet short of how I would describe it

ya, hum is due to the coils, with a single coil it hums because its polarity isnt canceled by anything, with a humbucker the 2 coils polarity cancels eachother out. I think that a humbucker can pick up interference too, it's just a matter of being shielded or not.... am i wrong?

[Kent S.]

Re: Removing pole piece to make a split humbucker

I always thought that humming was to do only with the wire coils, not with the magnets. A wire coil will pick up interference (it's basically an antenna), so having two wired in opposite directions will 'buck the hum.'

I've never understood that term though, 'bucking' the hum - sounds several letters of the alphabet short of how I would describe it

That's exactly the way it works, although hum-cancellation is probably a more accurate term. The hum is picked up identical in both coils, the coils are then mixed out of phase so they cancel. The reason the signal doesn't get cancelled is because one coil has an opposite magnetic polarity, this causes the current induced in one coil to be reversed from the other coil from the start. They would be out of phase, except the phase reversal puts them back in phase with each other (since they were out to beging with), the hum of course is in phase to begin with, but now is out of phase so it cancels.
Also the hum is ( pretty much) exact in both coils, while the signal induced in the coils from the strings disturbing the line of magnetic flux is not exactly the same signal (being sensed from two different places,with two different harmonic makeups) ... so that's why an out of phase sound (signal) doesn't totally cancel itself out, just various frquencies that are exactly in common from the two coils.
As far as Hum-cancelling, a dummy coil works from the same principle...
(the strat elite, and blueshawk caome to mind), same deal with vertically stacked single coil in which the lower coil has no polepieces (a dummy coil really).