2 Conductor vs 4 Conductor - Same sound?

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Will a 2 wire pickup sound the same as a 4 wire pickup providing all aspects of the pickup are the same other than the connection leads?
Lets also assume you're not coil tapping with the 4 wire pickup - ;)

I would think they would be the same, but I've never had a chance to compare.
 
Re: 2 Conductor vs 4 Conductor - Same sound?

The only concern would be the capacitance, but this wire is in the same position as your 18 feet guitar cable and there is no way the short wire will make a dent in the capacitance compared to the long cable.
 
Re: 2 Conductor vs 4 Conductor - Same sound?

It depends on how the two wire humbucker is wired. The two wires could be connected for parallel or series mode. My Tele came from the factory with a 3 wire humbucker connected to a coil split switch. The switch gives single coil or dual coil in parallel mode (1 hot out single or 2 hot out parallel). I have to admit I know of no two wire humbuckers that are wired in parallel from the factory though.
 
Re: 2 Conductor vs 4 Conductor - Same sound?

The only differences between my two Alnico II Pro neck humbuckers is the 2 conductor vs 4 conductor wiring (and the fact that one is now in a mohogany body guitar). I have used both in my NT Warlock and both sound the essentially the same to my ears. I think the 2 conductor one was wound a touch hotter, but it was also made 20 years earlier, and that is only known through measuring with a multimeter, not a noticable difference in sound.

The conductor wiring on the two pickups makes no noticable difference between the two.
 
Re: 2 Conductor vs 4 Conductor - Same sound?

Thanks guys -
I guessed that they would be the same, and have been wrong in the past.
Thanks for the info & confirmation.
 
Re: 2 Conductor vs 4 Conductor - Same sound?

robrob2 said:
It depends on how the two wire humbucker is wired. The two wires could be connected for parallel or series mode. My Tele came from the factory with a 3 wire humbucker connected to a coil split switch. The switch gives single coil or dual coil in parallel mode (1 hot out single or 2 hot out parallel). I have to admit I know of no two wire humbuckers that are wired in parallel from the factory though.
Click to expand...

I assume you actually read the original post.

But I could be wrong.
 
Re: 2 Conductor vs 4 Conductor - Same sound?

I'm sorry to sort of steal your thread, but how about wiring a 2C and a 4C humbucker in the same guitar?

The reason I ask this is because I've recently bought a Vintage (brand) Les Paul with a SD '59 in the bridge and a SD Jazz model in the neck.
This is a great combination, but there's something strange with the two volume controls. When I select the middle position, I should be able to dial in the amount of each pickup using the volume controls. For the bridge pickup, this is the case. But my neck PU volume control works like it should the first half of the sweep, but then acts like a master volume grounding all signal.

This only happens when both pickups are selected. The only difference is that the '59 has two conductor cables and the jazz model has four. The only solution to get it to work how it should ssems to be to cut the ground on lug 3 of the neck volume pot.

Does anyone have a clue why this is happening?
 
Re: 2 Conductor vs 4 Conductor - Same sound?

This is normal. Its very difficult to make a "passive" mixer. Thats what standard LP wiring tries to do. With either volume pot, rolling it down all the way shorts the output jack to ground. Either pot will kill both pickups. (When the center position is selected on the toggle.)
 
Re: 2 Conductor vs 4 Conductor - Same sound?

Rocket-Man66666 said:
I'm sorry to sort of steal your thread, but how about wiring a 2C and a 4C humbucker in the same guitar?

The reason I ask this is because I've recently bought a Vintage (brand) Les Paul with a SD '59 in the bridge and a SD Jazz model in the neck.
This is a great combination, but there's something strange with the two volume controls. When I select the middle position, I should be able to dial in the amount of each pickup using the volume controls. For the bridge pickup, this is the case. But my neck PU volume control works like it should the first half of the sweep, but then acts like a master volume grounding all signal.

This only happens when both pickups are selected. The only difference is that the '59 has two conductor cables and the jazz model has four. The only solution to get it to work how it should ssems to be to cut the ground on lug 3 of the neck volume pot.

Does anyone have a clue why this is happening?
Click to expand...

That's normal.

There is a different way to do this, connecting the volume pots backwards (people sometime's call that "50s wiring", but they use that term for other things, too). That way you have more independence, but unfortunately now any use of the volume pots kills the resonance peaks of the pickups even more than with regular wiring.

The only clean way is two preamps and the pots after the preamps.
 
Re: 2 Conductor vs 4 Conductor - Same sound?

uOpt said:
There is a different way to do this, connecting the volume pots backwards (people sometime's call that "50s wiring", but they use that term for other things, too). That way you have more independence, but unfortunately now any use of the volume pots kills the resonance peaks of the pickups even more than with regular wiring.

The only clean way is two preamps and the pots after the preamps.
Click to expand...
Your knowledge of wiring always blows me away.
 
Re: 2 Conductor vs 4 Conductor - Same sound?

ArtieToo said:
This is normal. Its very difficult to make a "passive" mixer. Thats what standard LP wiring tries to do. With either volume pot, rolling it down all the way shorts the output jack to ground. Either pot will kill both pickups. (When the center position is selected on the toggle.)
Click to expand...

Funny thing is, it only happens with the neck volume pot. Rolling down the bridge volume only cuts the bridge pup.

uOpt said:
That's normal.

There is a different way to do this, connecting the volume pots backwards (people sometime's call that "50s wiring", but they use that term for other things, too). That way you have more independence, but unfortunately now any use of the volume pots kills the resonance peaks of the pickups even more than with regular wiring.

The only clean way is two preamps and the pots after the preamps.
Click to expand...

So this does happen because of the the different amount of conductor cables? If so, does that mean that replacing the 2C bridge pup with a 4C pup (or the other way around) fixes this?
And what is the disadvantage of simply leaving the third lug of the volume pot disconnected, so that the audio signal doesn't cut to ground?

Thanks for your replies!
 
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Re: 2 Conductor vs 4 Conductor - Same sound?

Rocket-Man66666 said:
So this does happen because of the the different amount of conductor cables? If so, does that mean that replacing the 2C bridge pup with a 4C pup (or the other way around) fixes this?
And what is the disadvantage of simply leaving the third lug of the volume pot disconnected, so that the audio signal doesn't cut to ground?
Click to expand...

No, 2-conductors versus 4+shield conductor has nothing to do with it. You can't use the volume pot if you didn't connect it with the 3 lugs, however you can have your pickup signal arrive either at the outer lug or at the middle lug. There are different tradeoffs, the latter has more independent control but it kills the resonance peak quicker.

As I said there is no escape except if you are willing to go with one preamp per pickup before the pots.
 
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