Bridge humbucker with stacked middle

[KandyMan1990]

I was doing some mods with my JEM Jr recently with my local tech and came across a hum issue. I have a TB-4 in the bridge, STK-4 RW/RP in the middle, and a Sustainiac in the neck. When splitting in position 2, there's still some hum. Does anyone have any experience with stacks in the middle and a humbucker in the bridge? I remember we were having issues with the Sustainaic and I don't remember how we left the middle pickup wired. I know it's full stack in position 4 and 3, I assume it's supposed to be split in position 2 to get hum cancelling with the split humbucker. Should it actually be split? Is the issue that we shouldn't have gone with the RW/RP model?

Any advice much appreciated.

 

[Artie]

Re: Bridge humbucker with stacked middle

I've got STK-4's in an axe and have never bothered to split them simply because they have the classic single-coil jangle and quack all the time. But to get back to your issue, you may need to split your humbucker to the "other" coil to get hum-canceling.

 

[dystrust]

Re: Bridge humbucker with stacked middle

I've got STK-4's in an axe and have never bothered to split them simply because they have the classic single-coil jangle and quack all the time. But to get back to your issue, you may need to split your humbucker to the "other" coil to get hum-canceling.

+1

Is the issue that we shouldn't have gone with the RW/RP model?

If you want to split the JB to the slug coil, the answer is yes. The magnetic polarity of SD slug coils is north, while their singles and stacks are both top south. I ran into this issue a couple months ago when ordering pickups for my own HSH project and was told by SD that I shouldn't use a RP middle pickup because the standard stack would already be reverse polarity relative to my neck and bridge humbuckers. That being said I did have to reverse-wire the middle pickup to account for the other half of the equation.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Bridge humbucker with stacked middle

Even if you split to the proper coils for hum-cancelling, chances are that they aren't wound evenly, so with more (or different type of) wire on one of the coils, there will always be some hum.

 

[KandyMan1990]

Re: Bridge humbucker with stacked middle

Thanks for the replies guys. It's weird as the SD pickup selector tool for HSH recommends TB-4, STK-S4m and SH-2, with the STK-S4m being RW/RP. Would you guys recommend switching it out for the neck version or just going with a true single coil? I really don't want to go screw side for the split and I was really hoping to be hum free in all positions

 

[TVFV]

Re: Bridge humbucker with stacked middle

Couldn’t the OP flip the magnet of the JB?

 

[KandyMan1990]

Re: Bridge humbucker with stacked middle

Couldn’t the OP flip the magnet of the JB?

Possibly, but I've never done that before so no idea what's involved, plus changing the polarity of the bridge pickup will require some rewiring of the Sustainiac, and after how much trouble we've went through to get it into a working state I'd really rather not start tampering with it again lol

 

[TVFV]

Re: Bridge humbucker with stacked middle

Possibly, but I've never done that before so no idea what's involved, plus changing the polarity of the bridge pickup will require some rewiring of the Sustainiac, and after how much trouble we've went through to get it into a working state I'd really rather not start tampering with it again lol

Are you within the 21 day exchange period or did you but it used?

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[KandyMan1990]

Re: Bridge humbucker with stacked middle

Are you within the 21 day exchange period or did you but it used?

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

No where near. Bought it in like December/January time. Took us months to get it working, though that's mostly because the tech is so busy

 

[TVFV]

Re: Bridge humbucker with stacked middle

No where near. Bought it in like December/January time. Took us months to get it working, though that's mostly because the tech is so busy

See if you can find a used neck model. Try looking on the Trading Post on the forum to start.

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[KandyMan1990]

Re: Bridge humbucker with stacked middle

Thanks, I was debating just putting a regular single coil in but I think I'll look into switching it for the neck model. Thanks everyone

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Bridge humbucker with stacked middle

Because the stacked pickup is hum canceling it can’t hum cancel with another single coil.

The way humbuckers work is both coils must pick up hum and be wired electrically out of phase while having opposite magnetic polarity.
Since the stack is already hum canceling you will always hear hum from the other single coil.

If you switch off the bottom coil on the stacked pickup you can make it work.

Or just switch the humbucker into parallel instead of single coil.


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