Cross wiring humbuckers in series

born2defy

New member
I was wondering if it would be possible to wire the stud coil of a bridge humbucker to the adjustable (screw) coil of a neck humbucker in series to create a single, widely spaced humbucker. Then, if that's possible, could you use a push/pull to switch back and forth from a bridge stud/neck screw humbucker to a bridge screw/neck stud humbucker? I'm not at all sure about phasing problems that may arise, but I was curious what it would sound like to have 2 very widely-spaced coils act as a single humbucker and if you could generate two distinct tones by switching back and forth with the push/pull or if they would both sound basically the same or basically like crap. My guess would be the two combinations would sound extremely similar to each other and that neither would cancel noise as well as conventional humbuckers. Any ideas/experience/opinions?
 
Re: Cross wiring humbuckers in series

I've had a similar setup in my guitar before, with coil splits for the "inner" and "outer" coils. The 2 sounds were fairly similar, both humbucking, but very useable. If I had to choose, I would go with the "outer" splits...seemed to be more air and spank to sound. Another option you might consider is push pulls to put each pup in parallel mode - you get a nice, clean humcancelling sound out of each pup, with more output than a single split pup.
What kind of pickups are you thinking of trying this with?
 
Re: Cross wiring humbuckers in series

born2defy said:
I was wondering if it would be possible to wire the stud coil of a bridge humbucker to the adjustable (screw) coil of a neck humbucker in series to create a single, widely spaced humbucker. Then, if that's possible, could you use a push/pull to switch back and forth from a bridge stud/neck screw humbucker to a bridge screw/neck stud humbucker? I'm not at all sure about phasing problems that may arise, but I was curious what it would sound like to have 2 very widely-spaced coils act as a single humbucker and if you could generate two distinct tones by switching back and forth with the push/pull or if they would both sound basically the same or basically like crap. My guess would be the two combinations would sound extremely similar to each other and that neither would cancel noise as well as conventional humbuckers. Any ideas/experience/opinions?

Yes that is possible. The difference betweeen the two modes you describe is not that great but you can hear it.

The simplest way is to install a switch between the coil bridging wires (that's the red/white connection on Seymours). With the switch enabled and the coil splitting wires connected you will have outer coils in the bridge position and inner coils in the neck positon withthe 3-way switch. In the middle you'l have a complex series parallel combo...

I'll post a schematic in a moment
 
Re: Cross wiring humbuckers in series

The pickups are a jazz/jb combo. I have them wired right now as twin spin-a-splits but in the middle position the two split coils are wired in parallel, which is what I think you are referring to. I was wondering if those could be wired in series to function as a single humbucker, albeit with widely spaced coils.
 
Re: Cross wiring humbuckers in series

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Obviouslt this will only work if the pickups are from the same manufacturer.

If you have pickups from different manufacturers you will have to determine the relative colour coding and magnetic polarities.
 
Re: Cross wiring humbuckers in series

octavedoctor said:
With the switch enabled and the coil splitting wires connected you will have outer coils in the bridge position and inner coils in the neck positon withthe 3-way switch. In the middle you'l have a complex series parallel combo...

With what you are describing, will the bridge and neck postions have the inner and outer coils wired in parallel or series to each other? I was hoping to run the screw coil from one pup with the stud coil of the other to create a new humbucker...
 
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