Made a humbucker out of two single coils... Success!

[Clint 55]

Check out the pawn shop HSS Strat:



The single coil humbucker sounds really good! They're all antiquities, same wind and polarity. The humbucker is a Duo Sonic and a Jaguar. Sounds super authentic, and even better with the neck/bridge blender. The neck is a Mustang and the middle is a Surfer.

 

[Blille]

Re: Made a humbucker out of two single coils... Success!

Check out the pawn shop HSS Strat:

View attachment 79762

The single coil humbucker sounds really good! They're all antiquities, same wind and polarity. The humbucker is a Duo Sonic and a Jaguar. Sounds super authentic, and even better with the neck/bridge blender. The neck is a Mustang and the middle is a Surfer.

Tell me more!

I have a stag mag but was thinking of doing my own with SSL2s.

How did you go about doing it? Any gotchas?


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[Clint 55]

Re: Made a humbucker out of two single coils... Success!

Well you'll get hum cancellation if you use one rwrp pickup and one normal one and then put the black wires in series. But it will work with any combo. The output of it ended up pretty good. It measures 12.15k at the cable. It sounds really good! It's a nice skanky sound as opposed to a normal rock sounding humbucker. And then with the neck/bridge blender bringing some neck in, it's even more skanky goodness. It blends really well with the other single coils. I think it's an awesome option if you want to keep your HSS sounding stratty all around.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Made a humbucker out of two single coils... Success!

What Jaguar pickup? If it's an Antiquity 2 or an SJAG, you have an Alnico 2 and Alnico 5 hybrid. Pretty cool; I think the pole spacing being off between the two pickups sets off my OCD though. Did you need to route to fit the baseplate flange of the Duo?

I have a pickup that's intended to be a WRHB copy, but with fixed slug magnet A2 poles. It retains a lot of Fender character while gaining a bit of high gain tightness and a bit more midrange, it is still a very bright pickup with little bass. I imagine what you made is in the ballpark.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Made a humbucker out of two single coils... Success!

It's the Antiquity 1, so my neck and middle are A5 and both coils of the humbucker are A2. I agree, I don't like the look of the different poles, but I just had the guitar and pickups lying around so I went for it since the mustang is my favorite for the neck. It sounds good. Maybe I could put the Jaguar in the neck and have the duo sonic and mustang in the bridge with the same poles and A2 A5 hybrid.

Cool, so you have a 2 single coil humbucker. The things I notice the most about it are: it still sounds like a humbucker, but maybe 30% different. The antiquities are a touch more lush and colorful. And then I also notice the same wind same polarity makes it blend differently.

 

[hamerfan]

Re: Made a humbucker out of two single coils... Success!

I have a stag mag but was thinking of doing my own with SSL2s.

How did you go about doing it? Any gotchas?


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Look into a The Mag which was the first version of StagMag in the 80ies. They occasionally pop up on fleabay.

I used one in bridge, but it was not as good as a conventional humbucker. So it moved in the neck, but i had a lot of trouble with magnetic effects on the low strings (stratitis). It resides now in my parts box.

 

[Blille]

Re: Made a humbucker out of two single coils... Success!

Look into a The Mag which was the first version of StagMag in the 80ies. They occasionally pop up on fleabay.

I used one in bridge, but it was not as good as a conventional humbucker. So it moved in the neck, but i had a lot of trouble with magnetic effects on the low strings (stratitis). It resides now in my parts box.

Hadn't heard of it, thanks for bringing it up. I looked into it and it looks like it's the stag mag with A5 and flat poles. My stag mag has flat poles (custom floor).

Do you know how hot it is? I would assume hotter than the stag mag since it's A5 but the winding could be different. If there's one thing I would change in the stag mag is making it less hot, at least one of the coils.


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[Clint 55]

Re: Made a humbucker out of two single coils... Success!

i had a lot of trouble with magnetic effects on the low strings (stratitis).

I was worried about this as well having 4 single coils in a guitar. But I set everything at my usual heights and it ended up having less string pull than my ssl115 set. Must be a combination of the antiquity magnets and A2 in the bridge. Lol strat-itis.

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Made a humbucker out of two single coils... Success!

I tried that once, kinda. I accidentally destroyed one of the coils in a nameless chinese humbucker (13.1k) and replaced it with a nameless Chinese single coil (6.2k). I had to do a little work, but I managed to get them working together with nonmagnetic slugs and a degaussed A8 bar magnet. The closest thing I can compare it to would be an A8 59/Custom Hybrid with an interesting notched thing going in the mids and a bit squishier in the bass. I'd love to hear more about yours.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Made a humbucker out of two single coils... Success!

Well once again it was a success, it doesn't have any shortcomings (other than they aren't seated perfectly symmetrically). I don't think it should be viewed as an oddball thing to do because that's all humbuckers are - just 2 coils wired in series. All I had to do was drill 4 holes in my stock pickguard and they fit. I put 1 black wire to ground, a yellow and black together, then a yellow to hot. Had to wire them in series the same direction because they're the same polarity. About the sound, I'm working on getting Fendery rock sounds out of my guitars. My first priority is for the guitar to sound good clean for a blues tone since it's a Strat, but then I want to tweak it somehow to sound good for the styles of rock that I listen to like alt, classic, etc. I already have a Strat with an ssl5 in it and another with a regular humbucker in it and this feels like a great middle ground. My biggest influence for rock tone is Cobain because I like how he played Fender (strats a lot too) but it wouldn't sound like a blues guitar. When he played clean, he'd get this kind of washed out sound but with the Fender vibe that I really like. The antiquity single coil humbucker is working perfectly for that. I'm really liking it.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Made a humbucker out of two single coils... Success!

What a cool idea! I love inventive wiring!

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Made a humbucker out of two single coils... Success!

Thanks!

Was playing in position 2 this morning and it was sounding good! I didn't wire auto split but it's very much to my liking. Maybe it's the antiquities, maybe it's the single coil humbucker, maybe it's everything being the same wind direction. Real natural sound. I even blended in some neck to position 2 and it was sounding good. The humbucker didn't mess up position 2.