Nooby, Oldy Looking for Quack on JB & pos#2

[Blue]

Hi
I was a member of the original Duncan forum & one of the others, there have been a few undates since . I havent been here for over 2 years, Just thought id say Hi & welcome back..LOL

Anyway to my question
I Have a JB Humbucker in a strat with a stock no name single coil in the middle & in position #2 .And the Tone sucks. The Bridge is split as it should be.
Im no tech but I beleave it should sound better than this.

I would like some insight & suggestions if it is possable to get close to a Fender Quack In 2 & 4 positions

BTW the neck pickup is a Dimarzio VV Heavy Blues it does the job for now

 

[Robert S.]

Re: Nooby, Oldy Looking for Quack on JB & pos#2

Is the split position thin and nasal sounding? That would indicate that you are out of phase in the #4 position (bridge/mid) and switching coils on the JB may fix that.

If you are not hum cancelling, switching coils may solve that as well.

If you are hum cancelling and not out of phase there isn't much you can do about it short of trying a different bridge or mid pickup. The sad truth is that nothing sounds quite like two true single coil pickups when combined.

 

[Blue]

Re: Nooby, Oldy Looking for Quack on JB & pos#2

Yeah Rob it is kind of thin and and nasaly

As for splitting the Bridge pickup , which coil is best to have ON .For Quack
The inside or outside (closest to the bridge) ?

 

[Robert S.]

Re: Nooby, Oldy Looking for Quack on JB & pos#2

It is not about which coil sounds best for quack as much as it is which coil is going to have the correct magnetic polarity and the proper wind direction to be hum cancelling.

Here is something that many guys don't understand. A humbucker has two coils and both coils are wound in the same direction. The rw/rp condition needed for hum cancelling is obtained by connecting the two finish wires. This means that you can use either coil in the split and still have the guitar hum cancel, but you may have to reverse the start and finish wire connections at the guitar for both coils.

The first thing I would do is to determine which bobbin has the correct magnetic polarity for the single coil in the middle. You can do this without removing the pickups from the guitar. I have to assume that your guitar splits the humbucker by connecting the red/white wires to ground. Simply remove the red/white wires from the switch and connect them to the black wire from the pickup. This will cause the guitar to split to the opposite coil (the coil closest to the bridge). If your tone improves then you know you had a polarity issue. You can then rewire the guitar so that it splits to this coil all the time.

If your guitar isolates the bridge pickup to the middle pickup only (as Strats do) it will be possible to get the polarity and phase correct on either coil of the JB by flipping the magnet and/or using the proper wire as hot.

As an example, to make SD humbuckers work in the bridge position of PRS guitars with the 5 way rotary switch and a PRS neck pickup I had to not only flip the magnet to get the polarity correct in the split positions but I had to wire the SD pickup white to hot, red to ground with the black and green wires connected for the split.

Unfortunately it's impossible for me to tell from here what is needed for your guitar, but trust me when I say that it is possible to get the phase and polarity correct when you have a 4 conductor pickup and access to the magnet.

Get the polarity correct first and once the nasal sound is addressed you can figure out the wiring to get the hum cancelled.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Nooby, Oldy Looking for Quack on JB & pos#2

Hi Robert, Is that really true? ("Here is something that many guys don't understand. A humbucker has two coils and both coils are wound in the same direction.") I thought one coil was RW/RP: reverse wound/reverse polarity...not just reverse polarity.

In any case, Robert's advice on getting the middle pickup and split humbucker in phase to elimimate the thin nasal mosquito tone is right on the money.

Sometimes you just have to experiment and fiddle with a guitar for a while that uses pickups from two differant companies until you get everything in phase.

Lew

 

[SABOTAGE]

Re: Nooby, Oldy Looking for Quack on JB & pos#2

not to sound ignorant but what is "quack"?

 

[Robert S.]

Re: Nooby, Oldy Looking for Quack on JB & pos#2

Lew, I also assumed that the coils were wound differently but Kevin B (SDs head engineer guy - don't want to butcher his last name) straightened me out on this one. Think about it. If you are connecting the two finish wires to couple the coils you are running the opposite direction through the second coil.

To be honest about it, I learned as much about pickups when I contributed to the SD FAQs page as I shared.

Quack is the mid cancelled tone you get in a Strat in the #2 and #4 positions. you get simular results in any guitar with 2 pickups engaged at the same time but the close proximity of Strat pickups makes it more pronounced. The closer the pickups are to one another, the more phase cancellation occurs.

 

[Blue]

Re: Nooby, Oldy Looking for Quack on JB & pos#2

Thanks alot guys, very usefull info.
As for Quack think of a clean strat in 70's Funk music