Push/Pull Parrallel -v- Single Coil

[jamesperkin]

Thanks to all your help I've decided to get a Pearly Gates neck and Custom bridge combo for my flying V, and a push/pull pot to go in the tone. I understand this can be used to either select whether the pickups are in series or parrallel or to turn the pickups in single coils from humbuckers.

(Providing this is true...) Which should I choose? I basically want a good selection of sounds available to me, which doesn't overly duplicate what I've already got (I currently play a Fender Telecaster and a (cheap) Ibanez).

Thanks

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Push/Pull Parrallel -v- Single Coil

You should try both and decide what's most useful for you. Parallel will give you a single coil type sound but will still be humcancelling...that's a real plus!

Basically, with parallel it's like having two single coils sitting right side by side with each other. In fact, that's just what it is...

Most folks seem to hear the single coil tone as being a little stronger than the parallel tone.

Lew

 

[kylewrt1986]

Re: Push/Pull Parrallel -v- Single Coil

The single coil tone probably is stronger than the parallel tone, as when you wire two pickups in parallel the total resisitance becomes around half of one on its own (e.g two coils at 8K each [typical of a 16k humbucker] would, in parallel, give combined resistance of 4K)

There's two ways to take what you said to mean; wiring the pickups in series or parallel; did you mean the two coils of each humbucker, or the two pickups with respect to each other? Either way: (just because i like talking so much)

Two humbuckers in series probably won't give you a great tone, usually gives muddy results. You could wire an on/on (push pull or a switch) to give series/parallel option if you still wanted to try.

for the wiring of the individual pickup, seymour duncan gives a good compromise..using an on/on/on you can have series/split (i.e. one coil on)/parallel. Doing this on both humbuckers should give you a lot to play with! There's also a wiring posibility of series/north coil/south coil i believe, thought if you wanted this i'd have to double check and get back to you if you wanted.

Other mods to consider, are phase reversal; swapping the hot and ground wires on one pickup, will give a peter green-esque tone. (make sure the shield wire stays at ground though). Again, if you can't find these on the seymour duncan wiring section, i could send you some pics etc..

Hope this helps,
Kyle

p.s just noticed it was push/pull mods you were after...the on/on/ons are a throw switch..

but you have 4 options for a push pull so you could probably have 2 coil taps, and a phase reverse, and a series option

 

[BlueGuitar]

Re: Push/Pull Parrallel -v- Single Coil

Thanks to all your help I've decided to get a Pearly Gates neck and Custom bridge combo for my flying V, and a push/pull pot to go in the tone. I understand this can be used to either select whether the pickups are in series or parrallel or to turn the pickups in single coils from humbuckers.

(Providing this is true...) Which should I choose? ...

James: I think it was DiMarzio that came out with the Dual Sound wiring mods in the 70's, which had everybody all excited. But most people really did not like the sound of the parallel linkage in a Les Paul or SG so we went back to series windings.

If done properly, a coil cut switch can result in a humcancelling linkage when both pickups are selected. With two SD pickups, you need to mod one of the pickups: First- flip the magnet like a pancake. Second- reverse the wires (swap black and green wires, swap white and red wires- do this in the control compartment, not on the pickup itself.) Before you solder up the switch check to see if you prefer the sound of the two inner coils or the two outer coils- it will depend on the guitar and the pickups.

If you wanted to add a second push-pull pot I'd go for a series linkage of the two split coils (which PRS does in some of their guitars). For an over-the-top boost which can get muddy you can run the two full humbuckers in series... take no prisoners! :dance:

--Enjoy your guitar!

(One push-pull pot will be able to switch a single humbucker between series and parallel internal linkages, so you'd need two p-p pots to do that to both pickups. However, a single DPDT p-p pot can split the coils of both humbuckers.)

 

[kylewrt1986]

Re: Push/Pull Parrallel -v- Single Coil

For two SD Humbuckers, wouldn't selecting the North coil on one pickup and the South coil on another give you humbucking?

 

[Jester700]

Re: Push/Pull Parrallel -v- Single Coil

For two SD Humbuckers, wouldn't selecting the North coil on one pickup and the South coil on another give you humbucking?

Yup.

 

[BlueGuitar]

Re: Push/Pull Parrallel -v- Single Coil

For two SD Humbuckers, wouldn't selecting the North coil on one pickup and the South coil on another give you humbucking?

That is correct... the mods I mentioned are necessary if you want to have both screw coils or both slug coils be humcancelling. If one of each is acceptable then you don't have to go to all of that trouble.

To do as you suggested you would connect the white wire of one of the SD pups to ground (for the North coil) and then connect the red wire to the Hot signal lead for the South coil. That arrangement will add some noise unless you disconnect the Black and White wires of the second pickup, which would take both halves of a DPDT switch. So I usually go to the trouble to flip the magnet and reverse the leads on one of the pickups so that a center-off DPDT will give me a choice of full humbuckers, "inners" and "outers" (almost like a PRS).

Sorry for any confusion... :smack: ... and thanks for the catch (you guys here are sharp!)

 

[jamesperkin]

Re: Push/Pull Parrallel -v- Single Coil

Cheers for the input. With all that info all I can do is give a few combinations a go and see what sounds good! I'll let you know what the final setup is and what it sounds like.