RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

[Giant]

Hi. First post, first questions. I have this Squier Tele. Its a weird one. It's a Joe Trohman sig model, and it is HSH configuration. The stock humbuckers were 2 wire, and it was wired with a 5 way rotary switch. It worked like a Strat switch, which would blend the bridge HB with the middle SC in position 2, and the neck HB with the middle SC in position 4. Now, I don't believe the stock SC is RW/RP. It didn't need to be since it was only being combined with humbuckers.
Fast forward, I have done a lot of work to guitar, which included ditching the rotary switch for a regular 5-way switch, and changing the stock HBs to a JB/Jazz set. I wired them to coil cut with a push/pull volume pot. Thing is, now in positions 2 and 4 with the coils cut, I get a hum. It goes away if I switch them back to full HB. In my mind, its because the middle pickup isn't RW/RP. Does that sound plausible or am I just grasping at straws? I know that the JB and Jazz will hum when they are cut because the coil that make it a humbucker is not there anymore, so ya get the 60 cycle hum. Do ya think getting a RW/RP middle pickup will take care of this, or will it just always buzz because of the coil cut? If so, what would you guys suggest? SSL-5? In humbucker mode, I play lots of metal and rock, but in single coil mode I'm into nice clean Strat type sounds. (Hendrix-y type stuff...)

Thanks for your advice.

 

[Giant]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

No suggestions?

Sent from a weird place...

 

[robrob2]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

I can't answer all your question but yes, the purpose of the the RW/RP mid pup is to get humbucking hum canceling when the mid is paired with a coil split humbucker. I put an RW/RP Quarter Pound Strat pickup in the middle position and a series/split/parallel switch for the bridge humbucker in my HSS Tele for that reason.

 

[uOpt]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

Hi. First post, first questions. I have this Squier Tele. Its a weird one. It's a Joe Trohman sig model, and it is HSH configuration. The stock humbuckers were 2 wire, and it was wired with a 5 way rotary switch. It worked like a Strat switch, which would blend the bridge HB with the middle SC in position 2, and the neck HB with the middle SC in position 4. Now, I don't believe the stock SC is RW/RP. It didn't need to be since it was only being combined with humbuckers.
Fast forward, I have done a lot of work to guitar, which included ditching the rotary switch for a regular 5-way switch, and changing the stock HBs to a JB/Jazz set. I wired them to coil cut with a push/pull volume pot. Thing is, now in positions 2 and 4 with the coils cut, I get a hum. It goes away if I switch them back to full HB. In my mind, its because the middle pickup isn't RW/RP. Does that sound plausible or am I just grasping at straws? I know that the JB and Jazz will hum when they are cut because the coil that make it a humbucker is not there anymore, so ya get the 60 cycle hum. Do ya think getting a RW/RP middle pickup will take care of this, or will it just always buzz because of the coil cut? If so, what would you guys suggest? SSL-5? In humbucker mode, I play lots of metal and rock, but in single coil mode I'm into nice clean Strat type sounds. (Hendrix-y type stuff...)

Thanks for your advice.

It sounds like you have the choice of doing one of these two things:

• Use the other coils in the humbuckers when split
• Use a RWRP (actually just RP) pickup in the middle.

 

[robrob2]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

It sounds like you have the choice of doing one of these two things:
Use the other coils in the humbuckers when split
Use a RWRP (actually just RP) pickup in the middle.

Why just reverse polarity? Isn't that the same as just swapping the wires for a single coil 2 wire pickup? Why are reverse wind pickups offered if they're not needed?

 

[uOpt]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

Why just reverse polarity? Isn't that the same as just swapping the wires for a single coil 2 wire pickup? Why are reverse wind pickups offered if they're not needed?

Reverse wind is generally not needed with single coils that have two unshielded leads anyway. You can just swap the leads.

You can't do anything about the magnetic polarity.

 

[robrob2]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

Sorry for all the questions but I'm pretty new to this, if the OP has a hum when his mid single coil is paired with his split humbuckers, wouldn't switching the polarity of the mid single coil put him out of phase with the split humbuckers?

 

[uOpt]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

Sorry for all the questions but I'm pretty new to this, if the OP has a hum when his mid single coil is paired with his split humbuckers, wouldn't switching the polarity of the mid single coil put him out of phase with the split humbuckers?

You would switch the leads on the middle single coil to whatever doesn't make it OOP.

You then hum canceling if the magnetic polarity is what you want.

The core issue here really is which of the coils in the humbuckers you want to use. That dictates which magnetic polarity you need in the single coil. The phase can be fixed by swapping the leads if it's unshielded wire.

 

[Giant]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

Well after investigating, I found that its only buzzing in position 4. I think this is because I wired it to use the neck side coil. Normally ya ground the red and white wires to cut the coil, but I wired it so the other coil is cut. Anything I do with the middle single coil will affect split mode for the bridge in split mode. And if I swap the wires on the single coil, wouldn't that make it out of phase when the humbuckers are not split?

Tapatalk 2 did this...

 

[uOpt]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

Well after investigating, I found that its only buzzing in position 4. I think this is because I wired it to use the neck side coil. Normally ya ground the red and white wires to cut the coil, but I wired it so the other coil is cut. Anything I do with the middle single coil will affect split mode for the bridge in split mode. And if I swap the wires on the single coil, wouldn't that make it out of phase when the humbuckers are not split?

Tapatalk 2 did this...

Right. If it's currently in-phase you cannot swap the wires on the middle single coil (unless you want out-of-phase).

Apparently you used different coils when split for neck and bridge humbucker. That way you cannot have hum canceling in both position 2 and 4.

 

[Giant]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

That's what's happening. With the normal split, the neck humbucker gives you the inner coil, closer to the middle single coil. I wanted the outer coil instead, closer to the neck.
So, I can either live with a little hum or switch it back huh? Ha ha

What if I put the wiring back to normal, so that I get hum canceling. What would happen if I then flip the humbucker in its ring so that the coil that was closer to the middle pickup becomes the one closer to the neck? (SD logo would be upside down then...) Would that fix anything or just cause polarity issues? I'm new to this polarity stuff...

Btw, thanks for your help on this...

Tapatalk 2 did this...

 

[uOpt]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

Actually you can also flip the magnet so that north points to the other set of poles, then switch the wires.

Flipping the whole pickup doesn't fix anything if you continue to use the "wrong" coil.

 

[robrob2]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

What if I put the wiring back to normal, so that I get hum canceling. What would happen if I then flip the humbucker in its ring so that the coil that was closer to the middle pickup becomes the one closer to the neck? (SD logo would be upside down then...) Would that fix anything or just cause polarity issues? I'm new to this polarity stuff...

If you put the wiring back to normal (which means you're using the inside coils of the neck and bridge humbuckers when split) you should get hum canceling when using the mid pickup with the neck(split) or bridge(split). You could then flip the neck humbucker in its ring so you get the neck-side coil you desire and everything should be the same as far as phase and hum canceling.

 

[uOpt]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

Whether you use the fretboard side coil or the other one inside the neck pickup plays a much smaller role than the screw poplepieces versus the slug polepieces. That's where flipping the magnet comes in.

Maybe it's time to go through the hum canceling, phase and polarity thing in detail...

 

[robrob2]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

Whether you use the fretboard side coil or the other one inside the neck pickup plays a much smaller role than the screw poplepieces versus the slug polepieces. That's where flipping the magnet comes in.

Maybe it's time to go through the hum canceling, phase and polarity thing in detail...

Yes please. I have questions about the differences between HH vs HSH with split coils & hum canceling when paired.

Is it true if you go with the same manufacturers pickups and get bridge and neck specific humbuckers that HH would all be good with phase and hum canceling with paired split coils?

I assume with HSH you would want the two humbuckers to have the same polarity and phase with an RW/RP single between them, am I right?

 

[uOpt]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

Allright, here goes.

Hum canceling: has nothing to do with the magnets. Works even without magnets. All you need to cancel the hum is two coils with one connected the other way round. It doesn't matter whether you exchange the leads or wind it reserve, (almost) same result. Of course you can only exchange the leads if one of these isn't already fixed to ground (that means it works if the shield is separate such as in a 4-conductor wire or if there is no shield such as in Vintage Strat, WTF anyway?).

The signal from the strings comes in via the magnetic field, so you need magnets. If you were to use the same magnets and polarity with the reverse coils, then things would be out of phase. So you flip the magnetic polarity of one of the coils. Now the second coil is double out of phase and hence back in phase. That's how the humbucker works.

Then there is splitting and combining pickups. If you have just two humbuckers and use the "outer" coils things work out because you have the opposite polarity coils.

However, if you have a single in the middle and want to do this for positions 2 and 4. Now you cannot simply use the outer coils, because they have different polarity, so whatever polarity you choose for the middle single coil, one would be wrong. So you either need to pick one inner coil. Or you flip the magnet so that the outer coil has different polarity from before the flip. Of course now you also need to reverse the lead on that pickup so that it isn't OOP.

So in other words for HSH you would want a humbucker pair with one of them having the wrong polarity.

 

[robrob2]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

So in other words for HSH you would want a humbucker pair with one of them having the wrong polarity.

How does Seymour Duncan and other manufacturers handle this? Do they sell humbuckers that are specifically for HSH or HH (like they do for single coil RW/RP)? Or do we have to dig up the stats for their polarity and pair them up correctly ourselves?

Is this diagram of required magnetic polarity correct?

Dual humbucker (HH) would need: NorthUp:SouthUp NorthUp:SouthUp ...so when both humbuckers are split the inner coils pair up North:South. Can you get hum canceling (does polarity matter) when pairing both humbuckers when only one is split? I'm guessing no.

HSH would need: NorthUp:SouthUp NorthUp(RW/RP) SouthUp:NorthUp ...is this correct?
With this setup if you tried to pair up the two humbuckers when both are split the polarity would be wrong: SouthUp:SouthUp You could fix this by adding a phase changing switch to one of the humbuckers.

Why is it customary to use the inner, slug coils when splitting a humbucker? Wouldn't the screw coil give more signal?

 

[uOpt]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

You are really in uncharted territory here.

Whether the screw coil sounds better than the slug coil or whether the outer coils sounds better than the inner one is up for you to experiment with. The guitar manufacturer who offer this just do it whatever way is easiest and most obvious. There's no science there.

 

[robrob2]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

Does this part of the post look correct:

Dual humbucker (HH) would need: NorthUp:SouthUp....NorthUp:SouthUp

HSH would need: NorthUp:SouthUp....NorthUp(RW/RP)....SouthUp:NorthUp

Can the polarity of a pickup be checked with a needle compass?

 

[uOpt]

Re: RW/RP Single Coil To Go With JB/Jazz Combo

Before you flip things around screws are south.

So HH is:
south/north .... north/south

So to get hum canceling with both on and each split you cannot use the two outer (screw) coils, unless you flip one magnet (which then also requires switching the leads on one pickup).

HSH before flipping things would be:
south/north ... north(*) ... north/south

So you must use the outer coils in combination with the single coil (positions 2 and 4). But by default your wiring was probably set up to use one of the inner coils to achieve the HH hum canceling. That's why you have hum in one notch position but not the other.


(*) varies a lot for different single coils