Switching stud and adjustable coils on 2 HB guitar

chill

New member
A DPDT switch can be wired on a two humbucker guitar so that the adjustible coil from the opposite pickup are in series with the stud coil--i.e. bridge stud coil in series with neck adjustable coil to bridge volume control, and neck stud coil in series with bridge adjustable coil to neck volume control. See the attached diagram.

Anybody tried either of those combos? How does it sound?
 
Re: Switching stud and adjustable coils on 2 HB guitar

Whenever I split, thats how I do it. Sounds great.
btw - when I do it, I use stud of bridge with adjustable of neck. Sounds a bit better.
 
Re: Switching stud and adjustable coils on 2 HB guitar

Why do you like one better than the other?
 
Re: Switching stud and adjustable coils on 2 HB guitar

What I've gathered on this forum is that
1 stud coil has slightly more output
2 stud coil on bridge is away from bridge, giving it a louder
and less shrill string sampling point

Are you really proposing series connections? The good side of the
series connection is one coil from each pup in series will give you a
"middle" tone that will be between the volume of the neck or bridge
HB alone. The bad side is that it will be darker than the two single
coils in parallel and, ifyou wanted a two SC in parallel sound, you
won't have it as well as you could have.

When you put these two pickups in parallel through the middle
pup selection, it should clean and brighten to something very similar
to then normal middle position.

I doubt that the difference in sound between the two different
coil connections will be very meaningful. You'll probably find one to
be a little better and thats it.
 
Re: Switching stud and adjustable coils on 2 HB guitar

chill said:
Why do you like one better than the other?

The first time I did this was in a guitar with two Stag Mags. I had dual on-off-on switches, (along with the normal 3-way), so that I could select any combination of any coils. Since the Stag Mag coils and pole pieces are the same, I could hear the slight difference between each physical position.

The difference between the two positions of the bridge was fairly dramatic, with the "inside" coil being much more full sounding. The difference between the two neck positions was very subtle. In fact, the difference may have simply been production variations in the coils. (The "outside" coil had a slight advantage.)

But since the bridge difference was pronounced, I always use the inside bridge, with the outside neck, for hum cancelling.

Artie
 
Re: Switching stud and adjustable coils on 2 HB guitar

I did a similar test to Artie's, and came to the same conclusions. One difference is that I felt a split neck combination with my RWRP middle pup was more important than with my split bridge, so I just flipped the neck stag mag around. Works great, except my "seymour duncan" pickup label is upside down. Oh, well, it's unique... ;-)
 
Re: Switching stud and adjustable coils on 2 HB guitar

Jester700 said:
I did a similar test to Artie's, and came to the same conclusions. One difference is that I felt a split neck combination with my RWRP middle pup was more important than with my split bridge, so I just flipped the neck stag mag around. Works great, except my "seymour duncan" pickup label is upside down. Oh, well, it's unique... ;-)

You could flip the magnet in the neck pup so it "looks right" - did that to a C-5 in the bridge of an H/S/S frankenstrat because I liked the outside bridge coil split with the middle better (I never use that coil alone).

Chip
 
Re: Switching stud and adjustable coils on 2 HB guitar

Fresh_Start said:
You could flip the magnet in the neck pup so it "looks right"
Chip
Yeah, I know, but I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to keep it this way. When I decided I would I thought "hmm... remove, rewire, flip mag.... NAH!"

Besides, talk about unique! Who ELSE has special upside down buckers!?! ;-)
 
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