The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

Z

Zhangliqun

Questionologist
Anyone ever played around with this idea? I had a Strat 20 years ago that was a true Test Bed X-Guitar if ever there was one. Did all kinds of crazy things with it:

1) Had a luthier make me a 27" scale neck for it for an even brighter tone. (This was long before the baritone guitar concept, so I kept it tuned standard.)

2) Hacked into it in the most mercilessly ham-handed fashion with a chisel to make room for various pickup experiments, not the least of which was...

3) Found the super long scale was a little too bright as was so I decided to experiment with a triple coil pu in the bridge spot to see what sort of tone I would get with 3 coils balanced by the longer scale.

I had a DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge position and after hacking a big hole in the thing to make room for the 3rd coil, I put an Invader right smack next to it (no space between them) and wired it up so I could have the DiMarzio by itself or the DiMarzio in series with the closest Invader coil with the flip of a switch. I also replaced the massive Invader polepieces with DiMarzio-style hex screws.

I used the outer Invader coil as a conventional middle pickup, but it was a little too hot, so I opened it up and unwound a lot of coil off of it. I don't know to this day how much of the coil I took off but I bet it was about 2k ohm worth. It then sounded great for classic Strat cluck.

This insanity actually had pretty good results. It sounded really good -- the long scale in combo with the triple coil sounded wonderful.

I did other awful things to the guitar that DIDN'T work out so well, but I'm a little too embarrassed to reveal them.

Any weird experiments you guys tried that got interesting results?
 
Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

I didn't think that long scale neck made the guitar brighter but in fact i thought it would bring more volume and bass ... strange
 
Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

I think there's actually been a production 3-coil pickup. Was it Hamer that did it?

EDIT: I should clarify, I don't mean a production pickup in the vein of Duncan, DiMarzio, etc. but rather that there was a guitar made that came stock with a triple coil pickup.
 
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Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

where'dya get strings for a guitar with that kind of scale length ?
:D
sounds fun though
t4d
 
Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

Well back in the day (ealry 80's...I think) I carved up an Ovation Preacher and stuck one of those 3 coil Motherbuckers in the bridge and a Dimarzio Super Distortion in the neck. I also installed an on-board preamp-booster circuit. Talk about high gain, this thing used to push the front end of my old Fender Super Twin into Marshall territory! Ahh to be a kid with a job, lol.

On a different day (lol) I took a nice brand new Fender Telecaster and carved it up and installed a Duncan Live Wire Metal HH Set and a Kahler tremelo. Also trashed the neck and bought a Warmoth maple/ebony compound radius neck for it. I recorded my first demo with that guitar and it was pretty cool until I got a bug up my butt one day and sold it for a Kramer Baretta which started a whole new phase, lol....

Glad I'm all grown up now. Hey, did I tell you about my new Dean Hardtail that I just ripped apart and rewired and installed new pickups in and.....

Oh to be a grown up kid with a job ;)

Peace.
 
Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

Hamer did have a 3-coil design, but I didn't hear about it until after my experiment. If I recall, it was really just a regular humbucker with a Strat-style single coil jammed up next to it, but it's the same idea.

What I'd really be interested in trying is a lower resistance 3-coiler (say about 9.5k) but with two magnets, an Alnico 5 between the bridge and middle coil and maybe an Alnico 2 or 3 between the middle and outer coil. I'm just curious about how a relatively mellow (compared to my 22k Super Dist-Invader anyway) pickup would sound adding in that harmonic node just a bit farther from the bridge.

Maybe coil #3 would be pretty light since it would be picking up beefier frequencies, about 2k, the other two 3.8k or so. The 3rd coil just opens up a ton of possibilities for mixing magnets and experimenting with different resistances among the coils.
 
Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

Had one for years....over rated. It came in my Alvarez Dana Scoop, and was called a Tri-Force pickup. 3 singles all wired together. Standard strat 5 way switching.

Changed it out for a standard HB and 2 singles...much happier.
 
Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

fab.regnaut said:
I didn't think that long scale neck made the guitar brighter but in fact i thought it would bring more volume and bass ... strange
Click to expand...

The longer scale is part of the reason that a Strat is brighter than a Les Paul. Sure the LP uses humbuckers or P90's which are much beefier than a typical Strat pu, but even when you put humbuckers or P90's in a Strat, it still doesn't sound as beefy.

A longer string vibrating at the same pitch is going to give off more treble, assuming the same guage string of course, but probably even if it's a little thicker. You can test this by playing an open high E-string, then an E at the 5th fret of the B, at the 9th fret of the G, 14th fret of the D, etc.

This is why some companies are starting to make longer scale 5-string and 6-string basses (Carvin is one). The low B string is so thick that at the 34" scale length, it gives off too many odd overtones that muddy up the fundamental pitch and make it sound out of tune even with itself. The sound is sort of like Strat-itis. Carvin's new scale is 35-1/4". Haven't tried one yet but looking at getting one.
 
Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

Zhangliqun said:
.

A longer string vibrating at the same pitch is going to give off more treble, assuming the same guage string of course, but probably even if it's a little thicker. You can test this by playing an open high E-string, then an E at the 5th fret of the B, at the 9th fret of the G, 14th fret of the D, etc.
Click to expand...

I suppose it is because if the string is longer it have more harmonics knots with enought length to be abble have enough volume , cause i am pretty sure that a longer string vibrate more and then have more volume ( for fundamental and harmonics ).
 
Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

TheArchitect said:
The Motherbucker
Click to expand...
The motherbucker ain't triple coil, it is in fact a quad coil, something like 2 hotrails in a humbucker body
 
Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

Jeff H: Alverez Dana, That's some big hair 80's cheese axe!!!

And Zhang - my man - you need an imagination implant. You missed the "How many coils" thread a week or two back. You need to put on your Nigel Tufnel hat and try again....
 
Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

If I remember right, I seem to recall Steve Miller playing an Iceman with a modded-out triple coil on a video clip from the 70's. It was actually a pretty interesting looking guitar--like a single pickup hotrod hard-tail that might have been played by the man who has spawned a thousand threads.

I don't know that very many of them were made, & it may have been a custom thing for Steve Miller. The pickup was square & had a partial cover on it--it may have even had switches on the pickup to cut certain coils on & off.

For some reason I want to think that Steve eventually traded it away--maybe it found it's way to the collection of Andy something-or-other.
(Summers, maybe?)
 
Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

I've wired my strat (S/S/lil59) with a push pull that allows me to put the middle pickup in series with the full lil 59 humbucker - giving a 'triple coil' pickup effectively
it sounds great - basically gives a 'lil59-and-then-some' tone perfect for when you want to push the amp just that little bit harder!
 
Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

I have one

v4.jpg


It sounded OK stock. WHen I bought my pickup winder it was the first pickup I rebuilt after learning the basics with other pickups. They arent as ballsy as people may think. Sounded sort of like a '59 with a little more low end
 
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Re: The unthinkable...Triple Coil...

Ibanez had one too (maybe made by DiMarzio). I've seen them on 70's Iceman. (er...Icemen?) You know what I mean...
 
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