Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey, I was playing my latest electric lap steel yesterday,
at a winery gig, and I decided that I'm not going to split hummers anymore.
When split, they do sound close to a single coil, but not completely.
Looks like I'll have to take 2 axes!
Anybody else have an opinion on this?

Take two axes - they're small!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

The problem I have seen is that a single coil bobbin is taller then a humbucker bobbin. Even if you put the same amount of wire on each that being so it won't be the same thing or sound like the same thing. And besides the point single coil fender style pickups use magnetic pole pieces and humbucker use non magnetic pole pieces with bar magnets. So no matter what you do it will never sound as good as a dedicated single coil pickup in my opinion. Yeah there are maker that swear that theirs do. I have tried many different brands and never found one that sound equal...Mike

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Another day, another dollar.

Agree 100% with this.
One of the first mods I ever did to a guitar was split the humbuckers. Found out I never chose that split coil sound. Ever. I've tried it a couple more times over the years, with the same results. If I want single coil sound, I'll put a decent single coil in. For me, that's the only thing worth my time to do.
As to taking two instruments to the gig, why not? When I played the club scene, I always carried at least two(sometimes 3 or 4, especially if an acoustic was included).If you're playing for cash, you at least need a decent backup. MHO.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I've thought about putting two single coil pickups as close as possible to each other in the bridge position. So it may sound think and full, similar to a humbucker, when both are used together and then you would also have the choice of the top of bottom single coil. Would this work ok or would placing two pickups that close together be a bad idea because of their magnetic fields or something?

I've seen this done before on a production instrument(can't remember which one), so I doubt there'd be a problem electrically. As to whether you'll get the tone you're looking for........

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

So I guess I'm on da right track!
Irving,
I think you should experiment,
and let us know how it goes.

Will it sound the same? I'm going to say no unless. Let me explain. A humbucking picking has two coils that are wired in series. But the two coils are wound in reverse polarities to each other. Reversing the wiring on one single coil like that has been done on strats for years to give that funky in between sound which is humbucking isn't the same as having one coil with a reverse polarity to the other. Now I have seen over the years single coil sets that have offered the middle pickup revered. Can't remember by who but I'm sure guys like Seymour Duncan and Dimarzio have or still may offer something like this. And I'm sure someone like Lollar or custom pickup builders can do this.

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Another day, another dollar.

Reverse-wound, reverse-polarity middle strat pickups are pretty common, and wiring one in series with a normal wound/polarity pickup would certainly create a fully humbucking pickup. But..

One of the defining characteristics of the Fender-style single coil sound is the narrow focus of the magnetic field, and putting two single-coils with opposite magnetic polarities together will change the shape of the field to something much more like a humbucker, and the stronger magnetic field would also interfere with the vibration of the string to a greater degree. It has been done, with Danelectro lipsticks, Lace sensors and other pickups designed with more diffuse magnetic fields or weaker magnets, but it's a compromise and none give a pure Gibson-style humbucker or pure Fender-style single coil tone.

The best compromise I've found has been Japanese humbuckers from Matsumoku-made guitars from the early 1980's, with ceramic bar magnets and a DC resistance of about 11k Ohms. As humbuckers they're quite bright if you're used to PAF-style tone (I like their 'bite'), but the single coil sound is fairly convincing. To my tinitis-ravaged ears anyway... I'm sure there are modern alternatives from SD, DM, etc., but I've got some oldies, so I've never bothered trying them.


Cheers,
Bri