single coil pickup vs. "split" humbucker

[WRGKMC]

You need hot wound pickups to sound any good split. i've only found a few pickups that sound any good split and usually opt for series/parallel switching instead. The only guitar I have with a coil split is one with a dual rail humbucker. That one doesnt take a big dip in volume when split. If you're curious if a pup will sound good split in say a H/S/S config for example you can take the total imprdiance ohms and divide it in half. if its close to the singles then you're more likely to retain a balance with the singles when splitting. A standard HB with like 7K or 8K is only going to be half that splitting. Most strat pups are between 5~7K so having a split HB at 3.5~4K is pretty whimpy output. If you got say a 12K HB and split it you would have at least 6K and depending on the magnet strength may sound OK. Ohms alone doesnt tell you how it will sound or how strong a pickup will sound but it at least gives you some gestimation of what you may get.

[Steadfastly]

Will and Honeyiscool: Thank you for the detailed explanations. They must have been good, because now, I actually understand.

[honeyiscool]

I have no clue how a P Rail is made inside. From clips, they sound pretty conving in all modes. EG

It's basically a miniature P-90 and a miniature rails pickup mashed together.

[Elias Graves]

Makes sense.

 

EG

[Will Chen]

It's basically a miniature P-90 and a miniature rails pickup mashed together.

 

Yep, I believe that to be correct. Now these on the other hand are very intriguing. They're on the Vox Virage and I believe its a coil within a coil construction. So you essentially have a single coil inside a dual blade humbucker...

 

[Jarick]

My experience has been that you need a hot humbucker to get a good split sound, but there will always be a big volume dropoff.

[jtr654]

EMG 89 is a H/S in 1 pickup and is great or try a P Rail.

[DaveGrima]

Kinda depends a lot on the pickup and the guitar too though. The Air Norton 7 and Tone Zone 7 in my Universe sound great when coil split. The AN7 and Evo7 in my RG2127X sound fairly average when split.

 

This ^^ Depends on the pickup and guitar. I used to really hate just about every split humbucker sound I ever played until I got my Carvin Bolt Plus. The Carvin C22s sound great in the split positions on that guitar. I like the split sounds better than most Strats Ive owned. Could be the guitar. . Some coil splitters actually let you choose which coil you want to use so that makes a difference too.

[DeadNight Warrior]

This ^^ Depends on the pickup and guitar. I used to really hate just about every split humbucker sound I ever played until I got my Carvin Bolt Plus. The Carvin C22s sound great in the split positions on that guitar. I like the split sounds better than most Strats Ive owned. Could be the guitar. . Some coil splitters actually let you choose which coil you want to use so that makes a difference too.

 

Yeah, I've got AN7s in three of my guitars. All of them sound different in full HB mode. The two that have it sound very different when coil split. The other one has parallel switching instead. I'm inclined to change the switching on my main guitar to parallel too, as I think that one sounds a bit too thin and pissweak... but that guitar's got too much crap going on in the control cavity, so I can't really be bothered.

[avenge the rage]

I have a split BKP in my guitar and it sounds really amazing to say the least, but i have never had a single coil so cant really compare.

[svejkist]

 

You need hot wound pickups to sound any good split. i've only found a few pickups that sound any good split and usually opt for series/parallel switching instead. The only guitar I have with a coil split is one with a dual rail humbucker. That one doesnt take a big dip in volume when split. If you're curious if a pup will sound good split in say a H/S/S config for example you can take the total imprdiance ohms and divide it in half. if its close to the singles then you're more likely to retain a balance with the singles when splitting. A standard HB with like 7K or 8K is only going to be half that splitting. Most strat pups are between 5~7K so having a split HB at 3.5~4K is pretty whimpy output. If you got say a 12K HB and split it you would have at least 6K and depending on the magnet strength may sound OK. Ohms alone doesnt tell you how it will sound or how strong a pickup will sound but it at least gives you some gestimation of what you may get.

 

 

Hence my idea of winding the split coil extra hot and tapping it when in humbucking mode.

[WRGKMC]

 

Hence my idea of winding the split coil extra hot and tapping it when in humbucking mode.

 

 

Wont work. The coils have to be equal and opposite to buck the hum. To cancel hum in the humbucking mode you have two coils. One is wrapped in the opposite direction of the other and its also has the opposite magnet polarity. (This would need to be true using two strat type single coils together as a HB). This allows the inductors to null the hum through reverse phasing. A positive going AC wave generated in one coil is canceled out by the equal and opposite negative going ac wave in the other coil so the hum is zeroed out. If you wind one coil hotter, the waves generated in the two wont be of equal size and they wont fully cancel out so youll wind up with hum will getting through. And besides that, with split pups you have the option of shorting either coil depending on how you connect the switch.

[BryanMichael]

I have a Fralin HIgh OUtput humbucker in the bridge of my Epi and it splits well, I can ALMOST get some tele middle position tones out of that LP...

[mnhhngbfs]

 

Wont work. The coils have to be equal and opposite to buck the hum. To cancel hum in the humbucking mode you have two coils. One is wrapped in the opposite direction of the other and its also has the opposite magnet polarity. (This would need to be true using two strat type single coils together as a HB). This allows the inductors to null the hum through reverse phasing. A positive going AC wave generated in one coil is canceled out by the equal and opposite negative going ac wave in the other coil so the hum is zeroed out. If you wind one coil hotter, the waves generated in the two wont be of equal size and they wont fully cancel out so youll wind up with hum will getting through. And besides that, with split pups you have the option of shorting either coil depending on how you connect the switch.

 

 

So with that logic, a Telecaster with an overwound bridge pickup and a RWRP low output neck pickup won't cancel out much hum with both pickups engaged? That doesn't sound right..

How about a Strat with a hot bridge pickup and a vintage output RWRP middle pickup? Using your theory that should let hum through too, right? It's funny how my strat with that set up is quieter when in pos. 4 than a couple of my humbucker loaded guitars. I guess I should go pot my humbuckers for half a minute.

 

What about all those original PAFs? They are well known for how random the outputs are and how many turns they have. I doubt they cared about making sure each coil was wound the same back then. And guess what? They still worked fine. Bucked hum and everything.

[PrawnHeed]

 

Wont work. The coils have to be equal and opposite to buck the hum. To cancel hum in the humbucking mode you have two coils. One is wrapped in the opposite direction of the other and its also has the opposite magnet polarity. (This would need to be true using two strat type single coils together as a HB). This allows the inductors to null the hum through reverse phasing. A positive going AC wave generated in one coil is canceled out by the equal and opposite negative going ac wave in the other coil so the hum is zeroed out. If you wind one coil hotter, the waves generated in the two wont be of equal size and they wont fully cancel out so youll wind up with hum will getting through. And besides that, with split pups you have the option of shorting either coil depending on how you connect the switch.

 

 

It'll work fine. Tapping in HB mode allows the 2 coils to be the same.

[svejkist]

 

Wont work. The coils have to be equal and opposite to buck the hum. To cancel hum in the humbucking mode you have two coils. One is wrapped in the opposite direction of the other and its also has the opposite magnet polarity. (This would need to be true using two strat type single coils together as a HB). This allows the inductors to null the hum through reverse phasing. A positive going AC wave generated in one coil is canceled out by the equal and opposite negative going ac wave in the other coil so the hum is zeroed out. If you wind one coil hotter, the waves generated in the two wont be of equal size and they wont fully cancel out so youll wind up with hum will getting through. And besides that, with split pups you have the option of shorting either coil depending on how you connect the switch.

 

 

But under my model, when you are in humbucking mode your coils have the same inductance, because the coil is tapped to the same number of winds when you are in humbucking mode and then untapped to a hotter wind when you split it off. That was my point.

 

That said in practice you aren't actually correct. You can get very good noise cancellation from differently wound coils.

[tlbonehead]

You need hot wound pickups to sound any good split. i've only found a few pickups that sound any good split and usually opt for series/parallel switching instead. The only guitar I have with a coil split is one with a dual rail humbucker. That one doesnt take a big dip in volume when split. If you're curious if a pup will sound good split in say a H/S/S config for example you can take the total imprdiance ohms and divide it in half. if its close to the singles then you're more likely to retain a balance with the singles when splitting. A standard HB with like 7K or 8K is only going to be half that splitting. Most strat pups are between 5~7K so having a split HB at 3.5~4K is pretty whimpy output. If you got say a 12K HB and split it you would have at least 6K and depending on the magnet strength may sound OK. Ohms alone doesnt tell you how it will sound or how strong a pickup will sound but it at least gives you some gestimation of what you may get.

I really disagree with this, from experience and just the logic of it.