lunchbox
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 9
Likes: 0
|
Post by lunchbox on Dec 22, 2007 13:04:00 GMT -5
I have a Strat style guitar that I want to do this too: Would this work OK or have a done something wrong? Can anyone guess or know what positions 2, 3 & 4 would sound like? All suggestions welcome. TIA, Lunchbox.
|
|
|
Post by sumgai on Dec 23, 2007 0:12:20 GMT -5
lunchy, Hi, and welcome to the Nutzhouse! ;D Which is what you're doing to us, making us nutz with that super-duper large image. Could I get you to please reduce that thing down to 800 pixels across? It blew right of the edge off my screen, so I can image what happens for other viewers here. Thanks! sumgai,
|
|
lunchbox
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 9
Likes: 0
|
Post by lunchbox on Dec 23, 2007 1:14:01 GMT -5
Hi & thanks for the Welcome! I shrunk it 75%, some folks might need to F5 to see the smaller version. Cheers, Lunchbox.
|
|
|
Post by sumgai on Dec 23, 2007 14:16:51 GMT -5
lunchbox, Ah, much better, thanks! ;D I see two potential problems, rather quickly and easily. 1) Your North coil is hanging hot. This means that when you select the Neck only, that hanger will act like an antenna for buzz/hum/what-have-you. Fortunately there's an easy fix, if you look around.... some rearrangement is needed though, that's true. 2) You rather indiscriminately switch the phase of your combinations when you select between 2, 3 or 4. By that I mean, sometimes the South start goes to the Output, and then again, the South finish goes to the Output. This isn't bad in and of itself, but you may get a tonality that you didn't anticipate, or that you don't like at all. Try to align the pup so that one side or the other is alway pointed towards the output, unless you specifically want that out-of-phase sound for that particular combo. This one will take a bit more effort to fix, but it can be done. Also, the way you have the pups positioned leads me to believe that you'll have the South coil the closest to the bridge, is that correct? Personally, I'd opt for that coil in combination with the Neck, for two reasons. One, the tone itself is a bit more "chimey", and two, the RWRP winding will give you the desired humbucking effect. (Of course, we don't know how the neck wound, I may be incorrect on this one.) In other words, a bit more time at the drawing board would be beneficial, I think. HTH sumgai
|
|
lunchbox
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 9
Likes: 0
|
Post by lunchbox on Dec 23, 2007 21:57:37 GMT -5
Thanks for your reply sumgai. What I was looking for in the middle positions is: 2. Something close to a Strat Bridge+Middle 3. Something like a Bridge Humbucker 4. Something like a Tele middle position. All 3 with no hum. I'll redraw the thing with problem Number 1. fixed & then go from there. Cheers, Lunchbox.
|
|
lunchbox
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 9
Likes: 0
|
Post by lunchbox on Dec 24, 2007 10:32:52 GMT -5
Try number 2, Half the Superswitch is on each side of the drawing. Have I got the + to - right to give the normal in phase Humbucker and Strat position 2 or 4 sounds? The side by side Strat single coils might become a Tonerider Humbucker. All opinions welcome!
|
|
|
Post by sumgai on Dec 24, 2007 23:20:24 GMT -5
lunchy,
We're gonna have to promote you to Mr. Lunchbox - you nailed that fix on your first attempt. Nice job, your latest drawing will yield exactly what the table says, no surprises in store.
However, I do have something of a cautious warning. The coil you show as North is labeled to be the opposite winding direction/magnet polarity, compared to the South coil. Fine so far, but it may well cause more hum/buzz when in position 4, not less. If that's the case, then you can safely reverse the two leads on the Neck pickup, and all will be well. ;D
Edit: The previous sentence about reversing the Neck leads falls short of the mark, there are other factors to consider as well. Please see Reply #11 below for a discussion on that topic. /edit
Let us know how it all turns out, eh?
HTH
sumgai
|
|
lunchbox
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 9
Likes: 0
|
Post by lunchbox on Dec 25, 2007 7:38:03 GMT -5
lunchy, We're gonna have to promote you to Mr. Lunchbox - you nailed that fix on your first attempt.......However, I do have something of a cautious warning........... So it's fixed, but not nearly. I'm a really bad solderer, so I really only want to do this once. Where I'm confused is the which way to wire for humbucking parallel. Just to be sure, my positions are: 2. Bridge end coils (or bridge + neck) are parallel & humbucking. 3. Bridge end coils (or bridge + neck) are series & humbucking. 4. Neck + North Bridge single (or middle + bridge) are parallel, but I need to reverse the wires to make it humbucking? Thanks for all your help thus far. Cheers, Lunchbox.
|
|
lunchbox
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 9
Likes: 0
|
Post by lunchbox on Dec 25, 2007 8:09:03 GMT -5
Have I got my thinking right here, or is one or more wrong?
|
|
lunchbox
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 9
Likes: 0
|
Post by lunchbox on Dec 25, 2007 9:20:14 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by JohnH on Dec 25, 2007 14:02:10 GMT -5
I'd better own up to that page! I wrote it about 3 years ago when I was getting my head around this stuff. I just read it again, and while I think the info is still all OK, it could be improved with better explanations. I'm grateful for your tip and I'll put that on my 2do list. cheers John
|
|
|
Post by sumgai on Dec 25, 2007 14:14:03 GMT -5
lunchbox, Replying to all three above posts........ Your 'restatement' of the combinations, making sure you understand the hum-cancelling properties: Yes, your chart is correct. Where I'm concerned is that your Neck pickup is unknown as to winding direction and magnet polarity. Thinking again about that, I'm gonna change my answer above, which now changes your chart. Stay tuned, I'll give the details in a moment. Your next post, with three diagrams labeled as Fender Strat combinations is also correct, with one very slight error. Leo knew of the problem with hum early on, and found that he could make pickups just easily with the magnets "flipped", and the coil wound in the other direction. The winder didn't care, to her the check was the same at the end of the week. The date "pre-80's" should be more like "pre-60's". Bear in mind that this applied to all models with two or pickups, but it didn't necessarily apply to all guitars made with the Fender logo! Those made in America, big thumbs-up..... those made overseas, it was hit or miss. Of course, that didn't happen until several years after CBS bought the company. Either they didn't specify closely enough, or they didn't want to spend the extra bucks, I dunno, but some of those imports were equipped with both/all three pups of the exact same variety. Only individual testing can tell which way the wind blew on the day any particular axe was assembled. Your link to the explanation of how to cancel hum was good, thanks. But there are some clues that make me suspicious about who authored it....... Still, a good find, we'll post that in the Reference Articles - The List, to be sure. +1 to you, just for that tip! A slightly more than casual reading tells me that the author is correct on all accounts. A bit wordy, but the images make it easy (at least for me) to understand. Also, he has opinions on what sounds good/desirable, but doesn't qualify them as such. I'd say that, as usual, YMMV. ~!~!~!~ Second thoughts.......... Regarding my statement in Reply #6, about reversing the leads on the Neck pup in an attempt to cancel hum, here's a more thorough discussion of the problem, and the likely solutions. My apologies for that earlier post, I must have been thinking in terms of ease, instead of terms of correctness. There are two ways to ascertain the relationship between two (or more) coils, one while they're sitting on your bench, and the other while they're all wired up and ready to go. Let's use that latter method, eh? If the guitar is completely wired up and playable (strings mounted and tuned), you should be able to select position 4, and listen to the tone. There are four possible results: Does it hum, or not? Does it sound weak and thin, or full of body and sparkly? If it does not hum, and is full and strong, then you're home free! Button 'er up, it's Miller time! ;D If it does not hum, but the sound is weak and thin, then you can get away with simply reversing the Neck's two wires. It should now be full and rich, and still have little or no hum. If it hums, but the sound is quite full and rich, you need to use the coil you currently call "South". The magnet polarity, as well as the winding direction, must be reversed, and the South coil is labeled as such for just this reason. Simply swap North with South, keeping the same polarities as before. If it hums, and the sound is weak and thin, do the North/South swap as above, but reverse the polarity of each coil's leads. This is so that you don't screw up anything for positions 2 and 3. (You could think of the two coils as a unit, and merely "pick it up, rotate it 180°, and set it back down". That's a physical description of what has to happen electrically.) All that's a far cry from what I said before, I hope that I haven't frightened you out of this job! Don't worry, it's all easy, actually, but it's not a quickie, not by a long shot (unless you were lucky enough to hit it right the first time ). OK, young feller, go to it! Report back with what you find, or if you have any questions, OK? ;D HTH sumgai Edit:AHA! As I was writing the above, JohnH 'fessed up to writing the page on cancelling hum. Good thing I didn't trash it, eh? /edit
|
|
lunchbox
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 9
Likes: 0
|
Post by lunchbox on Dec 26, 2007 4:47:53 GMT -5
Hi JohnH, I'm intruged with one of your drawings, it combines 2 pickup that are in series OoP paralled with a single coil. Just how close to a hum free single coil would it sound? Do you think I could squeeze that in to a 5-way Superswitch? Ultimately I'd like 4 hum free single coil sounds + 1 regular bridge humbucker sound, hence I have that in the middle position, while the neck single & bridge single sounds remain at the ends like a Fender. I don't want any extra switches. Just a 5-speed stick.
|
|
lunchbox
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 9
Likes: 0
|
Post by lunchbox on Dec 26, 2007 4:55:28 GMT -5
Hi Sumgai, All the pickups are in a pile. I understand the magnet thing, If they stick back to back, then one of them is reverse polarity. Where I'm getting lost, I think, is the + & - drawing convention. I mean the coils are all wound the same way, it just depends which end you connect to signal & which end you connect to ground that makes the thing reverse wound? (Is that correct?, LOL) I probably shouldn't be attaching + & - to these drawings since we are talking about AC not DC I guess.
|
|
|
Post by sumgai on Dec 26, 2007 13:16:28 GMT -5
lunchy,A quick and dirty way to find which is which, but it works. We definitely want the + and - convention precicely because we are dealing with AC, as in, frequencies. Strings vibrate at many harmonic frequencies, which in turn determine the tonality we hear from the guitar. How pickups are combined together has a huge effect on what we hear, vis-a-vis those harmonics. Thus, we use + and - as reference points, aiding us in wiring (combining) pickups correctly. This is the origin of the phrase "out of phase", and not only is it correct electrically, it's also correct (to a degree) sonically - those harmonics that are out-of-phase will be cancelled, thus affecting the overall tonality. No, unfortunately, that's not correct. Reverse wound means that the pickups are wound backwards (around the coil bobbin in the opposite direction) when compared to a "normal" pickup. Reverse polarity means that the magnets are flipped upside down, again compared to a "normal" pickup. Taken together, RW/RP maintains the sonic phase relationship between pickups so that the various combinations will give the desired tone and will also cancel hum (well, reduce it a lot). HTH sumgai
|
|
|
Post by JohnH on Dec 26, 2007 14:08:39 GMT -5
Hi JohnH, I'm intruged with one of your drawings, it combines 2 pickup that are in series OoP paralled with a single coil. Just how close to a hum free single coil would it sound? Do you think I could squeeze that in to a 5-way Superswitch? Ultimately I'd like 4 hum free single coil sounds + 1 regular bridge humbucker sound, hence I have that in the middle position, while the neck single & bridge single sounds remain at the ends like a Fender. I don't want any extra switches. Just a 5-speed stick. Those 3-coil hum-canceling combos were the most interesting things that I found when I was first exploring that stuff. I have them as stock combinations on my first guitar, a Shergold, which is this: au.geocities.com/guitarcircuits/shergold/shergold.htmlPutting both coils of one pup out of phase with each other, and then all in parallel with a single coil from the other pup is as humcancelling on my guitar as is a simple humbucker. The pups are not matched either, the neck is 6k and the bridge is 4k resistance. Thinking further about these combos since, I will hazard an unproven theory that the three coils balance out the hum because, even though they have different resistances, they are of similar size and geometry, and probably made of the same gage wire. I'm thinking more turns of wire pick up more hum but add resistance in equal proportion, and so balance is maintained. With a page of maths I think I could demonstrate that, but it is too early and I have not had breakfast. What I'm getting to is that the hum-canceling may not be perfect if you have coils from very different pups, but I think it will generally be at least hum-reduced. You just have to get the hum coming out of the two coils in series, to be opposite direction to that from the single parallel coil. I would think a super-switch should be able to be persuaded to deliver some combos of that type. John
|
|
|
Post by ChrisK on Dec 26, 2007 19:02:27 GMT -5
Ok.
You are technically correct!
However, most folk have significant difficulty understanding AC circuits and we therefore use "+" and "-" since it's easier than trying to repeatedly (re)explain things.
The correct symbology is to use phase dots, but this gets confusing when one is talking about the non-dot wire. The whole hot and ground terminology as applied to pickup wiring (except for those with a single conductor plus shield - the shield needs to be a dedicated connection to ground) is only arbitrary. It's a whole lot easier to not "shake the foundations" with the lean of learning by calling the ground wire on a pickup the ground wire forever.
Reactance, forget about it......................
If we call one lead "+" and the other "-", it is relevant to other pickups since it is assumed that polarity (a very non-AC concept) applies at the same exact instant in time to all AC components.
Yep!!!!!!!!!! . . !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The wire goes around one way, or it goes around the other. The leads are reversible in how one connects them (except for certain shielded leads where one coil end is internally connected thereto). Reverse Wound is reverse wound. Reverse Polarity is reversed magnet polarity, necessary to counteract the reversal of the signal from one coil with a winding direction reversed with respect to the other.
To maintain the same output signal relationship, two things have to be reversed.
The common mode noise (hum) is canceled when one coil is of reverse winding direction. The differential mode signal (the, uh, output signal) is added when the reversed winding coil also has a reversed magnet polarity.
Speaking of harmonics, at any given point along the string, some harmonics will be of equal phase or of opposite phase compared to the fundamental, will not appear at all, or will be somewhere in between.
For instance, at the 24th fret (the normal location of the neck pickup on a 21 or 22 fret guitar), there is a significant null point for harmonics that are 2 octave multiples of the fundamental. (Before someone gets all too excited about the advantages of them there 24 fret necks, once one frets a string at the second fret, the note is smack dab back in 22 fret land.)
If two coils generate a signal that is electrically out of phase with each other, the fundamental and all harmonics of the same phase cancel, and those of opposite phase add when in series and average when in parallel (well, mostly).
|
|