HSH with DImarzio Area for hum-cancelling splits

[sumitagarwal]

I recently got a Killer guitar (literally. Killer Marquis) that's my first HSH guitar. I noticed the layout has interesting implications for splitting the humbuckers if equipped with a stack (i.e. Dimarzio Area) in the middle.

Some of the hum-cancelling sounds that should be available are:

• Neck outer coil with middle bottom coil
• Neck humbucker
• Neck inner coil with middle top coil
• Middle stack
• Neck humbucker with bridge humbucker
• Middle top coil with bridge outer coil
• Middle bottom coil with bridge inner coil
• Bridge humbucker

The guitar itself has lots of controls: 3-way toggle pickup selector, 4 knobs (can be replaced with push-pulls), and two mini switches.

I'm thinking it should work do to 2 push-pulls per humbucker. One push-pull would split to the given humbucker North coil and add the Area's South coil, and the other push-pull would split the given humbucker to the South coil and add the Area's North coil.

Does this seem like a sound approach? I'm having trouble understanding what would happen if I split both humbuckers simultaneously, or if I had both push-pulls for a given humbucker up.

[newey]

May 12, 2024 20:08:14 GMT -5 sumitagarwal said:

Does this seem like a sound approach? I'm having trouble understanding what would happen if I split both humbuckers simultaneously, or if I had both push-pulls for a given humbucker up.

We'll have to put pen to paper to know for sure, but I think "Both up" mode might be a problem. But, I note that your proposal doesn't have the Area by itself as an option, so if pulling both push/pulls up for both HBs cuts the HBs out, then I think in the center position of the 3-way, you'd get the Area by itself. Maybe? Maybe not a bug but a feature?

Assuming this all can be done, you may also find the guitar to be overly "switchy", but the exercise to try all the different possibilities can be useful. Probably better for studio work than stage. My 4-pickup Strat build has some neat tones, but trying to remember how to get to the various settings can be a challenge.

You may also find that not all of these combinations sound distinctively different. Many of the members here built the "all everything" axe at some point, but then wired their next guitar with just the ones that they liked best and used most.

Another option, just to throw this out there, would be to wire each HB in what we call a "binary tree" scheme. Using the 2 push/pulls for each HB, both push/pulls down gives the usual series humbucker, both up gives you the HB coils in parallel; Vol. up, Tone down gives the N coil, tone down, Vol up gives the south coil.

If you replaced one of the mini toggles with a DPDT On-On-On switch, the Area could then be switched from the stack to either of its coils. The other mini toggle (if it's a DPDT On-On) could then be used as a "neck on" switch to turn the neck pickup "on" in conjunction with whatever is selected by the 3-way toggle. This then gives you not only the N + B (and you could chose either coil alone, parallel HB or series HB for each one). It also allows for all 3 pickups to be "On" together.

Will this be overly "switchy". Maybe, I guess it depends on one's intended uses and personal tastes. Also, this way will make some combos that will not be hum-cancelling. But you'll have pretty much all the possibilities to play around with.

[sumitagarwal]

May 12, 2024 21:43:28 GMT -5 newey said:

May 12, 2024 20:08:14 GMT -5 sumitagarwal said:

Does this seem like a sound approach? I'm having trouble understanding what would happen if I split both humbuckers simultaneously, or if I had both push-pulls for a given humbucker up.

We'll have to put pen to paper to know for sure, but I think "Both up" mode might be a problem. But, I note that your proposal doesn't have the Area by itself as an option, so if pulling both push/pulls up for both HBs cuts the HBs out, then I think in the center position of the 3-way, you'd get the Area by itself. Maybe? Maybe not a bug but a feature?

Assuming this all can be done, you may also find the guitar to be overly "switchy", but the exercise to try all the different possibilities can be useful. Probably better for studio work than stage. My 4-pickup Strat build has some neat tones, but trying to remember how to get to the various settings can be a challenge.

You may also find that not all of these combinations sound distinctively different. Many of the members here built the "all everything" axe at some point, but then wired their next guitar with just the ones that they liked best and used most.

Another option, just to throw this out there, would be to wire each HB in what we call a "binary tree" scheme. Using the 2 push/pulls for each HB, both push/pulls down gives the usual series humbucker, both up gives you the HB coils in parallel; Vol. up, Tone down gives the N coil, tone down, Vol up gives the south coil.

If you replaced one of the mini toggles with a DPDT On-On-On switch, the Area could then be switched from the stack to either of its coils. The other mini toggle (if it's a DPDT On-On) could then be used as a "neck on" switch to turn the neck pickup "on" in conjunction with whatever is selected by the 3-way toggle. This then gives you not only the N + B (and you could chose either coil alone, parallel HB or series HB for each one). It also allows for all 3 pickups to be "On" together.

Will this be overly "switchy". Maybe, I guess it depends on one's intended uses and personal tastes. Also, this way will make some combos that will not be hum-cancelling. But you'll have pretty much all the possibilities to play around with.

Thanks for the extensive feedback!!

Yes, I agree that switchiness can be a problem, although I find it to be a bit more about context and intuition than sheer number of options. Perhaps because I've played them so much, but I find the 4-knob Gibson setup to be quite intuitive despite the number of knobs.

There are a couple of things I really like about push-pulls: 1) they can be placed where they have concrete context, such as a coil-split placed on a knob for the pickup it is splitting, and 2) when the push-pulls are in their down state the guitar feels and operates identically to a simpler guitar, so there's no complication added when not wanted. By comparison I have to remember what mini toggle does what, and I actually find it harder to quickly glance or feel whether they're on or off versus push-pulls

Having a way to have the middle Area by itself would definitely be a plus!! I think the Strat middle position is undervalued. I believe it's Clapton's favorite position (for whatever that's worth), SRV used it a bunch, and Mark from Khruangbin uses it almost exclusive although his is "out of phase" (I actually don't know what this means if it's a single pickup).

The stock wiring uses one mini switch as an on-off for the middle pickup and the other mini switch as a global vol/tone bypass (keeping the pickup selector and middle pickup on/off in circuit). The global vol/tone bypass has a lot of lugs to achieve that.

I've seen this binary tree wiring before, but haven't seen it referred to by that term. From what I can tell, it seems like the ideal configuration for an HH guitar with 4 knobs (i.e. most Gibsons). I have a Heritage with the "Jimmy Page" wiring, but the out-of-phase and HH in-series positions are useless to me, and I wish I'd known about the binary tree wiring 22 years ago 

I've though about the solution you describe and am considering it. As described above, one good thing is that when the push-pulls are down and the middle is off, it just behaves like a normal HH guitar, so switchiness can be avoided. But if there's a way to, say, move from neck humbucker to hum-cancelling neck outer coil through just a single switch or single pull, that seems preferable. I also think that having the Area's bottom coil available to use reduces the benefits of the parallel humbucker positions.

Blah. Too much brain.

As an overall comment: I'm surprised that I've been unable to find any examples or discussion online of people using the bottom coil of an Area stack for cancelling hum on other pickups in the guitar, whether those are split humbuckers or traditional singles. It seems so obvious that I feel like I might be missing something? The bridge Tele Area in particular is supposed to be a great design, per antigua, and so for something like a Nashville Tele one could simply replace the bridge pickup with an Area and gain hum-cancelling neck and middle tones as well.

[newey]

May 13, 2024 10:30:22 GMT -5 sumitagarwal said:

I'm surprised that I've been unable to find any examples or discussion online of people using the bottom coil of an Area stack for cancelling hum on other pickups in the guitar, whether those are split humbuckers or traditional singles. It seems so obvious that I feel like I might be missing something?

Good question, but I think it is that, even though the lower coil is buried underneath, it will still sens the strings to a certain extent, and therefore won't sound exactly like a HB coil split by itself.

Certainly the desire for hum-cancelling posiitons only is worthwhile. It may be a few days before I can look deeper at this and see if there will be a dead spot issue with the P/Ps both up. Would I be correct in assuming that the 3-way switch is the same configuration as the std Gibson-style toggle, with three solder lugs?