[Slewfoot2000]

Hi Gang,

Had a thought and figured I’d check in to see A) if this may work. B) if it’s crazy. C) if doable who can do it?

Basically, my personal favorite Jerry tone is Wolf 1973 / 1974 with the Fender single coils. But that doesn’t make a guitar the most versatile.

So can one essentially take a pair of Fender single coil pickups and combine them to create a humbucker? The thought being that this way when you split the coils you retain the Fender single coil goodness, but also have the ability to thicken up the sound when needed.

Anyone know any reliable custom humbucker builders out there? Lindy Fralin can’t do it unfortunately. Might reach out to Rolph, but he’s a bit expensive.

Thanks!

[lbpesq]

What you are trying to create is a humbucker pickup that allows you to split the coils and use just one side. This already exists. A humbucker is composed of two single coil pickups wired together, side by side. Tap into the wires connecting the two sides and voila! You have a single coil pickup. What you are proposing is a bass-ackwards way of building a standard humbucker. It’s kind of like creating an eight cylinder engine by combining two four cylinder engines in tandem. It can be done, but it would be far less expensive, easier, and work better to just start with an eight cylinder engine.

Bill, tgo

[bzbz]

yes, you can have the single pickups wired in series rather than in parallel - that would work - yes geeks?

[lbpesq]

yes, you can have the single pickups wired in series rather than in parallel - that would work - yes geeks?

You can do the exact same thing with any four wire humbucker. You can even wire it to give you the choice on the fly to run the two sides in series or parallel. One issue you are going to encounter if you try using two Strat pickups is that the base will stick out on both sides requiring a larger rout than a standard humbucker.

Bill,tgo

[mkaufman]

Yes, it can be done. At one point, Weir's Cowboy had this in the bridge position.

You would need to rotate one single coil so they could abut. Also, one would need to be reverse wound to eliminate hum. Otherwise, the hum would be additive.

ace

[Chocol8]

Yes, one "standard" plus one RWRP "middle" can be wired up like a humbucker.

You would have to cut down the base plates or get non-staggered pole pieced so you can butt them up next to each other.

The combo will not sound like a traditional humbucker, just like a split HB doesn't sound like a Strat single coil.

[Jaycot]

If you contact seymour duncans custom shop they may be able to help. I had them build custom humbuckers that have jazzmaster pickup covers. They specifically wound each coil of the humbucker to imitate a different single coil pickup. With a switch I can select either coil or both. So you could potentially have them build a humbucker with 2 different single coil winds of your choice. I have been using this setup for about a year and I have been loving it.

[Slewfoot2000]

Awesome and thank you! Will reach out to SD! It sounds like a good possibility.