Humbuckers made of two different "full-on" single coils

[Embenny]

So, this subject has become a recent fascination of mine. I've known about the SD P-Rails since they came out, the Lace Dually humbuckers that are made of two of their various regular Lace Sensors, the SD Stag Mag and Rio Grande Tallboy which are both basically two strat pickups stuck together, and lipstick humbuckers that are just two lipsticks wired in series. I love the idea of "asymmetrical" coils where you get a truly different tone from each split coil, rather than just a position-related one like you do with a Stag Mag.

Lately, I've been finding some relatively unknown winders making some massively cool pickups along those lines. The SP Custom Trinity has a Telecaster coil and a "Jazzmaster-like" coil (i.e. relatively wide, relatively flat, alnico pole) for two very different Fendery tones when split. SP Custom is based out of France, and the pickups are not cheap for those of us across the ocean.

Then there's Rautia Guitars in Finland. They make three really cool-sounding models. The Toast-O-Caster is a Strat pickup and a Rickenbacker Toaster in a PAF enclosure (!!). The Bar-O-Caster is a Strat and a P90 in one. And the Mini-O-Caster is a Telecaster neck pickup and an entire Gibson Mini-Humbucker in a PAF enclosure!

I'm *really* tempted to go for the Toast-O-Caster for my HH Jaguar Special. I've got some Triple Shot rings for it which would make it really easy to access all the different options. Considering the similarity between Strat and Jag pickups, it sounds like I could probably get a pretty conventional Jag tone out of them, a solidbody Rickenbacker tone, and then the parallel and series humbucker tones.

The SP Trinity would be a close second place in terms of my tonal preferences, but it's even more expensive and I already have a Jag with JM-ish pickups. The Rickenbacker toaster is something not currently in my stable.

If anyone is aware of any other similar models, please let me know. I find these fascinating. Or if you're tried one - please let us know how it sounds!

[Shadoweclipse13]

This is super cool. I'd love to hear how these sound and how they work for you!

[blimpage]

I don't think these are in production, but Tym Guitars posted this excellent blog about making wide-range humbuckers out of P90s.

[jvin248]

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I'm building a pickup winder and plans are to experiment like these with combining a couple of pickup styles. Thanks for the links to further inspiration!

My player Strat has the Armstrong Blender mod (second tone pot blends stock SSS into HSH). And my Teles get 4-way switches plus offset with series option.

This is an interesting concept that I may do sometime (but using the Armstrong Blender circuit, RR uses a push/pull series circuit)


http://www.fendercustomshop.com/series/ ... rd-bronze/

[Danley]

Lace totally just banded two regular sensors together with a piece of metal for the earliest Duallies. is that what you're talking about?

[Embenny]

I don't think these are in production, but Tym Guitars posted this excellent blog about making wide-range humbuckers out of P90s.

That's super cool! I love the combo of the P90 with mini-HB bobbins. That's the kind of super-asymmetrical coils I find most interesting. His was less about splitting than about blending, which is an approach that really appeals to me, too.

I'm building a pickup winder and plans are to experiment like these with combining a couple of pickup styles. Thanks for the links to further inspiration!

My player Strat has the Armstrong Blender mod (second tone pot blends stock SSS into HSH). And my Teles get 4-way switches plus offset with series option.

Yeah, this is similar to the Tym approach where the extra coil is dialed in to taste. Basically a dial-a-tap in reverse. I hope you post all your experiments once you get the winder up and running! I've been doing the low-tech type of experimentation by doing things like hiding a tele neck pickup and a strat pickup together in a JM cover and stuff like that, but I'd be able to do even cooler stuff if I had a winder, so I'm envious!

Lace totally just banded two regular sensors together with a piece of metal for the earliest Duallies. is that what you're talking about?

Yeah, they offered a bunch of combos where the two individual coils were different - gold/silver, red/blue, etc. That way, you could split to one coil or the other and get a very different tone.

The more guitars I own, the more freaky I want to get with electronics. Strats, jags, teles, JMs...they're all classic tones. But once you have the bases covered, you can start asking yourself the questions like..."what does a tri-sonic sounds like wired in parallel to a Telecaster neck pickup when they're both in the bridge position?" That's an answer I hope to have with my Deed_Poll Marauder build, where I'm tacking on a narrow Tele neck pickup as "inside coils" on the neck and bridge position of what would otherwise be an SSS of mini-trisonics.

To add to the cool stuff already posted in this thread, I just found this one-off made by Rautia of a Telecaster neck pickup and a Charlie Christian blade pickup on an HB bottom plate/footprint! This is the kind of mad pickup science that I love:

[Danley]

I'm the opposite - I used to really enjoy playing with wiring options etc. when I was a very young beginner, essentially trying to 'buy' my game through pickups and clever tricks. Basically a case of 'been there, done that, a standard setup is fine'

(I do still like experimenting with different pickup types, I just don't get an urge to add a million switches and try everything in series/parallel/out of phase, different pot values etc.)

[Embenny]

(I do still like experimenting with different pickup types, I just don't get an urge to add a million switches and try everything in series/parallel/out of phase, different pot values etc.)

And yet you say this when your avatar is an F-100 that comes stock with coil taps and phase switches

[Danley]

(I do still like experimenting with different pickup types, I just don't get an urge to add a million switches and try everything in series/parallel/out of phase, different pot values etc.)

And yet you say this when your avatar is an F-100 that comes stock with coil taps and phase switches

Well it would have been more work to remove them