Four pickup strat

dern

I was reading this last night and quite fancied modifying my strat to do this...

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/22254-mod-garage-a-cool-four-pickup-wiring

To save reading it the wiring diagram looks like this...

So all you need is a single coil sized humbucker, an HSS pickguard suitably drilled for two singles rather than a humber and a three way toggle switch to drop in place of the second tone pot.

Looks like a wheeze. Has anyone tried anything like this?

My strat is already modified so I'm not precious about it by the way. It's an american highway strat with the pickups replaced with demarzio highways, full shielded and the wiring modified to this...

(from here... http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/stratlovers.php). This gives me the ability to have the bridge on whatever the other selections and put the neck pickup out of phase (that I never use). I mainly play the guitar with either the bridge or the neck or both (mostly the last one... sounds great). Having the ability to continue with those options *and* to have a humbucker in the bridge sounds fun

Cheers,

Mark

dern

I've ordered the parts and I'll let you know how it goes... or you'll see the parts on ebay

Cheers,

Mark

axisus

Intriguing, although I'm not keen on a standard strat bridge sound so I'd generally rather just stick an HB there and be done with it.

Megii

Only FWIW, but Warman sell the "G-rail" which is essentially a bucker-sized assembly with a ceramic magnet dual blade next to an alnico strat type pickup. 6 conductor wiring - 2 for the strat pickup, then 2 for each coil of the blade. I did fit one to one of my guitars (not a strat) and it's actually not at all bad imo.

I have push-pull switching on the pots, that enable me to get either the strat coil or dual blade on their own, or both in series, or both in parallel.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Warman-G-rail-triple-coil-pickup-6-wire-output-/161743705531?hash=item25a8ad15bb:g:PFsAAOSw9N1VirzD

OilCityPickups

I have been considering building a pickup like this to add to my range for a while ... do you guys think there is a market?

Teetonetal

yes, a market, but a small one.

Megii

I'd have thought it could be an appealing option for anyone with an HSS strat. Wouldn't like to say how big a market it might be though.

dern

I'll let you know if it sounds any good but the reason I'm doing it rather than simply sticking a full size humbucker in there is that I've already got a bridge pickup that I like the sound of albeit mainly when combined with the neck pickup. Given that this wiring option isn't standard so is an oddball situation I'm not sure that there's a huge market.

I'm not sure what effect it'll have on the bridge pickup mounting it perpendicularly to the string rather than at an angle. I know the pole spacing might be an issue but Dimarzio have supplied the whole set as 52mm pole spacing and the bridge is no different. It's also going to sit further away from the bridge which will have an effect. I'm going to try with the humbucker next to the bridge and then the single coil and see which gives the best results. I think the single coil will sound even thinner though next to the bridge but the humbucker might sound better a bit further away. Maybe I should build a little turntable that swaps their positions at the touch of a button... joke

I won't deny that the main reason I'm doing this is that I like to piss about with guitars

Cheers,

Mark

dern

Megii said:

Only FWIW, but Warman sell the "G-rail" which is essentially a bucker-sized assembly with a ceramic magnet dual blade next to an alnico strat type pickup. 6 conductor wiring - 2 for the strat pickup, then 2 for each coil of the blade. I did fit one to one of my guitars (not a strat) and it's actually not at all bad imo.

That's the effect I'm going for and pretty good value. Maybe I'd have been better experimenting with that instead. Never mind, bits purchased now. 

The single coil with will a Dimarzio area 61 which is already in the guitar (have a set of areas in there currently) and the humbucker will be a SD JB Jnr humbucker that I picked up second hand on here. I have an HSS pickguard on order and will remove the second tone control, route it all through the first one and place a 3 way toggle in the hole vacated by the second tone control.

Cheers,

Mark

ThePrettyDamned

TheGuitarWeasel;845985" said:

I have been considering building a pickup like this to add to my range for a while ... do you guys think there is a market?

I could imagine modern metallers and maybe some fusion type players liking it, but it may be a smaller market.

OilCityPickups

I have an interesting idea that I may develop ... a 'Quad Core' four bobbin humbucker with two four-conductor and screen outputs. 

This will allow some super interesting switching being able to chose individual coil pairs ... either adjacent ... as in a single coil as in a single soil sized humbucker, or wide spread. Perhaps switching in and out of coils to reduce power or increase it. some wild options would be available with a pair of these. It has been done before, but not in a hand made format, and with some of the refinements I have in mind I believe.

ICBM

TheGuitarWeasel said:

I have an interesting idea that I may develop ... a 'Quad Core' four bobbin humbucker with two four-conductor and screen outputs. 

This will allow some super interesting switching being able to chose individual coil pairs ... either adjacent ... as in a single coil as in a single soil sized humbucker, or wide spread. Perhaps switching in and out of coils to reduce power or increase it. some wild options would be available with a pair of these. It has been done before, but not in a hand made format, and with some of the refinements I have in mind I believe.

It's definitely been done before - the Kent Armstrong Motherbucker. I don't think you'd count it as hand-made, but what I've found on the few occasions I've fitted them for people is that they're a victim of their own success - just too many options, so you either have to make the switching ridiculously complex and difficult to navigate, or you have to drastically limit the possible combinations, which somewhat defeats the point. Worse, one of the less-good sounds on it is the one you'd think you would want it for - all four coils in series… just too muddy and undefined.

It does at least have the advantage that you can have split sounds that are still hum-cancelling (although you can sort-of do that with a normal humbucker if you switch it to parallel), so if you can fix the mud problem it might be useful for some players.

Megii

I was looking at this guitar yesterday, as it happens - I think the pickups have a really cool modern look, not that looks are everything. I think a 4 coil pickup, built for versatility and refinement, and not just a high output metal thing, maybe with separate neck and bridge versions, plus the advantages of hand winding - that could be interesting.

dern

So, this is how it looked...

...and this is how it looks now...

Purely from the looks perspective I'm very happy with it. I'll be on the look out for a slight less cream switch end although the pickguard looks less white in the flesh.

I didn't put the humbucker next to the bridge due to the way the wiring comes out of it and putting them in this way means I didn't have to take any wood out. Didn't mind doing it but wanted to see if it all works first.

The single coil pickups sound exactly the same as they did unsurprisingly. If I pull the volume knob I get the bridge single coil in with whatever else I have selected and if I pull the tone knob it puts the neck pickup out of phase.

The switch in the up position just leaves the single coil pickups working as above, down is just the humbucker and the middle combines the humbucker with the single coils.

The humbucker sounds full and exactly what you'd expect. Sounds quite similar to a bridge pickup on an lp I guess... maybe something to do with the position it's ended up in. Sounds completely different to the quacky bridge single coil pickup though.

The Humbucker is a seymour duncan JB Jr. Strat Bridge pickup which cost me £35 second hand, the pickguard was £10 off ebay and the switch was about £3.

Really happy with the result.

Cheers.

Mark

octatonic

TheGuitarWeasel said:

I have been considering building a pickup like this to add to my range for a while ... do you guys think there is a market?

There is much more of a market for a humbucker that splits well.

Megii

You did a cracking job there @Dern - very nicely done. I think perhaps best to have the single coil nearer to the bridge also, and keep more separation to the middle pickup. Looks great as well.

dern

Thank you very much @Megii. Had another quick play this morning and very pleased indeed.

Regards,

Mark

DrBob

octatonic;850501" said:

TheGuitarWeasel said:

I have been considering building a pickup like this to add to my range for a while ... do you guys think there is a market?





There is much more of a market for a humbucker that splits well.

Agreed, a pickup that when split still sounded like a Tele bridge pickup would be unbelievable!

Jeremiah

What about a pickup that splits well, but is still hum-cancelling when "split"? I guess you can kind of do that by putting the coils in parallel but it's not quite the same.

normula1

what I quite fancy is a normal (PAF) output humbucker with the slug coil having some extra windings that can be tapped for normal humbucking mode but give a touch more output and slightly darker tone when in the single coil is voiced alone (split).

I appreciate it's never going to sound like a Strat single coil, but I reckon it could alleviate some of the normal volume loss and very bright tone you with splitting PAF types.

I've a pair of PRS pickups I'm thinking of sacrificing to the rewind gurus on this forum to see if it does actually work.