Reverse wound Strat middle pickup question

paulnb57 · March 2020

If a Strat middle pickup is RWRP does it affect the sound or just hum cancel?

ICBM · March 2020

paulnb57 said:

If a Strat middle pickup is RWRP does it affect the sound or just hum cancel?

It does have a small effect on the sound, but not much. I did some testing with a Highway 1 Strat once - I took the magnets out of the middle pickup and turned them round, then rewired the coil - all without taking the pickup out of the pickguard, to eliminate any possible difference in pickup height.

I think I do marginally prefer the tone without, but I would trade that for the ability to use the guitar in some of the noisy venues I've played in any time...

The difference is caused by the magnetic interaction between the pickups - it makes more of a difference with P90s, even when they're much more widely separated in something like a Les Paul Special, because a P90 has a very powerful sideways magnetic field that extends a long way from the pickup.

But I also did the same sort of magnet-flip/rewire on a Rickenbacker bass and it made no difference to the sound whatever. These pickups have ceramic magnets with a very tight up/down field.

johnhe · March 2020

People with good ears and good gear swear it makes an audible difference. But it is very hard to test in the real world. ICBM (in the post above) has come closer than almost anyone can come to have a good quality, real-world test.

For me, I replaced a non-RW Irish Tour middle pickup with a hum cancelling one. Personally, I didn’t hear any difference.

normula1 · March 2020

It is audible, but only just and really if you are listening for it. I preferred non RWRP, but then again I don't mind a noiseless Strat pickup so what do I know

ICBM · March 2020

normula1 said:

It is audible, but only just and really if you are listening for it. I preferred non RWRP, but then again I don't mind a noiseless Strat pickup so what do I know

Noiseless Strat pickups vary a lot - some are dire, some are good, some sound excellent but not *quite* the same as a traditional single coil. I like the good ones too, but then I am not a purist in the sense of wanting the exact traditional sound - as long as it sounds good, and having no noise is a huge advantage sometimes.

Philly_Q · March 2020

I recall Tim Mills at Bare Knuckle not being a big fan of RW/RP although they've always offered it as an option.

I'm not refined enough to notice a difference except in the 2 and 4 positions where the very absence of hum seems to emphasise the difference in sound from 1, 3 and 5.

ICBM · March 2020

Philly_Q said:

I'm not refined enough to notice a difference except in the 2 and 4 positions where the very absence of hum seems to emphasise the difference in sound from 1, 3 and 5.

There is that... and because a *small* amount of hum does actually seem to make a pickup sound better. Really

.

The problem comes when you have to play in a venue where the background noise is so bad that a single coil becomes unusable - I've been in a couple like that... and I don't mean just slightly annoying when you're not playing, or fixable with a noise suppressor - where the noise is as loud as the signal if you use any kind of overdrive or distortion. Having done that I now wouldn't have a gigging instrument that didn't have at least one hum-cancelling setting on it - in fact all mine have either side-by-side or stacked humbuckers now, even though they're all theoretically 'single coil'.

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Reverse wound Strat middle pickup question

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