Humbucker vs Single Coils In-Series (7-string Bass E Tuning Test)

I think In order to truly mimic a humbucker, one of the single coils should have been in inverse phase as well... or something, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm still not entirely sure why the 2 single coils were so much quieter... maybe someone can help me out. Either way, I love writing for this tuning, Enjoy!

[@PearHellforge]

the question i've always had for years but too afraid to ask, thank u kevin! can u try to wire all the 3 strat pickups in series? i've always wanted to hear how they sound together, keep up the good work man!

[@I..cast..fireball]

Would sound pretty base heavy and very compressed. Also output impedence would be very high.

[@sashabagdasarow497]

It is also interesting to wire two humbuckers in series

[@somepunkinthecomments471]

The way a humbucker works is it reverses the magnetic polarity (one pickup has north on top, the other has south on top) and the electrical polarity (the direction of the winding is reversed on one pickup) which acts as a double negative for the flux coming from the strings, but the hum coming from interference isn't effected by the magnet and is cancelled because the electrical polarity is flipped. Basically, you need the electrical polarity to be flipped for hum to cancel, and the magnetic polarity to be flipped as well so the signal isn't cancelled as well. Note that I never once mentioned series or parallel wiring. It has no consequence to the hum being cancelled. All that series wiring does is double the inductance, resistance, and capacitance of the pickup compared to parallel wiring. Inductance does two things, it captures the magnetic flux, aka, it makes the signal, and it creates a lowpass filter meaning it rolls off treble. The capacitance doesn't do anything except create a second lowpass filter, and the resistance smooths out the peak made by the 2nd order lowpass filter. I can't remember if the resistance effects the cut off frequency, but that's not super important. So switching from parallel to series lowers the cut off frequency of each lowpass by one octave, and makes the pickup louder. That's pretty much all series vs parallel does. You can easily test to see if your magnetic polarity is flipped, if you put the two pickups top to top, if the magnets attract, then they are reversed. Now to test the electrical polarity, swap the ground and hot of one pickup. If the two pickups cancel the hum, then it's reversed and you have a fully functional humbucker. If you're reading this, a cool experiment you could do is to reverse the hot and ground of one coil in a humbucker so they are out of phase, you'll still get signal, but it will be quieter and the bass will be cut. You will get hum out of this configuration, so experiment with flipping the magnets in one coil so they are both north (or south) up, but keep the ground and hot reversed so you get hum cancellation, but the same tone as before. The tone might even be different, who knows, it'd be cool to find out.

[@bluwng]

What do you do for a living? You are the only person I have read in comments that understands these concepts. I am an electrical engineer and I found guitarist to be so hard headed and superstitious about electrical concepts and what they consider factors that impact tone.

[@somepunkinthecomments471]

@@bluwng haha, I actually make fall protection harnesses. The stuff people wear when climbing telephone poles and trees and similar things. I studied this stuff for about 10 years as a hobby before giving up on my dream of making guitars. No amount of studying can ever make someone physically talented enough to actually make stuff. I'm sorta in the "those who can't do, teach" camp. Minus all degrees.

[@bluwng]

@@somepunkinthecomments471 as long as you have a desire you can do it, maybe not great but you can. People who fail at any proficiency is either they are disheartened or don’t care or don’t like.

[@somepunkinthecomments471]

@@bluwng that's not really true but I appreciate the support. Everyone has their own skillset and mine is definitely not craftsmanship. Trust me. I've tried learning welding, jewelry making, woodworking, and guitar pedal making. I am very capable of learning, only slightly competent at applying knowledge. I can design a schematic for a guitar amp or pedal, but can't actually make it work. It's a curse.

[@instrumentenfreak]

I did not expect to sound good. Nice video :-)

[@flatfingertuning727]

A key feature of a humbucker is that the two sets of pole pieces are magnetically connected below the coils. Think of a magnet as shooting flux out the north end which then has to find the easiest path back to the south end because magnetic flux *always* forms loops; flux travels much more easily through soft steel than air, and pickups sense how many "lines" of flux pass through the coil in one direction but then complete the loop outside the coil. On a single coil pickup, much of the flux that travels through the pole piece will return to the other end of the pole piece in the space between the pole piece and the coil, and will thus not get detected. In a humbucker, the easiest way for flux that leaves the end of a pole piece nearest the strings to complete the loop is to jump over to the other pole piece, travel through that, and then travel across the magnet that connects the two pole pieces. The distance is longer, but most of the flux will follow this path because it travels much more easily in steel than air.

[@SixStringOverdose]

Precisely because magnetic flux travels much easier through steel compared to air, the effect you described above doesn't really work like that (in my opinion, if my logic doesn't fail me). Here's why I'm saying this: Even though the 2 coils of a humbucker are close enough so that the flux escaping one coil *would* find it easier to "leak" itself into the closer neighboring coil, that actually won't happen, as the attraction will be much greater towards its own opposite pole, which belongs to the same piece of metal, instead of jumping to the one next to it which actually is a different piece of material altogether, physically separated by air. But it also depends on how the magnet touches them behind the backplate so... it's very hard to actually tell how that whole thing unfolds.

[@flatfingertuning727]

@@SixStringOverdose I'm not quite sure what you mean by "opposite pole", since the slugs in a humbucker aren't magnets. Instead, the slugs in each coil will touch one side of a shared magnet, meaning that the magnet will couple the slugs in one coil with the slugs in the other. I'd like to see/hear a humbucker design with six discrete horseshoe magnets, which I would think could have a cleaner sound than one where all the pole pieces share a common magnet.

[@SixStringOverdose]

@@flatfingertuning727 I meant magnetic pole, not individual piece, but I know what ur saying, it's my other half of the argument... really not sure how the overall influence goes, as we artificially connect 12 slugs, 6 on each side, to a magnet at 90 degree angles, once for each side, so we're trying to emulate that horseshoe magnet out of many distinct pieces of varying materials and weird angles with touchpoints instead of one contiguous material... To be honest, I think a true horseshoe design might sound cleaner, but if we'd have the 12 pieces themselves as independent magnets, I think it would sound a bit noisier and less balanced from one string to another.

[@mr.fictionaloxymoron3643]

Ahhh my 2nd favorite instrument that you use (1 is the alto) this is quite obvious but I like the humbucker for distorted and the single coil for cleans. I suggest doing a little routing to have one at the neck and one at the bridge to have both Djent on man🤘 Plus why do some of them sound like whitechapel 😂😂😂

[@Chris-mc2dt]

That “strat” is real neat! Humbuckers sounded much better, especially in the clean test. The distortion made it a bit trickier to tell them apart.

[@cashewwalnut3589]

Fucking dope m8, the single coils seem to be more of like a stacked single coil, keeping the twang but with a higher output

[@igorkhomenko9680]

I think the sound only changes because you removed the pick guard on the right one. ;)

[@jerrylancaster256]

When you're drilling holes for ferrules you want to have a perfectly flat board underneath it so it doesn't splinter the finish

[@jasonlucas8740]

Periphery. Reptile. It's in a drop octave turning

[@Bassistking]

Dude, you should have just got a Squier Stagemaster 7 or Stratocaster VII. It would have saved you so much hassle. The SM7 is actually pretty badass. I have one.

[@edloomingly7204]

Bassistking I’ve had the vii in the past and it was also a fantastic guitar!

[@andymartin813]

So all you have to do is tape two single coils together? Cool

[@jc_nilsson]

I bet they sound a lot different if you plug them in

[@landrybasket]

Wage War does this drop octave tuning but in f in "Johnny Cash" And "Low"

[@yuseffmedina6292]

Architects uses that tuning, just in 6 strings and 1 tone higher. So F# F# B E G# C#

[@mrcaykums6402]

A local band in Michigan where I'm from called Boreworm used it on there EP the black path also foo fighters used a variation of it on a standard tuned 6 string with the E tuned to a Low A and I think Mastodon uses a variation of it to

[@looniethemoonie5353]

There’s a jazz guitarist out there (I forgot his name) that uses a 7 string that has the lower 2 strings tuned E and A like a bass and the rest are tuned like a standard guitar (minus the high e). The dude is an absolute beast he plays chords on the guitar strings and does a following/walking bass line on the bass strings at the same time.

[@sh4dow123]

Is baritone

[@BaBaBaBenny]

My band has a song in Aadgbe that’s coming out soon...

[@connormcinerney7503]

Interesting. It’s like a humbucker but with that single coil bitey sound. Also, I do a similar tuning sometimes except the lowest string is an F# so by doing a basic power chord shape I get octaves instead and the tritone shape is still dissonant

[@AtanoKSi]

boi, idk if ur aware but in aliexpress you can buy some weird bass guitars I own the 17 strings one from there, but there are 8, 9, 10 strings... I don't know a lot about guitar quality, so maybe you are interested in looking it up and maybe mod one of those to djent the hell out of it (?)

[@Funnyyelowdog]

Not exactly an octave but god jammit by berried alive is tuned d#dadgbe

[@kurtrosenthal6313]

Mastodon does a minor 7th interval on a few songs making the power chord shape on the lowest 2 strings a power chord shape.

[@GooglySushi]

The melvins song boris is in aadgbe. Also the namesake of the band boris

[@MichaelDespairs]

they both sound exactly like guitars.

[@nathangaspar4989]

Okay, now I want to hear some thrash riffs played on this thing.

[@heggy_69]

I like the two single coils better tbh

[@teolalala1381]

2 hambuckers in series?

[@metalhead83192]

i bet that doing this with a pair of hot rails or p90's would sound WILD

[@Viper-dz2kw]

Matt Bellamy’s old MB1 guitars used to have two p90’s set up like that in the bridge

[@MeuwMusic]

nice video

[@MuscleDad420]

My guy needs to get on that proactiv tip

[@dobbs123456789]

P-90s in series dude. This is a must-watch channel.

[@Viper-dz2kw]

If you wanna hear what that sounds like in a professional environment listen to early muse records, Matt Bellamy’s old MB1 guitars used to be set up like that