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  • Strat pickup question!

    Has anyone ever tried the trick of wiring a second "dummy" coil in series with a stock Strat bridge pickup, and stashing it out of sight under the pickguard? I'm looking at ways of beefing-up my American Standard and I recall seeing this idea mentioned somewhere. Theoretically, I get a humbucking pickup in a stock-looking Strat, but (A) - does it actually work? and (B) - how does it sound?


  • #2
    What you are looking for is the Dimarzio HS1,2,3 or YJM.
    BTW... if you wired a dummy coil it would be noise cancelling but not a "humbucker".
    Fender Noiseless have a dummy coil.
    If you want a beefy single coil that has no noise but still sounds like a stock single that you can use in high gain applications but still be able to use it clean look no further than the Dimarzio HS1,2,3 and YJM.
    Malmsteen uses HS-3's and YMJ's. Eric Johnson uses an HS-2 in the bridge with the second coil tapped.

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    • #3
      I recently compared the Dimarzios, the YJMs, to some of the stuff coming out of the Fender Custom Shop. (I strongly suspect there's a link between DiM and Fender but I haven't done the research). Anyhow, a lot of the Fender stuff is crap, but I was blown away by the Custom Shop 54s. I'm getting an incredible sound out of mine, and I went with them over the YJMs.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by danastas
        I recently compared the Dimarzios, the YJMs, to some of the stuff coming out of the Fender Custom Shop. (I strongly suspect there's a link between DiM and Fender but I haven't done the research). Anyhow, a lot of the Fender stuff is crap, but I was blown away by the Custom Shop 54s. I'm getting an incredible sound out of mine, and I went with them over the YJMs.
        There are 2 things to consider though.
        #1. Custom Shop 54's are not hum cancelling
        #2. Custom Shop 54's are not humbuckers and although they are great single coil pickups.. they will not "beef" up his sound.
        Custom Shop 54's and YJM's are apples and oranges. You really can't compare them.

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        • #5
          Noiseless singles are humbucking so they can technically be called humbuckers, though yeah, that's a little misleading. But no "stacked bucker" like this that I ever used was great at "beefing up" the sound - at least not because of *this* design aspect. In fact, all the HS series from DiMarzio have greater output & more treble with the dummy coil disconnected (which is why Eric J used to do this; I don't think he uses the HS2 anymore, but I dunno - he changes gear around).

          Higher output singles, higher output stacked buckers, and minibuckers (side by side humbuckers in a strat single size) - THEY will beef up the sound.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Jester700
            Noiseless singles are humbucking so they can technically be called humbuckers, though yeah, that's a little misleading. But no "stacked bucker" like this that I ever used was great at "beefing up" the sound - at least not because of *this* design aspect. In fact, all the HS series from DiMarzio have greater output & more treble with the dummy coil disconnected (which is why Eric J used to do this; I don't think he uses the HS2 anymore, but I dunno - he changes gear around).

            Higher output singles, higher output stacked buckers, and minibuckers (side by side humbuckers in a strat single size) - THEY will beef up the sound.
            I agree on all the above points.
            My favorite strat sized humbuckers are Seymour Duncan Duckbuckers.
            They have a fairly low output but they sound fantastic through a high gain amp plus they sound exactly like a stock strat pickup when clean with the benefit of being totally silent.

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            • #7
              IIRC, my strat (before I put SD's in it) had standard pups. The sound was great, nice and ducky- but the hum was unbearable due to the high gain I associate with good tone... Anyways, I dont think the dummy single coil was wired for sound, but instead was wired with the bridge (and I *think the neck) pup as a dummy "HB".

              It worked great, bucked the hum and still had the single coil duck. Thats the best I can do
              (great option for the monetarily-challenged if you have an extra throw-away single coil laying about)
              <wiring newb
              Last edited by tseegert; 05-03-2006, 03:57 PM.
              www.myspace.com/madeaband
              www.garageband.com/artist/madea

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