I saw some videos on youtube about using a dummy coild to stop the hum that were pretty convincing. so I thought Id ask you guys whats the reall "skinny" on this. Is there a downside? Seems better than split coils,2 & 4, gate, shielding. Thats all I know about.
if you want a dummy coil, all your pickups have to be the same wind and magnet direction - vintage style pickups, sets with an RWRP middle won't work with a dummy coil..... Split coils, shielding etc has nothing to do with it, this is just another solution for 60 cycle hum, but it does take away some highs and presence.... It's a pickup with no magnets, wound the opposite direction as the 3 pickup coils....
I dont know what you mean by "splits, shielding etc have nothing to do with it" Seems like all those things are efforts at taming 60 cycle
Dummy pickups have been around for awhile. They are at the heart of Alembic’s top-of-the-line Series electronics. But you should still shield the guitar. Bill, tgo
Shielding helps with RF interference not 60 cycle hum, all of my guitars are shielded even humbucker guitars (at least the controll cavity) . I have done dummy coils and found it not a solution I was happy with. Same pretty much with all the noiseless pickups I have ever tried. I suppose if I had done the dummy coil with a bypass somehow it could be used at certain times then I might go for it. I ended up getting a hum de bugger pedal and use it when I need to and turn it off and on when I want. It is not perfect but I like being able to turn it on and off quickly. Just having RWRP and switching to 2 or 4 is pretty simple for controlling 60 cycle hum. But there are many ways to skin a cat, and whatever blows your skirt up.
Most current Strat models have the middle pickup wired as reverse-polarity/reverse-phase. This effectively makes the middle pickup the "dummy coil" in the 2 and 4 slot positions. Setting up a dummy coil that works with the neck and bridge pickups would be in-phase with the middle pickup and greatly increase the noise on the middle alone, and it would add the "normal" noise to the 2 and 4 slot positions. Coil splits are just a method of splitting out a humbucker so it sounds (kinda) like a single coil. Has nothing to do with controlling noise.
a split coil is acutually cutting a pickup body in half, winding one half north and the other half south. So instead of a dummy or humbucker, its a "sider"
So, Dude, what didnt you like about the dummy coil. You said yo didnt like it. My guitar is shielded but I want the most noise eliminated possible and still sound like a strat. Thanks
Dummy coils work. As long as you have all 3 of your pickups wound the same polarity. Simple as that. They essentially become "noiseless" and will still sound like a strat. I don't currently have a dummy coil strat, but I have had one.
No, coil split has nothing to do with taming 60 cycle hum, a coil spit is when you take a humbucker and only use one coil, which has 60 cycle hum....that ADDS hum, doesn't take it away....it has nothing to do with trying to tame noise....
Im just looking for methods beyond shielding to make the strat as quiet as possible and I really cant do the above but I was just listing ways of quietening above. Once you see it youll see youd have to wind your own pickup.
I think its a valid solution....i made a couple but they sounded exactly like an aggressive noise gate setting and i never bothered again(cause i can just use an aggressive noise gate setting) but i heard other attempts from other people and the difference is minimal....so its def worth pursuing cause what you are usually sacrificing is a 5-10 dollar chinese pickup.
Mojotone Quiet Coils, Holy Grails, and even Fender Vintage Noiseless do a pretty good job and sound reasonably close to conventional single coils... close enough that in a band mix, I'd like to see someone reliably tell the difference. Stacked humbuckers tend to do a decent job because they retain the proper positional relationship to the string and bridge. The Fender noiseless have an underwound bucking coil, and it is mounted below a spacer, so it picks up very little of the string vibration. Holy Grails are a "sideways" parallel design... like a stacked humbucker on its side. I don't know if the Mojotone uses the same design or not... their P90 Quiet Coils are, but I've not opened up one of their Strat pickups.
