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For all you experimental pickup gurus out there, has anyone ever tried to put two 'buckers right next to each other (poss. connected to a splitter so that they can become regular 'buckers, but could work together. If anyone has tried it, could you tell me if it worked, or, if not, what kind of sound did you get, or why it didn't work?


Originally Posted by motorboy29For all you experimental pickup gurus out there, has anyone ever tried to put two 'buckers right next to each other (poss. connected to a splitter so that they can become regular 'buckers, but could work together. If anyone has tried it, could you tell me if it worked, or, if not, what kind of sound did you get, or why it didn't work?

never tried it but there was a 4 coil humbucker made by HAMER(this is the same idea you have)
let me see if i can find a pic of it?

i was wrong it is three coils

IIRC, Alvarez also did a 3 coil bucker.

And Jackson did a 4 coil rails bucker in a regular humbucker size...I think I saw it on musicyo.


Originally Posted by chillIIRC, Alvarez also did a 3 coil bucker.

And Jackson did a 4 coil rails bucker in a regular humbucker size...I think I saw it on musicyo.
kramer not jackson

That would be 'kramer' and not Jackson.

I actually did this about 20 years ago.

I had a Strat that I did all kinds of terrible things to -- it was a major league test bed and at the same time a very viable gigging guitar.

Keep in mind that one of the weird things I did was I had a guy make me a 27quot; scale neck for it, which spread the harmonic taper along the string a bit wider, which meant that the two 'buckers picked up more treble than they would have on a conventional scale guitar, plus with the longer scale, I used pretty thin strings to get to standard tuning. So this was an experiment that probably wouldn't have worked as well on a standard-scale ( /-25quot;) guitar.

Anyway, I never used all 4 coils in series, but I did have a switch that chose between 2 coils closest to the bridge in series (normal humbucker) and 3 coils in series (said 2 coils coil right next to them).

It was a couple of Super Distortions (and later the Super Distortion by the bridge and a modified Invader) and it actually sounded pretty good. I used the 4th coil as a single coil middle pickup.

When the Invader was in there, I replaced the big poles with some more DiMarzio poles I had laying around -- the threading was a perfect match. I unwound the 4th coil on the Invader by I don't know how much but it really sounded great as a middle pickup for cluck tones.

Wasn't that one on the Hamer called the quot;Motherbuckerquot;?

I had a different idea. I was thinkin of making a pickup set diagonally like the bridge of a strat, and having them staggered so that each string would sound over two magnets (If you want a picture i can e-mail it to you), then playing them all at once so that you could get tonal qualities fron all four pups at once (you could do it with two hybrid buckers, or four single coils).

I wonder what type of tone you'd get out of that Hamer? Be nice if SD made some kind of experimental pickup that uses the idea.

I'd like to try 2 hotrails mounted to a base and wired in series...

The hamer just looks like 2 pickups shoved together... complete with seperate adjustment screws

slade

Dude - what's the diff between what you're asking about and any three pup Les Paul, played in the bridge/middle on position? And Kramer made such a creature - the Nightswan? Viv Campbell played it in whitesnake....maybe. I just don't see what the diff is other than a couple of tonal millimeters for the pup rings. I'm pretty sure there is an ESP like that too. ?????????????

AFAIK DiMarzio offers something like this called the Multibucker. It's two mini humbuckers mounted onto a normal humbucker baseplate and wired in series. If i remember correctly it can still be ordered and with any combination of mini-hums you want.

There were guitars with four hums. i don't have any photo but i will post it if i find


Originally Posted by motorboy29For all you experimental pickup gurus out there, has anyone ever tried to put two 'buckers right next to each other (poss. connected to a splitter so that they can become regular 'buckers, but could work together. If anyone has tried it, could you tell me if it worked, or, if not, what kind of sound did you get, or why it didn't work?

listen to 3 Pickup Les Paul Customs and SGs

If your looking to use two split coils, from two seperate humbuckers, why not make a hybrid.

The 4-coil humbucker that Kramer has is called the QuadRail. They also make DualRails, which are basically your stacked coil single coil sized humbuckers. They make a prewired assembly with an H/S/S combination for $60. It's on sale for $40 right now, if you're really interested in trying one out. I've seen some up for sale on eBay, too. I've seen some that are overpriced, so beware.

Here's the link to the prewired assembly, if you're interested:

from : localhost/www.musicyo.com/product_specs.asp?pf_id=429

well, I was thinking that if you staggered them that the sound might come out different. Also, i was thinking that with two hybrids together, you might get sound qualities from all four pups.


Originally Posted by AcemanDude - what's the diff between what you're asking about and any three pup Les Paul, played in the bridge/middle on position?

It's a huge difference.

1) There is a good inch of space between the coils of the bridge and middle pickups on a 3-pup LP. The two humbuckers directly next to each other without that inch of space between them would sound very different because the quot;middlequot; humbucker would sit under a very different-sounding portion of the string.

2) The Les Paul in the bridge/middle position is in parallel -- we're talking series here. In my case, I only used 3 coils in series, 4 would be over-the-top muddy, which I'm sure was the thinking behind the Hamer design in the photo above. I used the 4th coil on the outside as a single coil middle pu.