I am an old guy who loves the mix of these sounds. I want to add a fender sound to a humbucker bass. Kind of the opposite to what Berry Oakley did when he put a Guild (Hagstrom) on his Jazz to make the Tractor. Any suggestions on what/how to properly add a fender style pickup to a humbucker bass?
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Mix hum bucket with single coil
- Thread starter Jim Stafford
- Start date
I asked something similar a while ago. From what people said, the humbucker will lose it's "humbucking" abilities, so it will hum, which you can probably combat by shielding the cavities well. Apart from that, I'd just choose the right place, make or have the routing made, and either wire it like a normal jazz (V/V/T or whatever eq you have) or with a 3 way switch a la telecaster or les paul
The humbucker will still buck the hum with its two coils, but the new single-coil pickup will generate noise that won't be bucked.
Alternatively you could figure out which polarity your single-coil is wound & use one coil of the humbucker that is reverse-wound & reverse-polarity of the single-coil & retain noise-cancelling properties.
Alternatively you could figure out which polarity your single-coil is wound & use one coil of the humbucker that is reverse-wound & reverse-polarity of the single-coil & retain noise-cancelling properties.
In that case, I think either a V/V or V/Blend for fine mixing or a 3 way switch for a "bridge/both/neck" should work. Probably you can find a graphic schematic for these in the Seymour Duncan site
Find a double Precision bass is my advice:
It's a perfect compromise between single-coil pickups & humbuckers.
It's a perfect compromise between single-coil pickups & humbuckers.
Hum may or may not be a problem. It depends on how much interference (in this case magnetic interference like from power transformers and the like) in in the area where you are playing.
If you ignore hum there can still be a problem. This is that the humbucker pickup has two coils and can be hotter than the single coil. The PJ -5 I put together has this problem. The P pickups (which is a humbucker though not of the soapbar type) is hotter than the J pickup (which in my case I used a "noiseless" UltraJazz so as to eliminate the hum problem). What this means is that while what you'd like is to have a nice P-J balance with both volumes dimed, it turns out with mine that occurs with the J pickup volume at max and the P-bass pickup at about 80% You will find the same effect if the neck pickup is a soapbar humbucker as well. It's not that it doesn't work, it's just a little irritating is all.
Thank you, I have many basses including one that has both jazz and p bass pups. I want to add a fender style pick up to a guild style humbucker. Berry Oakley was a Guild Starfire guy but wanted the longer scale of the jazz bass. He added a guild p-up to the front position on his jazz. I actually have played one of the guilds he had. I want to do something similar, adding a fender p up to a bass w humbucker.
A Precision pickup is also a humbucker. The two coils act as humbuckers, with one reverse-wound reverse-polarity from the other:
If the single coil sound you're looking for is due to the narrower size, there are both stacked and side by side humbuckers that are the same footprint as a Jazz pup.
I'm sorry, I don't have anything constructive to add to the discussion.
I'm just here for the hum bucket pun!
I'm just here for the hum bucket pun!
Hagstrom Bisonic pickups aren't humbuckers but single coils. Berry Oakley added a single coil to his Tractor bass, in effect.
Depending on what sound your after, Lace Alumitone bass bars can be wired so that you can use them as humbuckers or single coils. In single mode, they are 100% noiseless. The tone, though, is not quite fenderish. I like them, but YMMV.
+1 to what Axstar said.
The tractor bass had a single coil added to it. The height adjustment screws of the Hagstrom Bisonic single coil (what Guild used in the 60's) made it look like a humbucker, though it was not.
To bridge all of this to what you are asking, I actually had a Mustang bass in which I mixed a Bisonic pickup with a Dimarzio Model One. The mini-toggle switch allowed me to run the Model One as a single coil, which actually hum-cancelled perfectly with the Bisonic... though in that scenario you'd technically be running two single-coils together, if matched in resistance and RWRP they act like a big humbucker and the sound was glorious.
The combo also sounded fantastic with both Dimarzio coils activated, but in that case there was the usual single-coil hum from the Bisonic
EDIT: I should mention that the Bisonic in the Mustang was technically a custom ordered single-magnet Hammon Dark Star, which just happen to be almost perfectly RWRP with the north(I think) coil of the Dimarzio. I just wanted to mention this, in case somebody else is inspired to try the same with a vintage Hagstrom Bisonic, a standard Dark Star, a Novak BS/DS, or a Guild Reissue Bisonic... no guarantee that any of those will hum-cancel the same with the Model One (though I'm confident Mr. Novak would be happy to make a custom BS/DS that will do the job)
The tractor bass had a single coil added to it. The height adjustment screws of the Hagstrom Bisonic single coil (what Guild used in the 60's) made it look like a humbucker, though it was not.
To bridge all of this to what you are asking, I actually had a Mustang bass in which I mixed a Bisonic pickup with a Dimarzio Model One. The mini-toggle switch allowed me to run the Model One as a single coil, which actually hum-cancelled perfectly with the Bisonic... though in that scenario you'd technically be running two single-coils together, if matched in resistance and RWRP they act like a big humbucker and the sound was glorious.
The combo also sounded fantastic with both Dimarzio coils activated, but in that case there was the usual single-coil hum from the Bisonic
EDIT: I should mention that the Bisonic in the Mustang was technically a custom ordered single-magnet Hammon Dark Star, which just happen to be almost perfectly RWRP with the north(I think) coil of the Dimarzio. I just wanted to mention this, in case somebody else is inspired to try the same with a vintage Hagstrom Bisonic, a standard Dark Star, a Novak BS/DS, or a Guild Reissue Bisonic... no guarantee that any of those will hum-cancel the same with the Model One (though I'm confident Mr. Novak would be happy to make a custom BS/DS that will do the job)
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If hum turns out to be an issue, it's fairly trivial to add a hum cancelling coil in series with the single coil. In theory this changes the tone, but in practice, no, it doesn't. 
As long as you can find space inside the bass somewhere to cram it in...a similar cheap pickup with the magnet ripped off works nicely.
That said, any split coil (hum cancelling) J pickup will do the trick and be much nicer. Just, if you have some sort of esoteric weird single coil in mind, it's doable too. But yeah don't do that. P or J cutouts leave you with more options.
As long as you can find space inside the bass somewhere to cram it in...a similar cheap pickup with the magnet ripped off works nicely.That said, any split coil (hum cancelling) J pickup will do the trick and be much nicer. Just, if you have some sort of esoteric weird single coil in mind, it's doable too. But yeah don't do that. P or J cutouts leave you with more options.
