Series Humbuckers in Series...

[bowthing]

Has anyone tried wiring the outputs of humbuckers in series? Then with ser/sin/par switches for each pickup and say a push-pull for switching the outputs from series to parallel, you would have 18 possible coil combinations, including ones which have 1, 2, 3, or 4 coils in series!

To use a blend or volume/volume, you would have to switch the volume pots too, so they would function as a variable resistors in parallel with each pickup. (I think... maybe I need to draw this out!)

Am I wasting my time? Would this sound really awful?

 

[fullrangebass]

Some of those combinations will sound very similar IME.

The series/series it may be a bit of an overkill (unless you have taken that possibility into account when you chose the pickups)

 

[GeoffByrne]

I built a Double Fat Strat which originally had a 4 pos selector, giving humbuckers in series.

It was an interesting tone, certainly with a bit of 'quack', but with the loss of some highs and a great deal of re-inforcement of the bass and low-mids.

I took it off the guitar, eventually, but it might be what you are looking for in some bass situations - should sound a bit like a Mudbucker, I suppose.

 

[bowthing]

OK, thanks for the feedback. I primarily play with both pickups in single coil and full on, and thought it might be nice to have a setup like a series/parallel jazz.

 

[DavePlaysBass]

The signal might be too high for the front end of some amps.

My experience with the series setting in G&Ls as well as the S1 approach on jazzes is that it sounds good at first but the loss of highs eventaully brings me back to parallel. I have never found a series setting that I have used for longer than a song or two. But that could just be my basses and my approach.

Dave