Wiring two pickups together to make one pickup

The trick with making a humbucking pickup is that each coil must have opposite-polarity magnets for the humbucking effect to work. Most guitar humbuckers are wired with the coils in series, but they can be wired in parallel and still be humbucking. Series wiring gives more output, more bass and mids but generally less treble. Parallel gives lower signal output but a brighter, almost single-coil tone.

 

Series/parallel:
Wiring Diagram
Fixed series:
Wiring Diagram

 

I believe most humbuckers are actually wired in parallel from stock, at least most diagrams I've studied show this.

 

MM humbuckers are typically parallel. Most others are usually series.

 

Well every humbucker I have is a Musicman! I do have some SD stk-2 J's that are parallel... Your typical Gibson guitar HB is parallel too, right? Can't really coil tap a series wired HB without another lead wire. What HBs are wired series?

 

Your typical Gibson guitar HB is series. A parallel HB is atypical of the breed.

mech

 

Jazz pickups are traditionally two different sizes. You would have to use two neck or two bridge pickups. The coils will have to be RWRP if you want to humcancel.

 

Reverse wound/wired, reverse polarity (magnetic).

mech

 

You'd need both North and South facing magnets. The pickups can be wound in the same direction (i.e. clockwise) but the designated start and finish wires need to be reversed on one of them. Pickups that use a bar magnet can have the magnet flipped over to get the opposite polarity.



Guitar Wiring Site - How A Humbucker Works

 

An easy way to tell the magnetic polarity of pickups is to face the tops toward each other. If they stick together they are of opposite polarity which is what's needed for a HB. If they repel each other they are the same polarity and will not work as a HB.

mech

 

great point...

 

Umm... either you guys are all talking way over my head, or this is getting overcomplicated....

Wouldn't OP just want to rewire the 2 jazz pickups from parallel to series?

And OP, if this is the case, I suggest adding a push/pull knob to switch between series/parallel. Took me a couple hours tinkering and using various online diagrams to figure it out... I basically taught myself basic fundamental electronics throughout the project.

PS. I just remembered not all stock parallel-configured pickups can do this, so nevermind this is all relevant info. I had it easy because the set of J's I bought to stick in mine already had this in mind and came wired opposite. Carvin J99A's if you're interested in which I used.

 

Get a compass, put it near the pickup and see which end of the needle it attracts. You want one pickup to attract the North and the other one the South.

I use a pole detector like this one:



The blue end is the North pole and points toward the South pole of the pickup.

The red end is the South pole and points toward the North pole of the pickup.

 

Everybody is sort of talking around the problem but it's really quite simple. A Jazz bass when both bridge and neck pickups are maxed out is humbucking. All you are looking to do is move the pickups closer together to make a single pickup (Leo invented this a long time ago if you look at early MM pickups)

So the standard Bridge and Neck jazz pickups will be wound and have the magnets correct to make a humbucker. The catch here is that SOME (but not all) Jazz pickups come in different sizes for neck and bridge. Thus, if you put them close together they'll look less than nice. They will probably work fine, though.

As others have hinted at, if you use two neck pickups or two bridge pickups to try to make a humbucker they won't buck hum unless you reverse the magnets on one of them. (and reverse the wires) Usually this is not so easy to do depending how magnets are mounted and how tightly the coil is wound around them. Some jazz pickups have Iron poles (which don't need to be reversed) and a long magnet in the bottom (which does) Best bet is not to bother and just get a neck and bridge set.

Note that a "real" humbucker of this type (like MM or G&L) is slightly different in that instead of a magnet in each half they use a single large magnet across both pickups.

But a standard pair of bridge + neck where they are the same length (see pickup specs) is the quick and dirty way to go.

 

^^^^^^This.