Dimarzio Rules - Series / Paralell wiring

[Doughboy]

I've been SUPER frustarated with my Strat when it came to getting a usable hollow body tone out of the Diamrzio Area single coils. No matter what I did, it was too thin & still quacked & spanked too much, even with the treble way down.

I wrote Dimarzio & they sent me back a diagram within 30 mins on how to wire it to a push/push pot for series / paralell. No holes to drill or cosmetic alterations.

I did this that night & low & behold, a decent authentic Jazzy hollow body tone out of my single coils.

All hail the Dimarzio customer support staff!!!!  :icon_thumright:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4NhcemKaX8

 

[Dan025]

weird there doesn't seem to be any interest in this. the areas are some of the best vintage fender looking and sounding noiseless pickups, i never thought they'd work so good for a fat jazzy sound too. that's all with a maple neck as well. it might be fun to make a stealthy ultimate strat. something like hollow mahogany with a correct looking opaque color, or maybe swamp ash with mary kay white or a blonde color and a maple neck. top route sss arangment. it could look entirely vintage stock but give all the sounds the hsh modernized strats give.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I had a similar request some years back, and was provided the same output by Steve Blucher himself.  Top notch customer service!

 

[Johnfv]

I am a big fan of parallel wiring (and the Area series) but have never tried parallel wiring on an Area pickup (hell they specifically discourage it). Usually parallel sounds much more "Stratty" compared to serial, less output and less mids. You're saying the Area gets fatter sounding when you wire in parallel? I'd love to hear more details, which model(s) are you using?

 

[Doughboy]

My strat was wired with the pickups in pararell. This produces the standard single coil sound. Lots of spank, quack, high end etc. Great for that type of sound, but way too thin for a fat hollow body type tone, which I can easily get on my solidbodies that have humbuckers.

Dimarzio sent me a wiring diagram where I could wired the pickups to a push/push pot to have them also go into series mode when activated. This made the tone sound FAT, almost exactly like that of a humbucker. When I used the neck & middle pickups in paralell, they sounded funky & quacky. Push the switch to go into series mode & it sounds waaaay fatter. Like a more defined humbucker orf a nice P90.

I ended up doing this to all of my strats & it sounds really good when used with the bridge & middle single coils as well. It gets rid of that thin ice pick through the head shrill tone that the bridge single coil PU made on my strat & makes it sound like a humbucker.

Here is the diagram the fine people at Dimarzio sent me.

 

[Dan025]

ok so you're not going to series mode within the pickup, you are going in series between two pickups. makes sense.

 

[Doughboy]

ok so you're not going to series mode within the pickup, you are going in series between two pickups. makes sense.

Yes. I think the only way to go series mode within a pickup is if it's a humbucker.

I have the Seymour Duncan Triple shot rings on my humbuckers that allow series/paralell/single coil. Nice little option for a ton more tones without any drilling or mods.

 

[Dan025]

well noiseless singles have two coils, it just depends on weather they are already in series or not from the factory. i've seen pics of the bottom of the areas and they have extra pole pieces that don't protrude through the cover. i figured with all that core material and very fine wire it could have a good amount of inductance and maybe they went with parallel coils.

i think some duncan noiseless are in parallel, but i'm not sure.

 

[stubhead]

If I had to choose between humbuckers wired in series (as is standard) and humbuckers with the coils wired parallel, I'd take the parallel. Less volume, but brighter, less compressed*, cleaner, more articulate. Fortunately, I don't have to choose and I can have both. But in that situation I typically set up the amp to sound good with the parallel-selected PU wiring, and then hitting the series switch offer a pleasantly-humping volume ROAR. So very, very much of "electric guitar lore" is a hangover from the days of wimpy, one-gain-stage amplifier preamps, when trying to push any kind of signal at all through a big fat cable (designed for microphones) was a challange. Dude, you've got a TRIPLE RECTIFIER, you don't "need" to "hit the front end harder." :icon_scratch:

*("Compression" isn't really exactly what happens, it's more like there's a minimum  threshold level for the signal - no subtlety allowed.)

 

[Cagey]

well noiseless singles have two coils, it just depends on weather they are already in series or not from the factory. i've seen pics of the bottom of the areas and they have extra pole pieces that don't protrude through the cover. i figured with all that core material and very fine wire it could have a good amount of inductance and maybe they went with parallel coils.

i think some duncan noiseless are in parallel, but i'm not sure.

You can't get noiseless (humbucking) out of parallel coils; they have to be in series. Also, one has to be reverse-wound, and have an inverse-polarity magnetic field. That's what makes it difficult to get any decent return out of coil-cutting noiseless pickups that are stacked. The single coil-sized side-by-side units (like Hot Rails) will work that way, but then the output is usually pretty low.

 

[Dan025]

i hate to burst your bubble cagey but fender guitars wire the middle strat pickup and neck tele pickup reversed so when pickups are combined you get a noise canceling effect, the pickups also have reversed magnetic polarity. you can infact "buck" hum in parallel. and the magnetic polarity has nothing to do with the noise canceling, but it the magnetic polarity is not reversed the pickups will be out of phase.

now when you have the coil over coil arrangement thing can get weird. if you don't do anything unusual with the magnet placement you will have no choice but to be out of phase, infact seymour duncan has a "power boost" mode where you turn the noiseless single into a high output single by swapping the phase of the bottom coil. some designs, like the ones by bill lawrence move the magnets, instead of using alnico rods they use bars like a p-90 that sit between the coils.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

+1

Hum canceling only needs to be out of phase and reverse polarity.  Series or parallel doesn't matter.

 

[Cagey]

Try not to worry about my bubble. You guys need to do some research. This is fundamental stuff you're supposed to know if you're going to advise people. You can start here for a simple explanation, but you may want to review CMNR (Common Mode Noise Rejection) while you're at it.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Fundamental stuff, eh? So, fundamentally, if I have two signals, one the exact inverse of the other, and I combine them in parallel, what do I get?

And to be clear here, are you saying that the 2 and 4 positions on a Strat with a RWRP middle pickup are not hum-cancelling? And if so, why do they fit RW/RP pickups?

 

[Cagey]

Fundamental stuff, eh? So, fundamentally, if I have two signals, one the exact inverse of the other, and I combine them in parallel, what do I get?

Zero signal.

And to be clear here, are you saying that the 2 and 4 positions on a Strat with a RWRP middle pickup are not hum-cancelling? And if so, why do they fit RW/RP pickups?

No, they are hum-canceling, because they're not only reverse wound, their magnetic field's polarity is also reversed. The reverse-winding trick means that any signal picked up by one coil is the inverse of the other, so it cancels. That gets rid of extraneous (non-signal) noise. The reverse magnetic polarity trick means any variation created by the string(s) in the magnetic field is also inverted, but by wiring the coils in series, you add them rather than cancel them. Of course, this means you get double-strength signal, so you then reduce the number of winds to reduce each coil's output to get the total back down to realistic levels, and you're there. Or, over-wind them a bit to get a "hot" pickup.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

You're all over the place on this one!

Try these:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/how-hum-cancelling-works-part-1/

http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/how-hum-cancelling-works-part-2/

The two coils in a humbucker are woun in the same direction, but then one of them is connected the "wrong way round", thus reversing the direction of current flow (effectively making it reverse-wound). The two coils are of opposite magnetic polarity.

Two single coils where one is RW/RP to the other is electrically the exact same arrangement - signal current flowing in opposite direction, magnetic polarity opposite. In either case, you can connect them in series or parallel to get the hum-cancelling effect.

The reason humbuckers are traditionally connected in series is that by cancelling the hum and doubling the strength of the desired signal, you hugely increase your signal to noise ratio. So amplifying a series-wired humbucker to the same volume as a single coil means the hum is incredibly low.

This is also why you can wire the two pickups on a tele in series for a "wide humbucker" sound when one of them is RW/RP.

 

[Cagey]

Apparently, I'm not communicating effectively. Duncan and the links I've given are all saying the same thing I am, but I'm getting an argument and they're being used in an attempt to refute what I'm saying.  If you agree with Mr. Duncan, you agree with me.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Well, what you originally said is that wiring a humbucker in parallel, it's impossible to get hum-cancelling ("You can't get noiseless (humbucking) out of parallel coils; they have to be in series."). If you're now saying that's not true, and that in fact a humbucker wired in parallel can be hum-cancelling, then yeah, we agree.

 

[AutoBat]

I have this strange feeling one or more of you is going to do this soon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_FaXMvrpsI


If you have time check out the 7 minute version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v3jsVivU6U

 

[Dan025]

cagey i know you know your stuff so maybe you need to re read your initial post, i think you mis typed because you seem to be saying the contrary now.

duncan actually make a parallel coil humbucker with alnico rod magnets, like 2 single coils next to each other, i think dimarzio does too.. so obviously parallel works and it seems you are now saying that. but in your reply to me you literally said parallel hum cancelling is impossible.

"You can't get noiseless (humbucking) out of parallel coils; they have to be in series."