Cagey
Mythical Status
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I doubt the original humbuckers were designed with side-by-side coils for a reason beyond manufacturing convenience, and the resulting characteristic sound was much more likely a happy accident that I'll bet they didn't even like at first, due to its coloration and lack of fidelity. But, players worked with what they had, and legends grew up around the sounds they created, resulting in the original designers being credited with all sort of prescience they never had.
Leo Fender is a good example of that phenomena with respect to his early tube amp designs. Fact is, for the most part, they weren't his designs. They were reference circuits straight out of the RCA tube manual. Anybody who could read and use a soldering iron could have built those amps. He didn't do anything to make them sound "special", it was the musician's use of them made them desirable. I worked on Fender amps for years without ever having any "Fender" schematics. I just had the engineering manuals from RCA. They only thing they didn't include was I/O, which was obvious from appearance so you didn't need schematics for those sections.
Back to the side-by-side coils... the frequencies that get cancelled are the harmonics that you either can't hear or don't notice, due to the coils sensing the string movement at two different points in time. The coils are very close together, so it's only the very high (audio-wise) frequencies that are affected. It has the effect of a "comb filter", with result being a "darker" sounding pickup. When the coils are stacked, you don't have that phenomena. The resulting sound is actually of a higher fidelity with better dynamics that for some reason many players percieve as "thin" or "weak". Back 100 years ago, all single coils were all thought to sound that way.
Leo Fender is a good example of that phenomena with respect to his early tube amp designs. Fact is, for the most part, they weren't his designs. They were reference circuits straight out of the RCA tube manual. Anybody who could read and use a soldering iron could have built those amps. He didn't do anything to make them sound "special", it was the musician's use of them made them desirable. I worked on Fender amps for years without ever having any "Fender" schematics. I just had the engineering manuals from RCA. They only thing they didn't include was I/O, which was obvious from appearance so you didn't need schematics for those sections.
Back to the side-by-side coils... the frequencies that get cancelled are the harmonics that you either can't hear or don't notice, due to the coils sensing the string movement at two different points in time. The coils are very close together, so it's only the very high (audio-wise) frequencies that are affected. It has the effect of a "comb filter", with result being a "darker" sounding pickup. When the coils are stacked, you don't have that phenomena. The resulting sound is actually of a higher fidelity with better dynamics that for some reason many players percieve as "thin" or "weak". Back 100 years ago, all single coils were all thought to sound that way.
