pickup-combinations, noticable difference when mixed

Orpheo

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I have this idea in my head:

put a kinman pickup in a guitar, next to a seymour duncan hotrail. with 'coiltaps' you can have either the kinman, the hotrail, or both like 1 major humbucker. What kind of a sound would that give us? would having the hotrail next to the kinman give the kinman a complete different sound? or would it change the sound a bít but not much, or no change at all?
 
Wana_make_a_guitar said:
I reckon that's sounding interesting, but wouldn't that not need a 'coil tap', just a 3 way selector, or is that what you mean?

coiltap as in the sence of: chosing either the kinman, the hotrails, or both in series.
 
Orpheo said:
coiltap as in the sence of: chosing either the kinman, the hotrails, or both in series.

Yeah, well, i have no experience with that stuff (or much other stuff), but my theory is that is will sound weak for distorted and high gain stuff, that is if the pups are a S-X-S position.
 
Wana_make_a_guitar said:
Orpheo said:
coiltap as in the sence of: chosing either the kinman, the hotrails, or both in series.

Yeah, well, i have no experience with that stuff (or much other stuff), but my theory is that is will sound weak for distorted and high gain stuff, that is if the pups are a S-X-S position.

well... I meant: the kinman and the hotrails next to eachother, coil to coil. the looks will be of a humbucker.
 
Wana_make_a_guitar said:
Oh, in one humbucker rout? I reckon that'd be awesome.

yup, like that. it will fit, I measured :p but would the magnet of the one interfere with the sound of the other?
 
Well, unless you can undo it if you try, one of the only ways to find out, is to just try it.

But one would overpower the other though, i'm thinking, because one might output more then the other.
 
I don't think they'd function as a humbucker, unless one has reversed magnets and reversed windings. (could be wrong)
 
Max said:
I don't think they'd function as a humbucker, unless one has reversed magnets and reversed windings. (could be wrong)

doesnt really matter. the hotrail already cancels out the hum, and just put the hotrail and the kinman in series, and voila, you've got yourself a humbucker.

@ WMAG: when put in series, there's no 'overpowering'. just: POWER. when I use either the rail or the kinman, there is no overpowering of the other since the other pickup's output isnt being used. MAYBE the magnetic fields of the magnets of the 2 pickups will do something 'weird' and wreck the nice kinmansound or the nice hotrail-sound.
 
a big part of the tone comes from the pickups inductance, mixed with the cables capacitance gives a peak. the kinman will have a lower inductence and in parallel wiring the higher inductance coil will have a smaller effect on the final inductance. say the kinman has an inductance of about 1 H and the rails has 3 H, now those are wild a$$ guess numbers so i might be way off, the math would look like this 1/(1/1H+1/3H)= .75 H

that might raise the peak frequency by 15% but the second pickup also has some capacitance so that may not be an accurate number.

as far as over powering another pup, well that shouldn't happen, remember the lower out put pup has less dc resistance and less resistance at almost all frequencies.  it will look like a load to the other pup and cut out some of it's power.

as far as series wiring orpheo is right, they just get added together. but inductance will too, the hot rails is already pretty fat sounding, this would be even fatter.

as far as magnetic fields interacting, that stuff is like voodoo, i don't know what it might do to the sound, but i wouldn't worry too much. you may want to try the hot rails in both directions and see if there is some difference.
 
@dimitriR33:

I can follow most of what you're saying, but I dont get the part about inductance. Please explain how it would affect my sound?
 
less inductance is more highs, more is more mids, that's about as simple as i can put it.
it is a big part of why distortion pickups sound muddy and vintage pickups are clean. low inductance in the notch positions is a part of the fender "quack" sound.

a pickup and a cable and tone control form a resonant circuit. there is a peak frequency that is determined by inductance and capacitance. change the inductance and the peak frequency changes by a factor of the square root of the change in inductance, capacitance works in a similar way. 4 times the inductance and the peak drops an octave, 1/4 inductance and the peak raises an octave. 1/2 inductance and the peak raises to 1.414 times. 3/4 inductance raises peak to 1.15 times

combining two totally different coils might not sound completely different from just one of the coils alone.

but inductance is only part of the sound, different points on the string have different harmonics, and magnetic field design is a big factor.

i'm sorry i can't answer if the magnetism will change the sound of the kinman. i'm sure the magnetic fields will interact but i don't know what that will do to the sound. i think the difference will be small but you'll have to test for yourself.
 
@dimitri:

ok! so the kinman+hotrail should give me a lower inductance, but higher impendance, so that would balance it out, so to say, so I wont get more highs or more mids. generally speaking, ofcourse. thanks! I dont think I'm gonna give it a try though. I'm gonna stick with prails of seymour duncan. but talking about it is fun, as usual.
 
once again the same question :)

we all had some time to think about it, or whatever, and here 's the question again:

if I have 2 pickups close to eachother, would the tones of the 2 pickups be heavily affected, or just moderate?
 
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