Dummy Coils / Air Coils

State of Epicicity

Fractal Fanatic
I love the sound of my neck humbucker split to the outer coil, just oozing with character. So I’m thinking about trying to make it noiseless with a dummy coil or air coil. Has anyone on this forum modded a single coil this way? If so, were you actually able to retain the character? Are there any guides you favor online or tips you could share?

Thanks in advance. I’m dubious this is possible without changing the character, and I’m thinking a ZexCoil might be the best way to go, but you never know what gems of information you can find.
 
I love the sound of my neck humbucker split to the outer coil, just oozing with character. So I’m thinking about trying to make it noiseless with a dummy coil or air coil. Has anyone on this forum modded a single coil this way? If so, were you actually able to retain the character? Are there any guides you favor online or tips you could share?

Thanks in advance. I’m dubious this is possible without changing the character, and I’m thinking a ZexCoil might be the best way to go, but you never know what gems of information you can find.
Have you tried running your neck pickup in parallel?
 
Have you tried running your neck pickup in parallel?

Yeah, I actually have it wired with two mini-switches for series / parallel / inner coil / outer coil, so I can compare everything on the fly. The parallel is my least favorite of those options. It just does not pair well with the bridge pickup at all in my opinion, and it doesn't even have the character of the series humbucking mode. But the outer coil is just lush, beautiful, round, and full of character. No matter where I set it with the volume knob, it's just perfect for me. I've even compared it extensively at high gain with the series humbucker, and I still prefer there, again, for the sheer amount of character. Even though this is a 24 fret superstrat, this outer split is filled with soul.
 
Dummy coils alter the tone. The old elite strat from 83 has one and Suhr has it's backplate with a hidden coil and also the integrated noiseless system on some Suhr custom guitars . I don't like them personally but they do work. Is the hum really a problem? these days it is usually fairly easy to work around .
 
Dummy coils alter the tone. The old elite strat from 83 has one and Suhr has it's backplate with a hidden coil and also the integrated noiseless system on some Suhr custom guitars . I don't like them personally but they do work. Is the hum really a problem? these days it is usually fairly easy to work around .

That’s what I was really wondering, if there’s an audible difference with those circuits. What workarounds do you mean? I’ve shielded my guitar with copper tape, continuity testing, and proper grounding, but still I’d like to have a single coil that is as quiet as my humbucker. At home it’s not as much of a problem; I play in the spot of the room where I’ve found the least EMI. But at a gig you of course deal with crappy EMI situations.
 
I have the Suhr SSCII in three guitars and I can attest that it works really well. Two of the guitars are HSS configurations and the single coil settings have better signal to noise ratio than the humbucker settings. I can play at gig volume with modern metal levels of high gain with the single coil settings and hum is not a problem even without a noise gate.

I have not tried to disable the system in my guitars, so I can't comment on whether or not they change the tone. Andy E. seems to have very sensitive hearing so I would trust his judgement that it does make some difference. The early Suhr guitars that had the silent single coil system had a switch to take it out of the circuit as a way to demonstrate how little of an effect it had on the core tone.
 
I’ve tried several humbucking single-coil pickups in my Strats and always removed them because they affected the sound, especially the snap and the highest frequencies. I’d love to have something that removes the EMI noise but finally did the ages old trick of using positions 2 and 4 if noise is bad. Into an amp that’s got a lot of gain those settings seem to work really well.

My PRS Studio has two of their Narrowfield pickups, which are very narrow humbuckers, and they do a great job reducing the noise while still sounding very much like a regular single coil but with a little bit more midrange. I think of them as silent P-90s. It’s got a great sound into a lot of gain and sounds really Strat-like when running clean, surprising me often.

I tried the Fishman Fluence single coils, and they did a good job removing the noise but they had no real character either. Since then Greg Koch got his deal with them and I think they changed the EQ some but I haven’t had a set to compare.

I’m really happy dealing with my regular pickups by switching to the two positions since that’s the old blues and rock sound.
 
I have the Suhr SSCII in three guitars and I can attest that it works really well. Two of the guitars are HSS configurations and the single coil settings have better signal to noise ratio than the humbucker settings. I can play at gig volume with modern metal levels of high gain with the single coil settings and hum is not a problem even without a noise gate.

I have not tried to disable the system in my guitars, so I can't comment on whether or not they change the tone. Andy E. seems to have very sensitive hearing so I would trust his judgement that it does make some difference. The early Suhr guitars that had the silent single coil system had a switch to take it out of the circuit as a way to demonstrate how little of an effect it had on the core tone.

I've read so many discussions of the Ilitch systems on forums, and people have been so happy with them, so I was surprised about Andy's answer, but like you, I tend to defer to his experience unless I know for sure otherwise. There's also the Ulbrick Noise Reduction System now too, and the YouTube demos are remarkable. What I'm really wondering about are instances where people have done their own mods, because I do think either the Ilitch or the Ulbrick would probably do well for me, but it's far less expensive for me just to buy a ZexCoil!
 
I’ve tried several humbucking single-coil pickups in my Strats and always removed them because they affected the sound, especially the snap and the highest frequencies. I’d love to have something that removes the EMI noise but finally did the ages old trick of using positions 2 and 4 if noise is bad. Into an amp that’s got a lot of gain those settings seem to work really well.

My PRS Studio has two of their Narrowfield pickups, which are very narrow humbuckers, and they do a great job reducing the noise while still sounding very much like a regular single coil but with a little bit more midrange. I think of them as silent P-90s. It’s got a great sound into a lot of gain and sounds really Strat-like when running clean, surprising me often.

I tried the Fishman Fluence single coils, and they did a good job removing the noise but they had no real character either. Since then Greg Koch got his deal with them and I think they changed the EQ some but I haven’t had a set to compare.

I’m really happy dealing with my regular pickups by switching to the two positions since that’s the old blues and rock sound.

This is interesting about the Fluence single width, about the lack of character; I totally didn't anticipate that. I've looked into those a bunch too, and the demos were okay, but you're echoing what I suspected might be the case. The main reason I love a single coil in the neck is to have a ton of character!

I've also been wondering about everything in the P90 sphere. I've never played through an actual P90, so I don't know how it would feel to me. There are so many interesting noiseless P90s these days, from Fralins to Railhammers, which might be really cool, but I just have this feeling a strat tone is what I'll really feel the most.

I've been reading instances on different forums of people creating their own dummy / air coils, but it may just alter the tone too much. I'm thinking probably Ilitch and Ulbrick have something special going on not to create the comb filtering that give humbuckers that lopped off high end, and to retain that beautiful chime.

My thought for a time was that maybe a humbucker in parallel into 500k pots would be a good enough approximation of a single-coil into a 250k pot, but I realized the magic is that the single-coil is so damn bright to begin with, lopping off the high end with the pot still retains this lush character, for lack of a better term. But with a humbucker in parallel, you don't have that sparkle to begin with, so it's just kind of dull and weak to my ears, and all that character just isn't there at all.
 
I've read so many discussions of the Ilitch systems on forums, and people have been so happy with them, so I was surprised about Andy's answer, but like you, I tend to defer to his experience unless I know for sure otherwise. There's also the Ulbrick Noise Reduction System now too, and the YouTube demos are remarkable. What I'm really wondering about are instances where people have done their own mods, because I do think either the Ilitch or the Ulbrick would probably do well for me, but it's far less expensive for me just to buy a ZexCoil!
The Suhr SSCII is not the Ilitch system. Suhr used to use it (SSCI) but now they have their own system. I had a Suhr with the Ilitch system that had a bypass & the difference was so negligible, I was never even remotely motivated to play it without it engaged. Also, this is not the backplate version of the Ilitch system which I have heard is not as effective, I do currently has a Suhr with the SSCII but you can't bypass it but it works at least as well if not better than the Ilitch system to reduce noise & the guitar sounds great. I will have to check out the Ulbrick Noise Reduction System.
 
The Suhr SSCII is not the Ilitch system. Suhr used to use it (SSCI) but now they have their own system. I had a Suhr with the Ilitch system that had a bypass & the difference was so negligible, I was never even remotely motivated to play it without it engaged. Also, this is not the backplate version of the Ilitch system which I have heard is not as effective, I do currently has a Suhr with the SSCII but you can't bypass it but it works at least as well if not better than the Ilitch system to reduce noise & the guitar sounds great. I will have to check out the Ulbrick Noise Reduction System.

Oh cool. That's encouraging, and I'm sure matched to their pickups perfectly, so that makes sense that it would probably be one of the best options.
 
I have the Suhr SSCII in three guitars and I can attest that it works really well. Two of the guitars are HSS configurations and the single coil settings have better signal to noise ratio than the humbucker settings. I can play at gig volume with modern metal levels of high gain with the single coil settings and hum is not a problem even without a noise gate.

I have not tried to disable the system in my guitars, so I can't comment on whether or not they change the tone. Andy E. seems to have very sensitive hearing so I would trust his judgement that it does make some difference. The early Suhr guitars that had the silent single coil system had a switch to take it out of the circuit as a way to demonstrate how little of an effect it had on the core tone.
My experience with the Suhr SSCII is similar to yours. I have no complaints at all about that system, although I don't profess to have golden ears.
 
I've read so many discussions of the Ilitch systems on forums, and people have been so happy with them, so I was surprised about Andy's answer, but like you, I tend to defer to his experience unless I know for sure otherwise. There's also the Ulbrick Noise Reduction System now too, and the YouTube demos are remarkable. What I'm really wondering about are instances where people have done their own mods, because I do think either the Ilitch or the Ulbrick would probably do well for me, but it's far less expensive for me just to buy a ZexCoil!

It looks like the Ulbrick system is cheaper than the Ilitch even when you factor in shipping from Aus to the USA.
 
Be forewarned, even something like Zexcoil won’t prevent “buzz” (EMI) but will prevent “hum” (60 cycle). They will tell you that too. If my HVAC unit is running nearby where I play in my basement or if dimmers are on in my house, I will get buzz. It is way better than constant 60 cycle though and I am happy with those Zexcoil singles
 
Have you tried looking at Kinman pickups? Hum-free and very very close to true single coil sound.

No, I haven’t, but I’ve read quite about written by Chris Kinman, and I’d love to try pretty much anything he makes. Reading his account of DiMarzio attacking him just broke my freaking heart. The Kinman stuff really does seem like it’s great.
 
The Ulbrick system looks interesting. It'd need to be matched to the pickups to get the right cancelation, and it's interesting that they recommend letting a tech install it though it sounds like it'd be pretty easy for anyone with soldering skills.

It's a bit expensive for what seems like would be a coil of wire with the same number of windings as the pickups. And that makes me wonder why a corresponding pickup without the magnets couldn't do the same thing for less money.

PS - well strike that last thought. Kinman's site talks about why dummy coils don't do the job.
PPS - thinking about it further, the Ulbrick price might not be bad if he's using some silicon iron/steel coating as Kinman talks about. I'd want to hear from some satisfied users before ordering some.
 
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Be forewarned, even something like Zexcoil won’t prevent “buzz” (EMI) but will prevent “hum” (60 cycle). They will tell you that too. If my HVAC unit is running nearby where I play in my basement or if dimmers are on in my house, I will get buzz. It is way better than constant 60 cycle though and I am happy with those Zexcoil singles

Oh yeah, I totally wonder if anything on earth helps with EMI. Anecdotally, I’ve read lots of random forum posts that EMGs are really the best for rejecting EMI, but I have no idea. But for hum itself, ZexCoil does seem absolutely as quiet as anything else out there, from my reading.

How do you find the character of the ZexCoils to be? I’ll ask this of you too, @Joe Bfstplk. I’m pretty sure you have some, don’t you? Do you guys sense that magic from them?
 
How do you find the character of the ZexCoils to be? I’ll ask this of you too, @Joe Bfstplk. I’m pretty sure you have some, don’t you? Do you guys sense that magic from them?
I had a set and they did reduce the noise but I wasn't happy with the sound. The ZexCoil's owner blamed my choice of pickups, though I'd selected them based on his recommendation, and the regular single-coils I picked to replace them sound exactly like I wanted, so much so that I bought another pair for my other Strat.
 
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