Reversing a pickup on the Casino to reduce the hum? We had bad interference last night.

[Notes_Norton]

I read, and I think it was on this forum, that adding the dummy coil subtracts some of the wonderful P90 tone, especially in the attack and clarity aspects of the sound. If this is true, adding the coil to fix one gig out of hundreds is not a compromise I'd like to make.

 

My Casino sounds even better than my Gibson, and there is nothing I want to do with it to compromise the tone of either pickup. My original thought would be to compromise the two pickups when played together, while keeping the single bridge or neck pup sound the same. However, I learned that isn't going to happen because my thinking was erroneous.

 

If the same thing was happening on more than one stage, I'd consider it a more serious problem that would require the attention of a more time-consuming, expensive, or tone compromising solution.

 

Notes

[Vic Flick]

 

This is becoming quite an interesting exchange. The dummy coil needs to be in close proximity to the

pickup coil' date='...otherwise it's just going to pickup some additional noise on it's own. I thought that the

Blueshawk had the dummy coil in the actual tone circuit along with the range of caps.

Didn't we have the discussion on that topic back awhile ago, I seem to recall?

[/quote']

 

The dummy coil is just a pickup without the works, so to speak. It's just the coil, so it doesn't produce any sound, but you get the hum reducing benefit of reversing the coil. It's just like adding a third pick up to the circuit. To quote former Gibson R & D chief J.T. Riboloff, "The 'dummy' pickup is basically another pickup, but it doesn't have the magnetic core in it. It cancels out opposing sides of the A/C signal and provides a path for the other side of the signal to travel through to prevent the hum." The dummy coil is located between the two standard pickups, and can be accessed through the back of the guitar:

 

 

The capacitors are part of the varitone circuit, not related to the dummy coil, here's the actual schematic:

 

[carverman]

 

The dummy coil is just a pickup without the works' date=' so to speak. It's just the coil, so it doesn't produce any sound, but you get the hum reducing benefit of reversing the coil. It's just like adding a third pick up to the circuit. To quote former Gibson R & D chief J.T. Riboloff, "The 'dummy' pickup is basically another pickup, but it doesn't have the magnetic core in it. It cancels out opposing sides of the A/C signal and provides a path for the other side of the signal to travel through to prevent the hum." The dummy coil is located between the two standard pickups, and can be accessed through the back of the guitar: [/quote']

 

I stand corrected, Jerrymac.

 

Yes, looking at the schematic, it was the inductor I was thinking of that's in the varitone circuit. The dummy coil is

as you say..separate. If it is the same dc resistance as the other two p_ups then

it will have some hum cancelling effects, but it has to be strategically located and

secured as the picture shows. Mounting it underneath an archtop would be a challenge

as the coil would have to be secured somehow to the top underneath..not something

that is easy to do.