Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I found a relatively easy way to eliminate the electrical buzz that's all too common in RIC basses, in many situations.

All that needs to be done is to flip the magnet over and reverse the wires on one pickup. I did it on the bridge pickup, because it seemed easier. It would work on either. Only do it on ONE of them, though!

Works like a charm when you're using both pickups, and no discernable phase weirdness!

Unfortunately, this offers no benefit when you're using either pickup by itself, but there's no adverse effect, either.

I did it with a High Gain. Not sure how easy it would be with a toaster or horseshoe.

Actually, it IS a bit of phase weirdness, as you term it.

What you've done is make a humbucking guitar using two out-of-phase single coil pickups. That's also why it doesn't work with either pickup alone.

I'm surprised that you're not losing bottom as they are 180 degrees out of phase that way. I would think if it were really that simple Ric would have done it ages ago. When I have accidently hooked up a pickup backwards in the past there was a distinct nasal no bottom sound which was at it's worst when both volumes were equal, unless reversing the magnet is the key which I have never tried.

Yes, reversing the magnet 'is the key'.

I should have said, "...no audible phase weirdness..."

As Sergio points out, this is basic humbucking, so the whole concept is based on phase weirdness or one kind or another.

Flipping the magnet is the key, in that it puts the signal generated by the string movement back in phase. The magnet isn't involved in picking up ambient electrical noise, therefore the coil phasing cancels this out.

I think if you took the magnet out of the coil you would find you would pick up much less noise if any, I think a pickup acts like a little ferrite antenna. I'm not going to pull any pickups apart to test my theory however.

Your theory is correct, Bob. I do seem to remember that some Alembic basses had one such dummy coil between the neck and the bridge pickup to cancel out noise.

Gibson also had a "blues" LP or maybe it was a Blueshawk that used a dummy coil with P90's.
Note for typical hunbucker wiring the coils are in series. That is what gives them their higher output. My home built guitar I have wired for series-split(single coil)-parallel. The parallel sound is very close to the single coil sound and output, just quiter.
I also have a phasing switch for one pick up. I will agree with the "nasal no bottom end" sound. But there are some uses on a guitar for that.

If you took the magnet out of the coil, you wouldn't hear a whole lot from the strings.