My tele Microcoils sound great -- in my strat!

I got a set of Wilde Microcoils for my tele last year. Great sound; but I reluctantly swapped them for a different set of PUs that had better hum-canceling after a few months.

Also, I've had a minty 1998 strat plus deluxe for several years. Left 100% stock. I never bonded with that guitar, even though it is well-made.

Now, both are combined. I got a custom pickguard from Terrapin, and the tele PUs are in the strat. There's an additional Fender H1 tele neck PU as well, to get a usable "humbucking" jazz blowing sound wired in series with the Microcoil; and the middle PU is a modified GFS strat PU.

Using a superswitch, you have N ser, N+M par, N+M ser, L+M par, L+M ser. Decent to very good hum-canceling, in all positions.

The middle knob cuts a coil in series positions. That way both Microcoils can be heard on their own.

Cheaper to do this, than to buy new strat PUs! Certainly a unique look, as well as sound.

Point was NOT to make the strat "sound like a tele"; rather, to be frugal & use PUs I already had laying around, to "improve" the strat plus, over its stock Lace Sensors. There is a better tele-like bite out of the lead PU now, I must admit.

Still messin' with this axe. The sounds are all wonderful; but the hum-canceling with L+M series is not strong enough for me, when used with a dist. pedal.

It is a challenge to mate different brands/types of PUs, series especially, and get good hum-canceling. I have some notions, that I'll try out in the next few days.

Cool. Kinda like a reverse Steve Morse setup.

The hum of the MicroCoils is extrememly low. If you attempt to achieve hum-cancellation with a standard RWRP single coil pickup, it will not work. It may not even work with a bridge and a neck MicroCoil. Two pickups have to have nearly identical hum levels for it to significantly cancel when combined.

The hum of the MicroCoils is extrememly low. If you attempt to achieve hum-cancellation with a standard RWRP single coil pickup, it will not work. It may not even work with a bridge and a neck MicroCoil. Two pickups have to have nearly identical hum levels for it to significantly cancel when combined.

I don't agree with much of this at all, based on my personal experience. Microcoils hum just like any other SC PU. They are very quiet buzz-wise & have a good strong output, but they do hum. The reason the tele Microcoil neck & lead PUs have no hum canceling together, is that they are the same polarity. If you hook them up with test clips & flip one PU upside down, you'll hear the hum lessen.

On this guitar, with the middle knob being a coil fader for series positions, you can clearly hear the hum diminish as the "back coil" is raised by turning the knob towards "10". The two neck PUs in series are like 90% humbucking. N (microcoil) +M, series, maybe 75%. L+M, series, only maybe 60%. The two parallel settings are very quiet; almost fully hum canceling.

For clean playing, this is plenty enough for me. But with dist. on, the L+M series setting is too noisy without a gate. So I'm going to try for a different middle PU. A friend of mine has a whole bunch of castoff strat PUs of various types; hopefully I can experiment with those & find one that works better, hum-canceling-wise.

Yeah..the MicroCoils do hum, but it's much lower than an average 2.4H Strat PUP. The hum to signal ratio may be ~12dB lower? Considering the ~1/3 surface area of the coil of the MC, combined with the closer proximity of the whole coil to the core and strings, increased fundamental ratio, and increased output via the focused magnetic circuit, that difference is bared out.

It's hard to really measure these things and it gets confusing, but the values you gave may have a lot to do with the fact that the signal increases, along with the hum, with the pickups wired in series. Do you find that the 60Hz hum actually decreases from the L MC alone to the M+L series position, or is it just the high harmonics of the hum that drop along with the high frequency of the signal? I'd be surprised if 60Hz actually drops, but hey...maybe you got lucky?

Short of making custom hum canceling coils per pickup, there's not a lot you can do. 0.025" Aluminum shielding might cut some upper harmonics of the hum and protect against light dimmer noise. Not sure about florescent noise. Just trying to help.

I do appreciate your responses & help. The hum does decrease with the series M+L position, but not by much, or enough. The middle PU in there now is 6.2k. Next I'll try a hotter PU there.

P.S. I also have a Fender HI tele lead PU, same polarity as the Microcoil, that I tried in this guitar & circuit. I had about the same results, hum-wise; some cut, but not enough.

As far as the hum cancellation is concerned, I think it's mostly the coil surface area that matters. Contribution of the magnetic field may not affect hum, but only the level of the string vibration in comparison to it. Either way, it's impossible to factor in it's contribution.

You actually might want to try a lower wind count pickup in the M position. To correct my previous assertion: the L MC coil should be closer to ~1/2 the surface area of an average 2.4H 5.8k Rdc Strat pickup wound with 42g wire. The MC's use ~46g wire, so even though the Rdc measures higher, the wind count is a little lower, as is the total surface area. One of those stock ceramic Strat M pos pickups might actually have a low enough surface area, or something with 43g wire that measures ~6k Rdc, or a little lower. It's going to be a trial and error affair to be sure.

Donelson, very cool idea.

I love the Microcoils, but really miss the classic neck pickup. I've been thinking of replacing my MIJ's (basswood) body with a new ash body.. and the 2-neck pup configuration seems ideal if I were to get a custom body w/o modifying the original '86 body.

Would it be possible to just route a Tele Neck pup and run it w/o blending it in the MC circuit? Was thinking of getting the Mare 'big box archtop'.. and maybe bypassing the tone knob on it.

Mare neck, MC serial, MC neck, MC parallel, MC bridge.. and I believe the Mare can be tapped for a louder or standard tone.

Or are you very pleased with the neck serial idea, the 2 neck serial combo? Of course it's thicker and louder.. but does it have a similar or as-good chime and clarity as a standard Tele single?

What do you miss about the conventional covered Tele neck pickup?

I don't agree with much of this at all, based on my personal experience. Microcoils hum just like any other SC PU. They are very quiet buzz-wise & have a good strong output, but they do hum. The reason the tele Microcoil neck & lead PUs have no hum canceling together, is that they are the same polarity.

They have dramatically reduced sensitivity to noise, but you're right, the in-between positions don't cancel out the rest of it. Bill is going to release a noise-canceler for them at some point. If he had them in RWRP, he wouldn't be able to use the same device for all the pickups. Aluminum shielding will reduce dimmer noise and such.

The hum of the MicroCoils is extrememly low. If you attempt to achieve hum-cancellation with a standard RWRP single coil pickup, it will not work. It may not even work with a bridge and a neck MicroCoil. Two pickups have to have nearly identical hum levels for it to significantly cancel when combined.

The Microcoil Tele set has a very low noise floor for single-coil pickups, but the pair isn't hum cancelling in the middle switch position -- this was done deliberately to support the "Untenna" hum-cancelling accessory. If I'm recalling what Bill told me accurately, the L-48TL and L-45 twin-blades are about as close as it gets to the Microcoil performance without any hum, despite they're being radically different in design.

If I'm recalling what Bill told me accurately, the L-48TL and L-45 twin-blades are about as close as it gets to the Microcoil performance without any hum, despite they're being radically different in design.

The first time I heard them in person was only seconds apart, and I had to go back and listen again to absorb the sonic differences because they are much more alike than not.

What do you miss about the conventional covered Tele neck pickup?

In particular had a Texas Special neck p/u that I really liked.. Never cared for the bridge, but anyway, I feel Fender made that neck really well. For solo/small-group jazz playing, pure clean tone, 100% headroom.. it was perfect, and I haven't tried it, but I assume Mare's p/u would be right up my alley. I'm looking for the piano-like bell tone.

The microcoil neck just doesn't have the body and color that I like for solo playing. I do like the MC tho, I adjusted the pole pieces a bit and have excellent balance and it's much more useable in a band setting than conventional necks I've had.

That is close to what I've had in mind in the neck. I've been wanting to put a Tele and Strat pickup side by side in the neck with a 4 way switch (no mid or bridge PU like SRVs yellow Strat). Two of my favorite sounds are Tele and Strat PUs in the neck position so I could get both in one guitar and I bet the two in series would sound cool too.

In particular had a Texas Special neck p/u that I really liked.. Never cared for the bridge, but anyway, I feel Fender made that neck really well. For solo/small-group jazz playing, pure clean tone, 100% headroom.. it was perfect, and I haven't tried it, but I assume Mare's p/u would be right up my alley. I'm looking for the piano-like bell tone.

The microcoil neck just doesn't have the body and color that I like for solo playing. I do like the MC tho, I adjusted the pole pieces a bit and have excellent balance and it's much more useable in a band setting than conventional necks I've had.

Is the MC something different than the MicroCoil? I usually abbreviate them to "MC". The MC's are extremely sensitive and have highly responsive dynamics. They have a different attack than many conventional designs, which have a more "compressed" sound with a higher Q factor and therefore a sharper less open sound around the resonance point. With the right kind of amp distortion, the MC's will sound huge and commanding without the attack becoming brittle, while with certain distortion pedals or possibly metal oriented amps, the attack may be too abrasive. Its just the nature of greater sensitivity and dynamic response.

The L200s have that more conventional response with a piano-like bell tone you mention. They are generally crisper than many vintage voiced pickups, due to Bill's coil phase-alignment method. You may well find you'd miss the increased clarity if it wasn't there. You can use ~0.025" Aluminum shielding under the pick guard, like I did, to "soften" them a tad if you like.