Humbucker pickups

Humbucker pickups

Humbucker pickups are double coil pickups whose paternity goes to Seth Lover who developed the “PAF” in 1955. Its purpose was to remove the background “hum” noise from single coil pickups. At the same time Ray Butt, then at Gretsch, was developing the Filtertron, another type of humbucker.The two coils side-by-side circulate electrons in one direction around one coil and in the other direction around the other coil. Likewise, the magnet under the two coils gives polarity to the two coils. The screws of coil 1 face south while the poles of coil 2 face north. This reversal of polarity and direction of rotation has the effect of eliminating the background noise.
Many different models
Since the first two models, Gibson’s PAF and Gretsch’s Filtertron, humbucker pickups have evolved a lot. Today there are many variations of the humbucker pickup allowing you to play from the most subtle Jazz to the most violent metal. There are also models for multiscale guitars and for 6, 7 and 8 strings.