Please excuse my ignorance of electrical stuff, but I would be interested in opinions on this idea..
I was wondering whether hum from single coil pickups could be reduced by somehow including a 'dummy' coil into the circuit? It would need to be in the circuit regardless of whether individual pickups are selected or a combination of pickups. The idea being that the dummy coil would be wired out of phase or magnetically opposite(?) the pickup coils and thus cancel hum like a two coil humbucking pickup, but not affect the tone of the pickup as it would have no magnet and would not pick up string vibration.
I know that many recent Strat and Tele type guitars are wired such that whenever any two pickups are switched on together, the combined setting is humbucking. However, the buzz and hum returns when a single pickup is selected.
Also I've seen some past guitars (such as the Alembic guitars and basses) with active circuits where a dummy coil was wired into the circuit and hidden under a scratchplate, and this device suppressed hum and noise when any single pickup or combination of pickups is used.
Have I missed something here, or is this already commonly used? Or is the only way to quiet down a single coil pickup by way of various 'noiseless' designs (how do they work?) or by using regular humbucking designs (including stacked double coil types etc)?
Thanks folks!