The humbucker is a guitar pickup that uses two coils to reduce or "buck" unwanted electromagnetic interference (EMI) and noise. The design provides a characteristic warm, rich, and powerful tone opposing to the brighter, cleaner and more dynamic single-coil pickups.
The humbucker has an invaluable historical impact on music as we know it today. Seth Lover is credited for Inventing the "PAF" (Patent Applied For) in 1955, which is recognized as the first humbucker. This innovation was fundamental to the evolution of blues, jazz, rock, and especially heavy metal, allowing for greater expression and the development of high-gain, fuzz, and overdriven guitar tones. There is no need to glorify this pickup with extra flattering words; it is still the main driving force of the contemporary electric guitar industry.
The Clever Trick: Guitar pickups act like antennas, picking up EMI, which is subsequently amplified as noise. Humbuckers address this issue with a clever design: the two coils are wired together electrically out of phase forcing the signal including the noise to cancel each other. However, because the magnet for the two coils is placed with opposite polarity, the desired signal is brought back while the cancelled noise remains intact.

Our humbucker version is not another PAF imitation. Our experience creating Strat, Tele, and P90 pickups that proved to sound very similar to vintage originals from the era passed helped us build an awesome sounding PAF-style pickup. Most guitar lore is fraught with mystery and haze regarding the vintage sound. A game changer insight was to uncover differences between modern pickups and prime vintage examples.
We believe that vintage PAF pickups sound open, warm, balanced and natural. They "breath freely" with "the full sound" going forward thus helping a player to create good music. On the contrary the modern pickups sound mainly harsh, unmusical and with that feeling as if something is pulling backwards.
We have completed thousands of tests to understand how magnetic fields work in the vintage pickups and the ones we tried to develop. It might be audacious to say but we have made our best to provide products that sound “in your face”, open, musical and capable of providing that feeling of "free full breath advantage".
Handcrafted Kinetic Pickups feature the art of shaping the sound based on vintage tone and innovative hum cancelling technology.
We drew inspiration from the late 1950s PAFs to create a genuinely vintage voicing with an open, pleasing, and dynamically broad sound. A lot of effort was put into eliminating the 60-cycle hum and noise, making them more user-friendly for modern players. They're excellent for any style of music, but they excel in classic old rock, blues, and jazz, as well as heavier styles like hard rock and modern metal.
Kinetic PAFs can deliver the sweet, airy openness that vintage PAFs are known for, with pleasant treble frequencies, punchy mid-range and well-defined low end. A tempting choice for players seeking vintage tones with improved dynamics so that open chords and lead work all ring out with plenty of resonance and amazing clarity.

PAF is a phenomenal pickup that we at Kinetic Pickups hold in high regard. We knew we'd eventually try to develop our own version of Humbucker.
We had already discovered that combining high-quality parts with our unique hum-cancelling technology yielded remarkable results.
Magnets the core for vintage-style sound: Cheap modern magnets produce harsher sounds with undesirable high-end frequencies. It happens because they don't allow the strings to vibrate freely and breathe. There should be a magnetic field with characteristics similar to historical magnets. Special order magnets that replicate the chemical metal fusion found in vintage pickups should be specially manufactured at extra expense. Such magnets help to replicate the impedance vs frequency curvature of vintage pickups.
Noise cancelling tech: At first glance, it seems remarkably straightforward: make two identical bobbins "Shazam!" there is no hum or noise! However, two elements come into play. First, the signal enters one coil and exits the other, resulting in a timing discrepancy as it travels a particular distance. Second, two coils capture not quite similar vibrations from strings. The coils are placed side by side, allowing them to pick up vibrations from different zones of the string. You may observe that when you pluck a string near the neck pickup, the sound is fuller and louder than when you pluck the same string at the bridge. Our approach to producing Strat and Tele singles, in which we match coils for hum elimination while preserving the full spectrum of desired sound, proven its efficiency. We decided to match the coils in various combinations and realized we could adjust the sound spectrum and noise levels. However, there is one significant disadvantage to this technology: it’s a very tedious and time-consuming work.Electronic measurement tools are of no use here. Only human ears can pick up the right balance. The product has to be made by hand and then meticulously ear tested and matched.
Shielding: Adjusting the coils is just the first step; providing proper shielding and grounding is the second. To maximize effectiveness, multilayer alloys of several materials must be employed. Copper is effective at preventing Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) at specific frequencies, while nickel, silver, and aluminum are efficient at protecting against the other range of frequencies.
Kinetic Pickups guarantees the highest level of noise and hum elimination, outperforming that of other brands.
Is noise and hum an inherent component of old-school magic?
Tone purists argue that the noise is part of what distinguishes vintage pickups. However, it is simply a matter of habit and acquired taste. Imagine you have recorded a perfect guitar track with no noise. And then you decide to add a 60 Hz hum to improve the sound? Or do you take a perfect picture of your girlfriend and then use Photoshop to add some blur or out-of-focus effects? Doesn't the hum and noise steal and hide some of your instrument's beautiful sound? We believe that a good guitar tone does not necessarily require suffering from pickup hum and noise.

Reduced Noise: The primary advantage is the reduction of hum, making them great for use with high gain, fuzz or distortion applications where single coils can be extremely noisy.
Higher Output: Humbuckers have a larger output level due to the two coils, making them perfect for heavier styles because they can drive amplifiers more efficiently.
Tone: praised for fuller, warmer, and rounder tone with an emphasis on the midrange, compared to single-coil pickups that are sharp and bright.
Musical Genres: Their powerful, full, and warm sound makes them ideal for hard rock, heavy metal, blues, and jazz musical genres.
Sustain: Humbuckers have more sustain due to their stronger and wider magnetic field. Singing is an appropriate description of a good Humbucker.
Downsides: Does this method make the Humbucker a noiseless pickup? Not quite, since the two coils are not stacked together but placed side by side, they pick up different vibrations from the strings as well as different EMI. The signals are not truly identical, and some of the desired frequencies in the sound are removed. This results in the downside of a humbucker they tend to sound muffled and less dynamic compared to a single-coil pickup of a Strat or a Tele. You still get articulation from your notes, but there is a noticeable difference in clarity and response. A humbucker just won’t bite in the same way as a single coil does and although you can get a humbucker to coil split and use just one side, it never ends up sounding equally as open and dynamic as a standard single coil.
There is still some noise, which may be heard particularly when you turn on the Gain knob or use a distortion pedal.

What if to combine two P90s in one design? This is our challenging innovation which turned out to be quite promising. It came up with a very unique sound unlike any standard pickup you'd heard before. Instead of one magnet we resolved to use four, hence the name. This gave us some hum cancellation benefits while also significantly improving the sound and output power. Something between P90 and Humbucker with the benefits of both sides.
It turned out to be a multi-voice pickup, allowing for varied sounds and tone colors than a typical humbucker. There is no muted effect associated with traditional humbuckers. It offers better articulation and dynamic response allowing to play with expression and emotion. Even though it was developed applying modern technology, there are some nods to the past. Perfect for old-school genres and modern styles, particularly heavy metal, whilst superb noise cancellation is required.
Our QUADRO Humbuckers will be particularly beneficial to those seeking fresh sounds and possibilities. They provide a massive low-end thump of Humbuckers, defined mids, and crisp and detailed treble frequencies of P90s. They work incredibly well for solos, but also help lend a bit of weight to chord work and power to huge riffs.
Perhaps you're seeking new type of guitar sounds with hum cancelling advantage. Well, we're hoping our new product will do just that.