single v hum

ferdi

i'm trying to get a cheapish strat type yoke but i'm not sure wether to go for the classic three single coil pickup set up like this or to go for the bridge position humbucker like this/this

I'm really not digging the twin humbuckers on my crap-hole LP copy at the moment as it lacks the brightness i'm looking for when its a bit overdriven.
at the same time I still want some degree of fat low end.

my question is, if i go for the three single coils - will it be all twange and no bang?

daram

id go with a three single coil setup, with a five way switch you can kill a bit of that twang by mixing pickups. just make sure the middle one is reverse wound, which it most probably will be. i think a three single coil setup is one of the most versatile setups.

feylya

Personally, I'd prefer a fat strat. You could always get teh soldering iron out and tap the humbucker (assuming it's tapable).

On the other hand, you could get the 3 single coils and put a mini humbucker in the bridge.

I've always found single coils in the bridge position to be rather bland? Is that the right word? I'm not sure. But I love single coils in the neck position on a strat.

jcoote

yeah the single coil in the bridge of the strat is probably its only down point as feylya says get a mini humbucker (jeff beck Seymour duncan) and stick it in..that should give ya the bang your lookin for..anyway its the classic strat look and it can't be beaten

feylya

A Duncan JB does not mean Jeff Beck. It stands for Jazz Blues.

david

Yeah the single coil neck pickup is one thing i miss about my strat... the... I might put a HB sized P90 in the neck of my Ibanez... that would rock... Im not sure how well it would go with the SD Duncan Custom in the bridge though...

jcoote

whoops yeah i knew that they do a jeff beck model though don't they??

dabhoys

I put a seymour duncan JB Sh-4 and a 59 into my american strat ant stuck a coil tap on them so I still get my twang. I love the SH-4. Pure tone

Eoin Madsen

I'm with Feylya. Humbucker in the bridge adds a whole range of much darker and deeper sounds in my experience. If you're going for an inexpensive guitar, the three single coils won't leave you much in the way of variety.

Gandolf

i dunno if he renamed the JB pickup later to "jazz blues" but it is known as the Jeff Beck model...harking back to the early days when he made a special gat (the 'tele-gib') out of a tele neck/body and a coupla rewound p.a.f. humbuckers for his mate jeff beck, which incidentally he used on the Blow by Blow album.
So the bridge p.u was nicknamed JB after jeff beck and the neck p.u JM after the hot rod racer john milner from american graffiti. He did change this one to 'jazz model' tho...

next lesson we'll cover models BJ thru DG

Doctor J

I've never heard a coil tapped humbucker that sounds as good as a genuine single coil, they always sound a lot thinner than a similarily positioned single coil does, in my experience. Humbuckers are generally accepted as the norm for an overdriven/distorted bridge sound, they just sound fatter, which adds to a distorted tone and single coils just have a twang that takes from a distorted tone. Then again, Hendix got ****ing phenominal tone from a single coil so hey, what a crazy world we live in

dabhoys

Its part of the GAS doc. We need 3 of everything untill we're happy To cover all possibilities....

feylya

3 of everything? Pah, that's not GAS. That's just being to play!

SouperComputer

have to agree with the lads, humbucker at the bridge. Maybe 2 singles after that. Although I either use the humbucker with distortion or the front most single for clean.

jimi_t

Doctor J wrote:

Then again, Hendix got ****ing phenominal tone from a single coil so hey, what a crazy world we live in

I think that could be something to do with Roger Mayers...

dabhoys

It was all Jimi, the magic was in jimi's fingers...