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Anybody else not get alone with Hunbucker? (also strat question)


Fersnachi

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Ok So Ive always been a fan of Fender's guitars I currently play a tele. and i USED to own a strat (Until books had to be bought...damn school)

 

Now Im always try to branch out and find a guitar with HB's so I Can have have all basses covered but it seems that i can NEVER find a guitar with HB's that sounds good to me... and Ive owned quite the variety

 

I borrowed an Ibanez...Shred type guitar with numbers i don't remember for a month from a friend and it sounded sterile and lifeless

 

A Gibson SG that sounded dull

 

An Epiphone Sheraton an Epiphone LP custom and some random ass strat copy with 3 Hb's that i hated

 

My sis bought a Dearmond Guild starfire special that I will be messing with while im in town for the holiday and as i sit here and play it it just cant dial in a tone that comes anywhere near the Lush rich sparkly tone that comes from my tele and that strat i used to own.

 

So i wonder are HB's just not for me?

I mean its not like im trying to use the same setting on my amp as i am for SC guitars or that im not giving enough time It just never works to me =

 

On that note I may decide to just buy another strat <_ and that bring me to a question>

 

I LOVE the Master Volume and tone on my tele (more than 2 knobs piss me off)

 

I know that the bridge pickup on isnt wired to a tone pot and that there are two separete tone controls but can i wire a strat so that theres a master tone that controls the tone for all 3 pickups? and then the master volume leaving one knob as a dummy (or something iono)

 

I have no knowledge of wireing or sodering or anything and have been known to destroy things How much would someone charge me to do this if I do end up giving up my search of a HB equiped guitar and just replacing my strat.

 

 

 

 

 

I wrote words.....

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Yes, you can wire a Strat so there's a master tone.

 

You could put a "blender" pot in the third position (So any setting where the bridge is on, you could blend in the neck pickup, and vice versa). This would let you have the neck and bridge or all three pickup combo that isn't normally involved in Strat wiring.

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I've also longed for the best of both worlds, since I love humbuckers, but I've never liked Les Pauls or SGs. I've always liked how a Strat or Tele plays and feels, but never really liked single coils. My guitars all are "strat-ish" or "tele-ish" but I've had them all modded with different pickup configurations to suit my needs.

 

If you like your strats and teles, but want a somewhat heftier pickup, I'd suggest either Seymour Duncan Cool Rails (or Hot Rails for full-shred humbucking power). You may also want to try the GFS Lil Killers, which are basically lower-cost copies of the Seymour Duncan Rail pickups. I just had them put in a Strat-style guitar, and they work great. They also make a set for Teles called the Lil Punchers.

 

There are a lot of replacement pickup options out there now for strats or teles that provide a beefier sound.

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Could be you're just discovering, as many of us do, that this notion of 'having a palette of sound' is a bunch of crap. I realised some years ago that I simply don't much care for humbuckers, and while it's not a dealbreaker as such, I'd way rather have a second Tele than an SG or an LP or whatever. No point spending money on a guitar you have no interest in playing, just for the sake of 'having all bases covered'. I'm not knocking folks who want to have a whole bunch of different guitars - it's one way to make it worthwhile / justify buying another one, having something different - but I just don't see the point if you'll never play it. In your shoes, I'd buy a good Strat and be done with it.

 

For the sake of full disclosure, I have a LP Std, a MIK Epi model, sitting at home. Great guitar, but I just have no interest in playing it. I hang onto it as they simply aren't worth enough for me to want to sell it without worrying I'll regret it, but there's a layer of dust in the cutaway.... It does look nice hanging on my wall, I guess. :idk:

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If you have a little bit of skill with a soldering iron... no need to be a seasoned expert for this mod. This minor modification (the red wire) will make the tone pot for the middle pickup work as a master tone for the middle pickup and the bridge pickup:

 

4ea2351c.jpg

 

I am with you about 'buckers. They do have their place and some of the best moments of my musical life have been while using humbuckers. I still play 80% of the time or more with single coils... a lot of high points have happened using single coils too.

 

A couple of humbuckers that I like:

 

Lollar Imperials... they sound like great old Gibson pickups, very much the point I guess.

 

Duncan Seth Lovers... unpotted coils and relatively low output give these pickups a wonderful complexity.

 

Dean Mountain of Tone... A major league exception to the rule of high output pickups not having any complexity in the tone. They wind these with unbalanced coils. They were shooting for a P-90 tone for Dean's Leslie West Signature guitar, Dean's Les Paul Jr style guitar that is truly its own animal.

 

Those are the only pickups that are available aftermarket that I have experience with, except Gibson's 57 Classics. My Lollar Imperials replaced them. I really didn't care for the 57 Classics. Perhaps if I were a humbucker centered player I would have a different opinion, but I like my Lollars MUCH more in my '335.

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Buy a strat.


Buy a pair of Gibson 57 Classics.


Get an appropriate pickguard.


Have a tech wire it up.


It will be awesome and you will die fulfilled.
:thu:

Might look like this one:


DSC_6705a1.jpg

 

.nice guitar I have just done the same thing to a heavy SX strat .Same colours .chrome knobs etc in fact only the logo gives it away .I put two cheapie axe r us humbuckers in it to see how it all goes and was very pleased with the result .Its sounds pretty good clean and doesnt go muddy like many when dirtied up and I like the principal of it.I may even put some class buckers .Normally I dont put expensive pickups in cheap guitars but its a good player and really heavy and solid and a real keeper. Its a Euro SX so has F style headstock .I havnt put in a coil split as I have some other single coil Fenders like the Baja.;)

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A bit more rambling concerning humbuckers- I generally don't like humbuckers through a 6L6 or 6V6 output tube amp. The lone exception would be my Bassman 4x10 amp. I feel that EL84 tubes have a better chemistry with humbuckers. Celestion 'British' style speakers work well with humbucker equipped guitars. There are some great old Jensen speakers that shine with humbuckers. I don't know what brand of speakers are in my Bassman. They are just a medium blue color with no brand name identification. I do not know if they are stock or replacements, but they do sound quite good. Perhaps the fact that they are 10" speakers instead of 12" help deliver what I like from humbuckers.

 

Humbuckers leave a big sonic footprint. The presentation of the midrange really makes or breaks the humbucker for me. I like some cut. Not a knife attack slaughter, but a surgical cut through the mix. To me, 6L6 or 6V6 output tubes make for a huge sturdy midrange and the humbucker bulldozes its way into the mix, pushing other instruments in a similar frequency range to the side. This makes the guitar compete with the vocals, a huge no-no in my book.

 

That's my opinion.

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I agree, even though I've mostly owned humbuckers. I usually find them too dark/muddy. I think it's because of these two things:

 

- Most Les Pauls and other guitars with lots of mahogany use humbuckers...so a darker wood plus darker pickups = MUD CITY.

 

- Most guitars today use HOT pickups, overwound, etc...which make it more compressed, increase low end, and reduce the high end. And then they put ceramic magnets in them to restore the attack, which makes them clip amp inputs. Ugh.

 

I like vintage wound humbuckers in SG's...doesn't have the fat muddy low-end and the lower wound PUP's have plenty of snap to them. In Les Pauls I like P90's as it balances out the low end and mids of the wood with some clarity. Especially on the neck.

 

 

If I ever buy/mod a Strat I'll try and find one without knob holes. I hate how the volume is right where my pinky wants to be and I dislike guitars that have more than one volume/tone knob. I'd probably be happy with just a single volume in most cases.

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I'm definitely a single coil guy. My first new guitar was a strat and my main guitars now are strats, but I love plugging an HB guitar into my 5E3 Tweed Deluxe clone. Of course, being a Tweed, that amp is fairly Marshally in nature, but even clean, I think it sounds spectacular with fairly low output pickups. My main HB guitar has 57 Classics, but another has Seth Lovers and another has GFS Alnico IIs. All sound great.

 

When playing fairly clean-ish with HBs, I almost always play either on the neck pickup or on the middle position without about 1/4 to 1/2 of the bridge volume rolled off. Nice and full, very responsive. I almost think because of their higher relative output, HBs make the 5E3 feel even more responsive than single coils.

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