what guitar would sound best using a guitar synth pedal; a single coil or humbucker equipped?

[samal50]

I have the BOSS SY-300 guitar synth pedal. My guitars are all equipped with humbuckers, so I'm curious if a single coil pickup guitar would be something to consider as well.

[1001gear]

I would imagine so - if - you are using the actual output.

[badpenguin]

I have only used a guitar with a dedicated synth pickup. ie: The Roland GK. And I have used them with singles, hums and an Piezo. The Boss system I assume uses your standard output, so use the guitar you are most comfy with. Whatever tracks better would be my immediate answer.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Either pickup type will work fine with the SY-300.

 

 

[Danocoustic]

I admit to knowing next to nothing about synths, so forgive me if this is stupid.

 

Seems to me that the guitar signal is only the trigger---the synth is making the actual sound---so would it matter if it was sc or hb?

[mrbrown49]

I admit to knowing next to nothing about synths, so forgive me if this is stupid.

 

Seems to me that the guitar signal is only the trigger---the synth is making the actual sound---so would it matter if it was sc or hb?

 

I have no idea but id be interested in knowing.

i suppose it would only matter if it did anything with the atack and decay of notes. SCs tend to have a bigger attack.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I admit to knowing next to nothing about synths, so forgive me if this is stupid.

 

Seems to me that the guitar signal is only the trigger---the synth is making the actual sound---so would it matter if it was sc or hb?

 

Generally that's true, although some guitar synths either utilize the guitar signal as one of their "oscillators" or allow it to be layered with the synth. The SY-300's sounds originate with your regular guitar strings and pickup, and are processed to produce the various synth waveforms (square, sawtooth, sine, etc.), as opposed to using triggered PCM samples like the Roland GR-55 - after that point, I don't think you could determine what the original guitar pickup type was that was processed to create the synth waveform - unless you layer the guitar along with the synth sound.

 

 

[Danocoustic]

Thank you, I understand a bit better now

[Verne Andru]

Strength of the signal to trigger the synth would be the only real difference between the two. Sometimes you can get triggering errors with low powered pickups not providing enough signal, otherwise there should be no difference.

[WRGKMC]

Not sure how much signal amplitude or frequency response plays a role. I suspect its really no different from triggering a harmonizer. Both a Humbucker and single coil can do it. I'd think the string thickness and instrument build would play a bigger role then the pickup type.

 

Back in the 70's my buddy had one of the first guitar synths made, called the Stramp. It worked off the pickup in the same way as this one does.

He used all kinds of guitars with it, Tele, Mustang, Les Paul and they all produced the same synth sounds. The unit had input gain/drive/EQ settings which allowed you to tweak the unit to any guitar you had.

 

I'd expect the Boss unit has those same basic settings which allow you to set the unit to work with any guitar you own. Where you might have issues is switching guitars. If you only had presets for a fat HB you'd need to create separate presets to work well with a single coils due to the pickup output differences. That's true with most pedals however.

[aliensporebomb]

The SY-300 basically uses whatever pickups you happen to have so long sustaining high output pickups you would figure would produce a longer attack/sustain/decay and release for whatever note you elect to play.