Members JoshuaLogan Posted January 9, 2008 Members Share Posted January 9, 2008 I am gathering up pieces for my custom guitar, and I want it to be an H-S-H configuration. I just bought the two humbuckers, a Bare Knuckle Ceramic Warpig in the Bridge and an alnico Warpig in the neck. I will be using coil tapping (via a toggle switch) for extra sounds, but I also want a nice single coil in the middle slot to help out with clean tones.... only really focused on clean tones here. I need a very clean, very stratty middle position single coil pickup. So, my question is.... which companies should I be looking at? Kinman? Fralin? Any others? Give me some opinions. I'm excited for this guitar, and I want it to be capable of everything I like to play (which is mainly REALLY heavy and REALLY clean )... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JoshuaLogan Posted January 9, 2008 Author Members Share Posted January 9, 2008 Also, I am guessing I will need two separate volume pots..... a 250k pot for the single coil and a 500k pot for the humbuckers... and a tone knob or two.... is it possible to wire it up like this? if so, how exactly? I was thinking of just having them independent of each other, and letting a 3 way switch control humbucker positions, with a separate mini toggle to toggle coiltapping on/off, and have the single coil with it's own volume pot to mix with the tapped humbuckers.... I am not 100% on how to set this up and I need a little guidance. I know it's a complicated way to wire this all up, but I want this thing to be capable of both really heavy and really clean all in the same guitar, and this is the best way I can think of without using piezos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JoshuaLogan Posted January 10, 2008 Author Members Share Posted January 10, 2008 bump. need help. was checking out the kinman noiseless pickups.... but need to know how I'd wire everything up and what kind of volume/tone knob(s) setup I would need... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chrispsullivan Posted January 10, 2008 Members Share Posted January 10, 2008 lace sensor gold FTW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JoshuaLogan Posted January 10, 2008 Author Members Share Posted January 10, 2008 lace sensor gold FTW Hmmm, those look awesome too. But I need some help on how to wire this all up..... an H-S-H pickup configuration, and I want to be able to coil tap the humbuckers.... mainly I want one of the tone options to be having one coil from the neck and one coil from the bridge together in parallel.... Then obviously one will be just bridge humbucker and one will be just neck humbucker... I'm not sure about the other two positions, but I want to use the middle single coil and have it set up for clean tones... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GYBE! Posted January 10, 2008 Members Share Posted January 10, 2008 Really dig my lollar blackface in the middle position of my strat, very nice indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chrispsullivan Posted January 10, 2008 Members Share Posted January 10, 2008 Hmmm, those look awesome too. But I need some help on how to wire this all up..... an H-S-H pickup configuration, and I want to be able to coil tap the humbuckers.... mainly I want one of the tone options to be having one coil from the neck and one coil from the bridge together in parallel.... Then obviously one will be just bridge humbucker and one will be just neck humbucker... I'm not sure about the other two positions, but I want to use the middle single coil and have it set up for clean tones... im useless when it comes to wiring directions if you lived in san diego i would do it for you for about $20 though:thu: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JoshuaLogan Posted January 10, 2008 Author Members Share Posted January 10, 2008 im useless when it comes to wiring directions if you lived in san diego i would do it for you for about $20 though:thu: Hmm, well I don't even know if what I want is possible lol I know there are a lot of options possible with coiltapping and combinations.... all I really know is that I want to make use of that middle single coil and have a few nice pickup settings for cleans available I still need to ask if the HSH will even fit with 27 frets, but I think it will just barely fit (after I rigged it up in teh ms paint lols) EDIT: Maybe I should look at what Carvin does with their mini toggle switches for coil tapping and all that... I know they sometimes set up a ton of options for wiring.. I believe I've seen ones that were much more than 5 options (like a typical 5 way switch) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JoshuaLogan Posted January 28, 2008 Author Members Share Posted January 28, 2008 bump, not getting custom guitar anymore, but am still getting an HSH guitar and still need a good stratty single coil for the middle position. are those dimarzio noiseless singles as good as what i've heard people talk them up to be? there's a lot of brands here to choose from... not sure what to go with. by the way, I want this middle single coil to match up well volume wise with the neck pickup. I think the neck pickup is something like 16k dc resistance...... so roughly half would put it coiltapped about 8k.... so I think i should be getting a single coil in the 9-10k dc resistance area to try to match outputs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JoshuaLogan Posted January 28, 2008 Author Members Share Posted January 28, 2008 hm I just checked out those dimarzio noiseless strat pickups and apparently they are actually stacked humbuckers coils (with two coils) that just act as single coils..... I'm not too sure that'd even fit the routing. these pickups are for the new 24 fret Ibanez S5470 by the way... middle is routed for single coil and routed deep, but I don't know if it's deep enough to accomadte a stacked pickup with two coils... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JoshuaLogan Posted January 28, 2008 Author Members Share Posted January 28, 2008 Hmm, this sounds interesting: "Dimarzio Virtual Vintage Solo Pro Electric Guitar Pickup The concept for the Virtual Vintage Solo Pro is a Strat replacement that cancels hum and performs like a P90. DiMarzio turned it up a notch with Alnico 2 magnets for more sustain and a warm, woody tone that's a cross between a violin and a human voice. Big and round-toned with a clean setting, the Virtual Vintage Solo Pro stays warm with overdrive, and produces great harmonics with high gain amps." Anyone use these? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Exocaster Posted January 28, 2008 Members Share Posted January 28, 2008 Hmm, this sounds interesting:"Dimarzio Virtual Vintage Solo Pro Electric Guitar PickupThe concept for the Virtual Vintage Solo Pro is a Strat replacement that cancels hum and performs like a P90. DiMarzio turned it up a notch with Alnico 2 magnets for more sustain and a warm, woody tone that's a cross between a violin and a human voice. Big and round-toned with a clean setting, the Virtual Vintage Solo Pro stays warm with overdrive, and produces great harmonics with high gain amps."Anyone use these? I have a Virtual Vintage Solo in the bridge of my Strat. Not The Solo Pro, though, if there's a difference. It's not my first choice for a clean pickup, but that might just be due to my having it in the bridge position. It sounds great for gain tones, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members duncan Posted January 28, 2008 Members Share Posted January 28, 2008 seymour duncan Alnico II Pro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ethan Dean Posted March 14, 2020 Members Share Posted March 14, 2020 On 1/10/2008 at 12:25 AM, JoshuaLogan said: lace sensor gold FTW Hmmm, those look awesome too. But I need some help on how to wire this all up..... an H-S-H pickup configuration, and I want to be able to coil tap the humbuckers.... mainly I want one of the tone options to be having one coil from the neck and one coil from the bridge together in parallel.... Then obviously one will be just bridge humbucker and one will be just neck humbucker... I'm not sure about the other two positions, but I want to use the middle single coil and have it set up for clean tones... I am In the same position. My solution is to have two volumes and a single overall tone with a 5 way switch The middle pickup will be clean and will he wired up to the 1st position then the bridge pup to the 3rd position. This will allow the middle single coil mix with a the slightly hotter bridge humbucker only and let the two humbuckers to interact with eachother between the 3rd and 5th position! ( I plan to have the hot rodded humbucker set from Seymour Duncan ) I then thought the middle pickup should have it's own independent volume. I want to add push/pull pots for the volume and tone. One for Coulson tapping and the other to reverse the phase of the neck pickup. Please let me know of what you think, as I'm currently building myself a custom HSH strat to solve the same problem! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AJ6stringsting Posted March 18, 2020 Members Share Posted March 18, 2020 Barr Knuckle pickup are powerful British pickups ....that could make you future children limp. Those pickups are usually in the 16k ohms to 23k ohms range. If you use a single coil rated at 6k ohm to 9k ohms ....you'll notice a huge volume drop. I remedied that situation with a Bill Lawrence L250 that are usually rated at 12k ohms to 13.97k ohms and the volume drop was not that extreme . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted March 20, 2020 Members Share Posted March 20, 2020 When you use singles with humbuckers its best to use a balanced set so you don't have volume changes switching pickups. If you're picking individual pickups form different makers it can be pure guesswork in what might match because Inductance involves several factors including magnet strengths, wire size, number or wraps, wrap density, and other things like the density/amount of ferromagnetic materials. I've done many match jobs on builds and mod jobs trying to get the best balance and you can waste a lot of time and money trying to get it right. Knowing the DC resistance is often the only thing you have to work with. Very few pickup makers list the actual number of Henry's a coil has or even the magnet type. I've gotten pretty good at getting a balance by using HB's with vintage winds and singles that have slightly hotter winds. Even there I'm lucky enough to have several dozen different sets of pickups in my parts cabs to work with. Mixing and matching can even be done prior to going through the hassle of actually installing them if you have a few simple tools available. What you need is a stereo volume meter. An old cassette recorder is ideal for this. If you have a number of HB's you want to match with existing singles, you can connect the guitar cored to one channel of the recorder, then adjust the record volume to get the meter to read about 50%. Take an old guitar cord and connect it to the leads of whatever pickup you may be considering. If the cord as a bare wire at one end soldering alligator clips to that end is ideal for testing multiple pickups. Lay the guitar on a table face up. Find a corrugated carboard box and cut it up in small pieces maybe 1X2" which can be stacked along side the two E strings and then you can bridge the strings with the pickup. Add or remove the number of cardboard pieces till the pickup matches the distance of a pickup mounted in the guitar. Now you can compare the outputs of the two pickups on the cassette recorder meters and judge whether the two are any kind of a match. You can figure with most pickups mounted in a guitar your distance between pickup and strings is typically set at a minimum of 3mm and maximum of maybe 5mm. Anything farther they usually become a bit thing and less focused. you can use the pieces of cardboard to distance the pickup to try and get a signal strength match. If you wind up having a huge distance then that pickup is likely too hot. I should also mention, the low strings will have a higher output compared to the high strings on those meters as much as double the strength with the string distances even across the strings. That's normal. Guitar amps were built to match pickups and roll off lows and highs to produce mostly midrange tones and make the pickups sound even. Pickups are not built to produce high fidelity tones and when plugged into a high fidelity amp or recorder have boosted highs/lows and scooped mids. When testing you can try each string and see how close each string matches in gain too. I would focus on the first 4 strings for matching strength. HB's typically have more bass output and shouldn't be a big issue so long as the higher strings match in gain. This testing method is better then going through the hassle of installing the pickup and often times routing the body and pickguard to fit it inside, only to discover it was a bad match before you went through that hassle or mounting and wiring it. It also makes you appreciate when manufacturers sell matched sets they've gone through all this testing and you can simply jump to installing the pickup and know its going to work well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted March 20, 2020 Members Share Posted March 20, 2020 If you use two identical singles in series would you retain the single coil sound while increasing the output? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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