maney Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 Hi guitar junkies. I am staring to build my own strat style electric. But I want the best of both worlds. I have got a Very Vintage single coil from Torres engineering for the neck and want a metal pick up for the bridge. I was looking at a semore Duncan metal humbucker. I have been informed that pickups can some times be incompatable. Is this true? And can I do the above with out getting into problems? Please help a guitar building Nuffy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acousticraft Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 Generally single coil pups use 250ohm pots while humbuckers are 500ohm. If you are just having two pickups it would be easy to have a 250 ohm volume and tone for the single coil and have a 500 ohm volume and tone for the bucker. That would give options for a nice clean neck sound if needed and a down and dirty bridge sound. There are options to have a 3 way switch or coil cut the humbucker as well with a 5 way or multi switch. Have a look at Stew Macdonald site as they have different wiring diagrams available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 The "incompatibility" thing is mostly just that if you have a low-output single coil and a high-output humbucker, there will be a big volume jump if you switch pickups on the fly. You might also have picked it up with people talking about not using both active and passive pickups in the same guitar. It can be done but it's a pain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maney Posted March 8, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 Thanks heaps fot your replies. So if I am understanding this correctly, the main problem is a jump in volume? So if I am rocking out with my metal head buddies and don't use the single, it should not be a problem? This set up wont mess with the tones of the pickups just the volume? Sorry about the questions, but I am new at this and want to get it right before I invest too much cash. Thanks again. Maney Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crafty Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 Buy a bigger amp and use lower powered pickups. Playing with the volume knob will do wonders going from blues to metal no matter what pickups you're using. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted March 11, 2007 Report Share Posted March 11, 2007 (edited) Well, the jump in volume business is really just if you switch from one to the other. If you've got your amp set at a volume you like with the HB and switch to the single coil, it'll be quieter and cleaner, and if you have it set with the single coil and switch to HB it'll be louder and more driven. It shouldn't really make the pickups sound any different, except for the volume pot value thing mentioned earlier. So yeah, if you're playing metal and just use the HB, you should be fine, and if you're playing blues with the SC you should be fine. You can use HB's for blues too, although the super high-output ones sound a little funny. Lots of blues players use Les Pauls or similar HB equipped guitars. Albert King played a Flying V a lot. Also, the pots are 250K ohm and 500K ohm, not 250 and 500. If you could find 250 or 500 ohm pots, they wouldn't work very well in a guitar. Edited March 11, 2007 by jnewman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maney Posted March 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 Thank you all for your insight. What I would like now is to get a wiring schematic for the pick up design above. I know depending on the pickup it may vary, but I just want a basic idea. Thanks again Maney Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted March 19, 2007 Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 (edited) Go to www.seymourduncan.com and look at their schematics. Under the telecaster section, they have two setups for bridge humbucker neck single coil, one just switching between pups and one switching between pups plus a switch for coil tapping the humbucker. The schematics show the lever-style tele switch. At the top of the humbucker section, there's a "three way switch translation" page that will show you how to hook up any of the three types of switches. Edited March 19, 2007 by jnewman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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