FlashBandit Posted July 25, 2007 Report Share Posted July 25, 2007 I'm building an HSH semi-hollow electric and I need to know how to match up the pickups with respects to impedance, tone and anything else I've overlooked. Also, each pickup will have a volume pot, should the humbuckers get 500k's and the single coil get a 250k? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samba Pa Ti Posted July 26, 2007 Report Share Posted July 26, 2007 the pots dont matter ive used 500k's on all my guitars for years, it just depends which you like more. not sure what you're asking about the impedance, are you looking for pickups to buy ? or already have some and looking for the best place to put them (bridge/middle/neck) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlashBandit Posted July 26, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 26, 2007 If I'm not mistaken, 500k's are fatter/warmer/mids+lows, right? That's what I want, but there's also the problem of impedance/output. I've played on HSS's and if the humbucker's on, it drowns out the single coils. I basically want each pickup to have a similar output so that one doesn't commandeer my sound! How do I match up pickups (before buying them)? If an hb output's too much (more than the sngl coil), can I add a resistor in parallel to ground, and maybe add a simple highpass cap so I don't drain the life out of my tone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samba Pa Ti Posted July 26, 2007 Report Share Posted July 26, 2007 the only thing i can suggest is whatever pickups you get altering the height from the strings to 'even' them out or adding seperate volumes for each pickup. if you want pickup suggestions you really need to say what you're looking for (you might want metal, and we could suggest blues pickups) also a capacitor will just dump high frequencys, theres no way to get a highpass filter with just a cap (a cap and a tone pot are a low-pass filter) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregP Posted July 26, 2007 Report Share Posted July 26, 2007 A humbucker will almost always have higher output than a single-coil. That's just the nature of the beast. But it's to be seen as a benefit in most cases... in addition to having different tones based on position (neck vs. bridge vs. middle), you can have different tones based on output. It used to be that people liked a 'bucker in the bridge position because it would be an extra boost in output level (compared to their single-coils) when time came for a solo. In other words, I think it's a mistake to expect or even want all of your pickups to have exactly the same output level; particularly if mixing and matching single-coil with humbucker. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rubber314chicken Posted July 26, 2007 Report Share Posted July 26, 2007 no, 500K is brighter (more highs) 250K is more lows. 500K is used with humbuckers, because they usually have a bassier output, and 250K used with single coils, because they are very bright. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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