I've come to a conclusion

[avengers63]

I now prefer single coils.

I started playing in 1987. I was all abut Hair Metal/hard rock at the time. Hard rock/metal was built on the foundation of a humbucker through a Marshall. This led me to the false mindset that singles had no balls and were the bets-male soy boys of pickups. Teles were for country, which is the antithesis of metal, and were therefore a clearly inferior instrument.

I was still in high school: young, still kinda dumb, and extremely opinionated. I'm still pretty opinionated, but I'm now able to hear other opinions with a critical ear.

So fast forward 35 years and I'm now heavily drawn to the single coil. The Tele bridge is just the neatest thing in the world. The harder the twang, the better. For harder applications, I'm leaning towards the P90. A HB is still great in the right applications, but those are becoming less prominent. 

I'm also leaning more towards overdrive instead of distortion. I'll always love the high gain of my youth, but a nice, warm, saturated OD with a s/c just resonates with me at this point in my life.

So have any of you older players gone through a similar journey?

[henrim]

10 hours ago, avengers63 said:

So have any of you older players gone through a similar journey?

I do love a good single coil when it's needed. But to me, for the most of the time, humbucker was the thing in 1987 an still is. A high output humbucker driving a cranked tube amp was and is the thing. At home I crank and attenuate the amp. I don't use distortion pedals nowadays at all. I have several overdrives and boosters before the amp though. SD-1 gets the most use these days. On some setups TS-9 is better. It depends on the amp. And it depends on the day, I guess. Sometimes something that sounded "best ever" yesterday sounds crap today 

[Bizman62]

My guitar history started in the latter half of the seventies, first with a classical which soon gave way to a Hagström Viking which in turns was swapped to an Ibanez FG100. That was the era of the 50's Rock'n'Roll/Rockabilly revival which means my idols played more or less clean sounds with some sort of echo-oh-oh-oh. At that time I didn't know anything about the differences of pickups, to me they were just things that picked the sound to the amp, in my case at bedroom volume levels with the parents sleeping in the same room - not literally though.

Anyhow, a slightly overdriven sound is what I've learned to prefer. I've never learned to play using distortion, the few attempts have sounded horrible even in my own ears. When I once tried a tube screamer at a shop it almost made me sh*t my pants, it literally screamed like a banshee making me embarrased and ashamed to produce such a sound in public.

Lately I've seen videos where they explain how to use such devices for just fattening the clean(ish) sound but since moderately using the gain control seems to give me the sound I like I haven't bought anything of that ilk. Were I in a band things might be different.

So my first guitars were equipped with humbuckers but my own builds all have single coils, don't actually know why as I've heard nice crisp humbuckers on some videos. Then again, isn't a dual single coil in both pickups mode basically a widespread humbucker?

 

[avengers63]

9 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Then again, isn't a dual single coil in both pickups mode basically a widespread humbucker?

 

Yes it is. But there are two differences. One, the coils are pretty far apart as compared to a HB. This will detect the vibrations at different points of the string as opposed to the two coils of a HB essentially getting the vibrations from the same point. The second is, IIRC, a HB is in series where positions 2 & 4 on a Strat are in series. It's still hum cancelling, but it's a different way of doing it. 

[Bizman62]

8 hours ago, avengers63 said:

Yes it is. But there are two differences

One: By 'widespread' I meant exactly that they're pretty far apart.

Second: Where's the 'parallel'? Instead of waiting for your answer I did a quick search to find out that the traditional humbuckers are in series and the pickups of a single coil in parallel. But there's parallel humbuckers and wiring schematics for single coils in series, all of which cancel hum when two coils are active at the same time. So yes, coils both parallel and series cancel hum but in a different way just as you said.

No offense, just trying to clarify to myself what you said.

[avengers63]

I accidentally said "series" twice. That one is on me.

Just for the sake of being thorough... In order to cancel out the hum of a single coil, you must pair it with another single whose magnetic polarity is opposite of the first. So the middle pickup of a strat set and the second coil of a HB are reverse polarity.

A traditional HB is two coils wired in series. The signal passes through one coil at a time before going out to the amp. This produces a more powerful signal with a beefier low end at the cost of some high frequencies.

Position 2 & 4 on a Strat has the coils in parallel. This runs the signal through both coils at the same time. This is a less powerful signal but retains most of the characteristics of a single coil.

A HB can be wired either in series or parallel. It can also be enacted through a DPDT switch.

[Bizman62]

Thanks, this tiny bit of conversation made me search for information I didn't know I didn't know. (Is that good English??? Looks funny!)

Having it written down is a good reminder for us and a nice tidbit for future readers.

[avengers63]

For the past couple of months, I've been going further and further down the rabbit hole of pickup theory and construction. The magnet type comparisons have REALLY opened my eyes... or ears as it were.

These two dudes have been an invaluable source of information:

https://www.youtube.com/@CSGuitars

https://www.youtube.com/@DylanTalksTone

They both cut through the marketing, voodoo, and various other piles of BS and get to the real, unbiased information.

[Andyjr1515]

On 11/8/2023 at 9:47 PM, avengers63 said:

For the past couple of months, I've been going further and further down the rabbit hole of pickup theory and construction. The magnet type comparisons have REALLY opened my eyes... or ears as it were.

These two dudes have been an invaluable source of information:

https://www.youtube.com/@CSGuitars

https://www.youtube.com/@DylanTalksTone

They both cut through the marketing, voodoo, and various other piles of BS and get to the real, unbiased information.

Yes indeed.  Comparisons of just the various Alnico types (III IV etc) show the HUGE differences in both tone and output.  My favourite for a LP-style layout humbucker arrangement are Alnico IV's (4)

[avengers63]

1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Yes indeed.  Comparisons of just the various Alnico types (III IV etc) show the HUGE differences in both tone and output.  My favourite for a LP-style layout humbucker arrangement are Alnico IV's (4)

I've come to enjoy Alnico II. V is versatile and a safe go-to, but it's also become generic.

And magnetized rubber magnets like you'll find in the cheap Tiescos. They have a really cool vibe you can't get with anything else. Nobody that I'm aware of will use what is equavalent to a refrigerator magnet to make an accurate reproduction. They'll use A-V, but that sounds completely  different.

[ScottR]

On 11/5/2023 at 4:56 PM, avengers63 said:

The Tele bridge is just the neatest thing in the world. The harder the twang, the better. For harder applications, I'm leaning towards the P90.

I'm a big fan of a fat tele bridge and p-90 in the neck.

SR

[avengers63]

I want to hear a "Strat" with 3 Tele bridge pups. BUT..... as it's the copper base plate that makes the magic, a traditional Strat set with baseplates would be just as interesting. Planet Tone said they would make them for an additional $15/ea. A 1/16" copper sheet is <$10 on Amazon. Makes me wanna try it out.

[ScottR]

There are so many combinations that must be tried, for the good of mankind, as it were.

SR