Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

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Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by rickenbackerkid »

Hi All,

I have a very great Cole Clark Strat, and I've been playing with bridge pickups in it. I'm playing in a covers band, and want a hum bucker for a tighter low end and crunchy gain tones on some of the more rock songs. I currently have the Seymour Duncan Lil'59, which is pretty good, and I've also had a DiMarzio SPS-1 which is sort p90ish, and years ago I tried a JB jr.

The issue I have is that overall, the Strat is a very mid scooped sound. Lots of open, shimmery top end and nice bass. The humbucker type pickups are very mid forward, with thick lower mids, and hardly any treble comparatively. On their own the HB's sound fine, but they are weird when switching.
I'll go from a nice quacky, airy '2' position to the humbucker, and all airiness and chime is completely gone.

Is there anything I can try to get some airiness and top end from my humucker, without completely losing the punch?
Or is there another pickup I could try that has more of a single coil character?

What I have is working, but I think it could be better, and that's what NZG is all about, right?

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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by mr_sooty »

Best bridge pickup I've used for Strat is the Dimarzio Heavy Blues 2 I currently have. The key is to have a tone control wired up to it with a good quality capacitor so you can roll off some of the tops if you need to without it getting muddy. I have one of those fancy paper and oil caps, I was surprised how much more useable it made the tone control. I think mine is 0.47uf, which is a nice happy medium. The VVHB2 is just the right amount of balls, never brittle, never muddy, and being noiseless means you can chuck as much gain at it as you need to without things getting hairy. Great balance with single coils in neck and middle, I get perfect Sultans of Swing quack in pos 2 (which I pretty much never use, but it's there), and great Tele tones when I blend my bridge pup with my neck pup. I've used that pickup for several years now without ever feeling any desire to change it.

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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by mr_sooty »

Another mod to consider would be a humbucker with a bass roll off, Reverend style.

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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by Single coil »

Dimarzio air zone.
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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by MrDINO »

I've tried the JB mini and Kinman trad 11s but have settled on a Dimarzio vintage blues. It retains the Strat sound with a more usable clarity and punch when driven.

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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by Reg18 »

Or could be worth trying a slightly higher value pot that's in between a single coil and a humbucker like 300k. Would be cheap to experiment with first and if it didn't work then drop the cash on a new pickup. I had a customised Squire Strat once with a PAF style bridge humbucker and a P90 neck and found 300k pots to be the best compromise for both pickups.

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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by AiRdAd »

I could be way off, but one thing to consider could be the eric clapton TBX tone control and boost circuit. You could use that to even everything up. I have got the circuit in one of my guitars and love it. You could possibly even try a hot single coil in the bridge position, and get it to where you want it with boost.
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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by druz15 »

not sure if these are available yet but the shawbuckers in the new HSS USA Stds are amazing they gel with the single coil sound perfectly, and part of that is because the volume pot is a tapped 250/500k pot, so when you're on the HB it sees a 500k pot, and when you're on a single coil it sees 250k so the volumes and tones balance out really well. Definitely worth looking at trying one of those pots and switching configurations cause it's bloody genius and sounds good too
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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by rickenbackerkid »

That sounds pretty sweet. I'm looking into that kind of wiring. I'd love to get it working really well

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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by Single coil »

Cock. I meant air classic.
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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by rickenbackerkid »

I tried doing a thing I found where you lift the pole pieces on one side of the humbucker to unbalance it a bit. It did let a bit more treble through, but is a little bit 'cocked wah' sounding now - not good.

I'm pretty keen to go get myself some 500K pots and try a wiring scheme where there is a HB volume (500k) and a SC volume (250k) + a single tone on the neck pickup. The lil 59 is pretty close, if I could get a bit more treble from it think I'd be satisfied.

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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by mr_sooty »

Just try a bass roll off.

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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by rickenbackerkid »

Nah, the bass is ok. It's the lack of treble up top that is the problem. It's soo dark and dull compared to the SC's. I reckon that DiMarzio Heavy Blues sounds cool, but I'd rather see if I can get this lil 59 working better before I buy a new pickup . . .

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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by bender »

bbrunskill wrote:Nah, the bass is ok. It's the lack of treble up top that is the problem. It's soo dark and dull compared to the SC's. I reckon that DiMarzio Heavy Blues sounds cool, but I'd rather see if I can get this lil 59 working better before I buy a new pickup . . .
There's a direct correlation between the two. A bass roll-off can sound like a treble tilt depending on the pickups. Certainly did on my old P-90s. Plus it's an extremely cheap option.

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Re: Bridge Humbucker to match up with single coil Strat

Post by mr_sooty »

benderissimo wrote:
bbrunskill wrote:Nah, the bass is ok. It's the lack of treble up top that is the problem. It's soo dark and dull compared to the SC's. I reckon that DiMarzio Heavy Blues sounds cool, but I'd rather see if I can get this lil 59 working better before I buy a new pickup . . .
There's a direct correlation between the two. A bass roll-off can sound like a treble tilt depending on the pickups. Certainly did on my old P-90s. Plus it's an extremely cheap option.
This. The bass buries some of the treble, if you roll it off the pickup sounds brighter. It's so easy to undo if you don't like it too.
Last edited by mr_sooty on Mon May 25, 2015 11:50 am, edited 2 times in total.

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