Humbucker Thread

[Danley]

I know people here aren't supposed to like them but... I've been playing a lot of Super Strats lately, I have a Jackson Soloist, a cheap Yamaha and my American Deluxe Strat (set up HS, one volume.)

Think I've fallen in love with the Duncan Screamin Demon; most people seem to hate it, but to me it's the "humbucker for people who hate humbuckers." Has quick response and scooped sparkle like a single, is articulate, focused and super clear under gain, isn't compressed to hell like a lot of humbuckers. I'm also taken by the Duncan Jazz bridge and neck set, very similar in character to the Demon but looser and with less bass overall.

I used to be one of those who didn't like/only put up with humbuckers, but I'm looking at discovering some that aren't just honky mud machines. Any others to recommend?

[mackerelmint]

You know, an oddly versatile and good sounding pickup is the duncan invader. They hype it as a crushing, br00tal metal pickup, but I played disco and funk with that shit and it did an amazing job. It'll do the metal stuff, but those cleans are smooth. I'm also a big fan of the GFS dream 180, they'll do all kinds of stuff for you. Chimey gretsch kind of sound, roll off the tone for a PAF kind of thing. Great clean or dirty.

[CorporateDisguise]

I have a P rails in my mustang right now, which I'm starting to really love. The humbucker mode is incredibly smooth, and great for overdrive tones. It's a little over compressed for clean tones, but you can just switch it to the p 90 or single coil mode to mellow it a little bit. The p90 sound is pretty grunty, but in a good way and bit more open sounding. And the single coil mode is pretty mellow. It doesn't really sound like a strat or tele, but it still sounds pretty good.

I've always liked humbuckers though. My favorite pickup combination is some sort of humbucker in the bridge, and a single coil in the neck. I always use the neck for clean tones and the bridge for overdrive and fuzz. It really makes for great dynamics to go from a beautiful mellow clean tone to ripping drive sound.

I also have a soft spot for WRHB and firebird pickups, but they are a different beast intirely.

[Larry Mal]

I think that a lot of humbuckers we all grew up with were made to be one trick, hard rock ponies after a while. I'm starting to shrug off my prejudice against them and explore them a little bit myself. I put some Gibson Burstbucker Pros in a cheap Gibson M2 recently in order to kind of learn those, that's possibly setting the stage for some Lollar El Rayos at some point.

It came to my awareness that humbuckers, if done properly, can actually have almost as much clean high end and dynamics as single coils do. I don't know how it took me so long to know that but it did. Even the Gibson 490R type pickups sound good to me at this point... maybe I just needed to learn how to use them.

I used to hate humbuckers, and was convinced that all I could accomplish with them was to sound like fucking Bad Company or something.

[Bert Camenbert]

In my experience, if one wants to retain highs, the kind of pots one uses with humbuckers are important, more important than with single coils. So make sure to spend a bit extra and get something decent. My personal favourite combination is the duncan '59s with RS Guitarworks pots that are in my old Gibson The Paul.

[sessylU]

I have a P rails in my mustang right now, which I'm starting to really love. The humbucker mode is incredibly smooth, and great for overdrive tones. It's a little over compressed for clean tones, but you can just switch it to the p 90 or single coil mode to mellow it a little bit. The p90 sound is pretty grunty, but in a good way and bit more open sounding. And the single coil mode is pretty mellow. It doesn't really sound like a strat or tele, but it still sounds pretty good.

P-rails with the Triple-shot rings are a great idea. It means you can switch between the two different humbucker sounds, series and parallel as well as the p90 and rail sounds.

[Mad-Mike]

I use all sorts of weirdo cheapo humbuckers in my guitars. I just finished that Mosrite copy a week ago, and in the bridge I put a 16.8K Ceramic humbucker out of a First Act ME-636 - butted up against the bridge it's very twangy and sounds a bit like how the OP says the Screamin' Demon sounds.

My rule of thumb with higher ouput Humbuckers is to put them in something with a high mass bridge, really close to the bridge, more mass and closer the hotter wound they are and the warmer magnet type. So if I have a 18.5K Ohm Humbucker with an Alnico 2 in it, you know full and darned well that puppy is going butt up against some kind of steel version of a 1970's Brass Hardtail bridge, I also use higher value pots with them. If the Mosrite copy did not turn out so good with 500K pots, I was going to slap a set of 1MEG pots for a Jaguar lead circuit in there.

I also really like Active pickups - now there's a pickup that used to get bashed a LOT here. EMGs. My Jag-Stang has them, and that thing is a magical tonal chameleon, it can do the whole scooped mid shred thing, but with the aid of a no-load tone control, tone recovery cap on the master volume, and a Pi2 Phase inverter, I got all the old Jag-Stang sounds back, plus the cap I put on the volume is a tad too powerful, so it gets into Telecaster territory when backed down to about 7 - and that's the EMG 81 I have in the bridge which is pretty much the de-facto standard Heavy Metal active humbucker.

I run a pair of DIMarzio Super II pickups in my Hondo Paul Dean II now, which were what the Odyssey Canadian built originals had as standard equipment from the factory. Knowing Paul used P-90's in the original prototype, I think that's what he was going for because the Super II comes pretty close to that territory, and probably why it sounds good in the neck and the bridge position. They are not searing metal humbuckers either - just 8.4K with Ceramic magnets in general.

In my experience, if one wants to retain highs, the kind of pots one uses with humbuckers are important, more important than with single coils. So make sure to spend a bit extra and get something decent. My personal favourite combination is the duncan '59s with RS Guitarworks pots that are in my old Gibson The Paul.

Ain't that the truth. When I rewired my Kramer back in high school, I had a 16.6K Ohm Ceramic magnet Schaller Floyd Rose Sustainer pickup put in the bridge with the Sustainer coils put to use as part of the pickup coils - that thing was fat sounding, but once I put 250K's in there, it was muddy and awful, I took it out and put some EMG Select SEHGs in there, was right in the right tone space.

That's why I almost put 1meg pots in the Mosrite copy I built, that bridge pickup was the same sort of deal, and I was not so sure at first if pickup placement alone could compensate for the ridiculous amount of output that First Act humbucker puts out. Even when clean it's a little distorted when in full humbucker mode.

Lately I've gotten an addiction to wiring my humbuckers with Parallel/Series/Split switching. I did that to the GFS pro tubes in my First Act ME-437, loved the sound, did it to the Mosrite copy too, so much tonal variety ranging from flat-out metal machine (or surf guitar on steroids because it retains it's twang amazingly well even when the gain is cranked), to twangy, plinky surfy guitar. Parellel on the 437 is interesting, sounds like a Mustang with both pickups on - and somehow I'm getting that from a BRIDGE humbucker by wiring the coils in parallel.

[DesmondWafers]

Having learned almost everything I know about guitars from online forums (particularly this one), I was biased against humbuckers for a long time. After getting to know them, turns out I vastly prefer to most single coils, and I'm no RAWK guy. Granted my main humbucker guitar is a gretsch which aren't exactly regular humbuckers...

[Danley]

I use 500k (with no tone, on my Strat.) I still prefer singles for clean, but some humbuckers aren't garbage at least. I expect humbuckers to have a tighter, more focused, less splatty/loose distorted tone if I need to generalize, though many sacrifice definition and that "hifi" sound... But there are tighter singles and fuzzier humbuckers too.

[Aeon]

I can highly recommend Curtis Novak's Widerange humbuckers for Jazzmasters. They retain the clarity of single coils but have all the good qualities of humbuckers too. Definitely something to check out if you don't like more typical PAF-esque humbuckers.

[Danley]

I have a Rose Picasso WRHB clone in the bridge of my Jazzmaster; it's a great sounding and very unique pickup, but tonal/gain-wise it's not a good mix with a stock-ish Jazzmaster neck pickup. It has much less bass and output than a stock Jazzmaster bridge let alone neck pickup, so switching to the neck really shifts the tonal balance and sounds louder. It reminds me of a "big" Telecaster pickup.

[rumfoord]

I used to hate humbuckers, and was convinced that all I could accomplish with them was to sound like fucking Bad Company or something.

Same. With the same beginnings of an awakening.

I'm thinking it's due to a little bit of, "the tone is in the fingers". And also: it used to be that I was searching for the right sound, and for me that happened to be single coils. But just in guitars I've owned this whole durn time I think I'm a little more able to see them for what they are, instead of what they are not (if that makes any sense). Older and wiser maybe? Obviously developing a sense of exactly how to set them up and what to roll off to what (a la Mad-Mike) helps tremendously.

My recent surprise with humbuckers is with a pointy guitar that was too cheap to pass up. They are coming right out, but still: they don't sound really that bad at all.

[BobL]

I was a humbucker guy until the last maybe... 5 years? 4 years? They definitely still have a place.

Always been very impressed with Wolfetone humbuckers, and in particular his Dr. Vintage pickups: http://www.wolfetone.com/drvintage.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Danley]

So more pickup musings. Starting with the JB. I get that it's the default pickup-swap humbucker... And solos really sing/are amazing, but...

I do think it kind of alarms me that so many people use it; it's a WEIRD pickup. It's high output, but not really tight at all (like most users of high output pickups would expect.) It's tough to use for rhythm, because it always just seems to be trying to scream a solo at you behind whatever it's doing, and at the same time the looseness can mush up more intricate chords under gain. It doesn't sound like a traditional PAF, or a modern high gain humbucker; it doesn't sound bad at all, it's just so unique and so much of a one trick pony that I'm sort of amazed that the JB/Jazz combo is the 'standard' Duncan set (especially as it's such a different pickup from the Jazz... Switching from one to the other is schizophrenic.) Maybe because back in the 70s/80s, switching from any other pickup you could REALLY tell you'd switched pickups?

So I love the JB for what it does with solos/leads; and to be certain it's not the standard honky PAF tone I usually stray from. But still, it sort of puzzles me.

Next up, the Fender Diamondback I currently have in my parts/gold sparkle Strat (came in my American Deluxe, replaced by the Screamin Demon.) A really chunky, loose, rolled off sounding pickup that manages to combine not-horribly output-wise with the stock (not so amazing) Tex Mex neck and middle pickup. Very smooth high end and even tonality, but fuzzy lows. Decent, gritty sort of definition somehow. Pretty inoffensive/generic otherwise, but then I plug in the guitar with the Screamin Demon and it gets blown away.

On my list to try:
-Duncan Nazgul (clips really sound great)
-Lace Dually (never took to regular sensors, so maybe these will do it...)
-Duncan PATB