I think I've reached a crossroads...

I recently took my Am Std and have wired it with an E model megaswitch from Schaller. I've bought 2 duncan "little" humbuckers, the 59 for the neck and the jb for the bridge.

I realized that with my singles, I only lived in the 2 and 4 for that hollow quack and then the full neck for solos. Rarely would I go to the full bridge and NEVER the middle.

I'm reminded of when I bought my Marshall and tried it with my kinman loaded strat, and was very ho hum. Then tried it with a humbucker and was immediately smiling.

My OD always was missing something. I could get close, but no cigar.

Now, I've split the humbuckers in 2 and 4 so I get the notch, hollow strat, and full on humbucker with the neck and bridge.

The bridge humbucker is what I've always missed. It just sounds better thru OD's and makes everything sound "right". MY rig is WAY more versatile now and I am really digging the tones.

I don't think the notches on typical SSH or HSH configs without a push/pull or one of these switches it really splitting the coils. That's why I've never dug the tones before.

I wonder how many of you SC users out there really use them by themselves, like 3 and 1 position?

I am 95% a humbucker guy. But when I do use my Strat I usually have it in the 2 or 4 position and sometimes the 5 for some lead stuff. I will still use 1 if I am playing a song that would be better with a HB and just roll the treble off a bit. For the bluesy SRV type stuff I still like position 2 the best. I never use 3. Of course I am always knocking the 5 way switch around by accident. Damn thing is always in my way.

Did anyone follow that?

Ah hell, just give me my Les Paul and I'll shut up

I've got a Yamaha Weddington, which has the Yammie 4 pole switch in it. I call it my Res Parr. My apologies for the tasteless joke. That's got all the notch tones too, but no trem, which I've become addicted to again. Everybody's gotta have a vice - -

How's that Browny working out - - did you get it yet??? Does it have 4 conductor wiring?

Yupper~~~ I went thru the same thing a few years ago, I was deeeeep into vintage strats , but just couldnt take the single coil noise anymore when playing clean..... so I ended up with Kinmans in the strat and Duncans in the tele as a happy compromise....... and now that Im back to rockish tones filtertrons are even better for me...

Donner - I've never tried the filtertrons, or other "non standard" pickups. NEver even p90s

I'm going to have to read your post a bit more, maybe another cool direction to check out.

I should have the Browney by the weekend. I am gonna try and make some clips comparing it to to a Gibson 498, a Duncan 59 and a Gibson 57 classic.

I kind of have the opposite problem...I can't find a humbucker sound that I like...the neck pus are always too muddy and the bridge pus too shrill and the balance between the two is nonexistant..but I play mostly RnB/Blues rhythm guitar so my need for articulation is primary as sometimes I have to cut through a dense mix with keys and horns so my needs are probably a little different...

I had my first and last humbucker guitar in 1969 and have been playing single coils ever since...first strats and when I played strats I played 95% neck alone and once in awhile the in-betweens but had a hard time with the notches as they never cut through...

In 92 I bought a tele and it hung on my wall for 10 years until one day i picked it up and promptly sold all my strats and I have been playing teles ever since...90% neck alone and the rest in the middle...I love the articulation and if I need to rock out the bridge pickup is my LesPaul!!

About six months ago I acquired a humbucker guitar which at the time had Gibson P-94's (humbucking sized P-90's) in it...I have just ordered a set of Wagner Crossroads to see if I can get single coil-like articulation from humbucking pickups...if so I am not against adding it to the mix but for now the tele gives me everything I need and then some...

I never came to terms with the strat and believe me I tried!!


Chow,
Seegs

Seegs - - how is the bridge pickup on your tele a Les Paul? What do you have in there?

With my setup, 3 is the neck and bridge screw coils, like a Tele. In fact, that's why this switch was invented, to make 3 sound like a tele on Strats.

In my band, we play a good amount of funk/disco. For example, LE Freak. Cheesy, but Nile Rodgers is a badass, and I think that song is the quintessential funk guitar tone.

I'm using the 3, or the "tele" setting for that song. Big and articulate and sounds damn good.

My story is closer to Seegs than anyone else. I used buckers for years because I liked the power and thicker tone - which worked better for rock stuff. But once I got away from playing straight rock and doing more R&B, Blues, country, etc, the single coils were better. I don't view either as being "better" per se, more a matter of which is more appropriate for the music being played.

I like both single coils and humbuckers but I'm mostly a Strat guy with the usual S-S-S configuration. I use all switch positions but I actually don't use the in-between ones much. To get a nice lead tone from the bridge pup I wire the second tone control to that pup, and then adjust the pickup heights with that tone set at about 5. That way I get a beefier tone that still cuts through nicely. When I want to play clean I turn the tone up a bit, and when I want some quack I turn the tone full up which doesn't raise the volume much but increases the quack factor.

Yeah I would agree Seegs- I have a Duncan vintage stack in the bridge of my Tele and it is killer with ODs and its perfect with the Red Rooster Booster - there is a magic between the RRB a nd Tele bridge pups, and an OD infront of the RRB is 'yeahbaby' !

I'll agree that it depends on the music. But the only sound you miss is 1,3 and 5. 3 and 5 are almost useless. Now I also wired my tone to go to the bridge when my strat was standard and it's better than without a tone, but it is still not the sound I want when I swipe that 5 way to the back. I'm sure it's a product of my past, being a child of the 80's, but when I go to the bridge, it's time to rock.

The neck is the compromise, I've tried the lil59, Hot Stack, and the Dimarzio 54. The Dimarzio is nice, but out of phase with the fender SC and the Duncan. If I make the middle SC get along with the Dimarzio, then the Duncan won't work. Larry and Seymour cage match...

I can't stand the sound of ANY bridge pickup, single or hum. 95% of my playing is through a neck single-coil, ALTHOUGH sometimes it's a fake single, like the Dimarzio Fast Track in ome of my HMs. But it still sounds very sweet and clear. On two of my HMs, I put single coils into the bridge humbucker slot, thinking that the extra space between the bridge and the pickup would take away some of the tinniness. No luck.

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Originally posted by DonneR:
Yeah I would agree Seegs- I have a Duncan vintage stack in the bridge of my Tele and it is killer with ODs and its perfect with the Red Rooster Booster - there is a magic between the RRB a nd Tele bridge pups, and an OD infront of the RRB is 'yeahbaby' !

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Interesting Don - but that's a humbucker in there. Granted, wired in series for the clarity, but not the traditional SC. Put a on/off/on on that thing and you'd have even more tones.

I admit, I don't have much time on Tele's. Always seemed limiting with only 3 notches

I like both single coils and humbuckers, but if I had to pick just one it would be a single coil. Just more versatile imho. It's been a while since I played a traditional strat, but when I did I used all positions. That being said the neck pickup on a strat is to die for to me - that is THE TONE. I love the notch positions as well. Middle alone is useable for some rhythm stuff. The bridge alone - with the right bridge pickup - can be cool as well. I also liked the sound of the neck/bridge - almost tele like but not quite.

As for humbuckers, they seem to excell at distorted tones. I'll dial in a good clean humbucker tone (middle toggle, blend volumes to taste) and think I've found it, then plug in a single coil and realize humbuckers just aren't as good clean as single coils. But when you want to rawk, it's hard to beat a good bridge humbucker.

Sorry John that my explanation wasn't clearer...I just meant that the crunch factor of my tele bridge pickup does not leave me longing for a LesPaul in essence it is my LesPaul...

I play two teles both with Fralin Vintage stock neck pickups and Blues Special bridge pickups and I have gone from playing Jazz standards... very poorly I might add...to lousy AC/DC impersonations to RnB/Blues just by switching pickups...like Donner said the RRB is on quite a bit with the teles and that really thickens things up as well as the LGW which gives my tele an almost semi-hollow thickness...I call my LGW BB King in a box...

Yeah I agree Niles Rodgers is great...Live at Budokan...!!

I'll bet you can get get great funk tones from splitting hums...I had a Yamaha SG2200 with split coils and I actually loved the split sounds better than the full hums so I let it go...in fact a lot of my favourite RnB/funcky stuff was played with hums...I just have never been able to recreate that sound for me...I can always get there with my tele though...!!

I have a good feeling about the set of Crossroads I have coming though...I decdided not to split them as I want to explore working with a humbuckers only guitar hopefully they will be articulate enough...!

Chow,
Seegs

I have to go with the single coil crowd here. My strat loaded with Bill Lawrence L280s's is definitely my go to guitar. I find both clean and distorted that single coils have a more dynamic sound to them, whereas my Les Paul sounds somewhat muffled & leaning towards one dimensional. Believe me, I'm trying to get what I want out of the LP...replaced the stock pups with SD Seth Lovers and will soon have one of those RS kits installed...maybe my mind will change...

I use my tele's bridge pickup quite a bit...it has chewy grind and the right amount of punch and brightness. Most strats, I have also had a problem with the bridge...but if a good tele has nice meaty pickups, that bridge is my favorite alltime sound.

I tend to use the middle position alot for rhythm playing, then switch to the bridge for alot of my rock/blues/funk solos or the neck (which sounds like a strat neck) for jazzier to blues solos.

Interesting thread here. I think that the SC neck position is flat-out the BEST out there, but I fully recognize the need for more than one sound. Having said that, I think that singles are best on their own for clean playing, and humbuckers best with some or alot of dirt (all positions). I haven't been happy with any single coil sound with high gain until I tried some Lace Hot Golds. In light of what I wrote above, they really do a humbuckerish breakup with dirt and play like single coils when clean. Of course, they don't beat a good set of sSC's for blues and clean playing, but then again, they don't hum as much! I also favor weak humbuckers, like the Seth Lovers because they get a much better clean tone (which I like almost as much as SC's). I also don't use the notch positions much on a strat, but I have a tele with some steel pole SC's, and it does a VERY interesting, focused SC tone with the P-90 vibe added in. At the end of the day, this is why we own multiple guitars -no single guitar/pickup gets all the good tones. Guess I'm sayign the same thing as Guitartman...

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Originally posted by John_M:

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Originally posted by DonneR:
Yeah I would agree Seegs- I have a Duncan vintage stack in the bridge of my Tele and it is killer with ODs and its perfect with the Red Rooster Booster - there is a magic between the RRB a nd Tele bridge pups, and an OD infront of the RRB is 'yeahbaby' !

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Interesting Don - but that's a humbucker in there. Granted, wired in series for the clarity, but not the traditional SC. Put a on/off/on on that thing and you'd have even more tones.

I admit, I don't have much time on Tele's. Always seemed limiting with only 3 notches

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Yeah I was agreeing with the Tele bridge as Les Paul sound-- ie humbucker -- great rock sound in a Tele bridgebucker