Are humbuckers more forgiving with distortion pedals?

bbill335

My main guitars are:
-66 Mustang
-83 Tokai strat
-~82 Yamaha LP copy

Amp is either a Traynor YGM3 or a Selmer T&B50. It's hard to make any of these guitars sound properly bad and yet I seem to have fallen into a pattern of trying various dirt peds, being a bit disappointed, but finding that they sound great with the Yamaha. In particular, the Box of Rock really shines with the Yamaha, making me feel more like Cream-era Clapton than ever.

Has anyone else observed the same kind of thing?

57Deluxe

Yes - you get better rock/drive tones with HBs but you get more gritty, bluesy grind with SCs

guitarfishbay

Depends on the sound you want - humbuckers are generally fatter sounding which you may prefer with distortion

Winny_Pooh

Yes, generally as they smooth the top end more. You should look at getting smoother darker OD pedals. Try a Nobels ODR-1 (or the VS open road, a clone), blackstone mosfet, or guvnor derivative. 

bbill335

Winny_Pooh said:

Yes, generally as they smooth the top end more. You should look at getting smoother darker OD pedals. Try a Nobels ODR-1 (or the VS open road, a clone), blackstone mosfet, or guvnor derivative. 

I had a mk1 Guvnor for a while and it sounded great but the switch was unreliable. Current prices on them are kind of crazy, nothing like a couple of years ago. The Box of Rock would be more useful with better EQ controls (and a larger enclosure!)

steamabacus

I find humbuckers are naturally a bit more compressed than single coils which can smooth out overdriven sounds. Single coils are naturally 'spikey' - great for aggression but harder to get a singing, sustaining tone.

A good compressor before the overdrive/distortion can work wonders. Strat bridge p/u tones can be helped by modding the tone controls to work on all 3 pickups (with either bridge & middle or middle & neck sharing one of the pots) - a strat bridge p/u with the tone backed off can sound surprisingly fat. The 'greasebucket' mod on the bridge tone control (a simple resistor/capacitor change) is quite good for certain drive tones too.

Alternatively, just turn the amp up really, really loud! (which will naturally compress the sound anyway).

midlifecrisis

I've found humbuckers in isolation sound fuller and smoother but in a loud bandmix sc cut through more and I find easier to control

Corvus

The mids makes a difference too, hence P90s can work a dirt pedal hard as well.

Sassafras

I prefer single coils through pretty much every OD or distortion pedal I've tried because they give more clarity and definition to the sound.
Humbuckers tend to sound OK used with natural amp distortion. Then again, I really don't like humbuckers.

richardhomer

Distortion adds high order harmonics to the incoming signal. Fender type single coils tend to be scooped in the mids, with a very clear, extended high end; hence distortion tends to exacerbate this, making for an often 'fizzy' tone. So in that sense, it's often easier to get a more pleasing tone from humbuckers.

The trick with single coils, is to not use too much gain and preferably a pedal which emphasises the mids, to thicken the tone. This is why a lot of Strat players like Tube Screamers and their derivatives.