NGD + Question - Mods to make single HB guitar more versatile?

paulphoenix

I picked this one up off a local FB group yesterday for peanuts - mostly just for shits and giggles.

But after a clean up, some new strings, a bit of attention to the jack socket, plus a homebrew neck shim and setup it plays far beyond the tenner I paid for it!

The pickup doesn't sound bad but I will probably upgrade it to a 4 conductor cheapy Iron Gear HB. But what could I do to the electrics to make it more versatile? I have a couple of 500K push pull pots in the spares box plus a DPDT and 2xSPDT switches. 

Any suggestions? 

DrCornelius

I think they may be too busy with their day jobs and looking after the site but there’s no harm in asking I suppose ?

guitars4you

The obvious option is a coil tap option on the h/bucker - Personally I'd go with the partial coil tap idea as used by PRS for a far more realistic single coil voice

Other than then just a good vol pot with a good taper as that should dial in/out tone/gain as required - Remember in a tongue in cheek way that is why EVH called it a 'tone' pot

StefB

If you can stretch to it, maybe consider a Barnacle pickup instead.

ICBM

Coil split
Series/parallel
Bass-cut switch

- basically all do the same thing in that they make the sound quieter and thinner, more like a single coil. The last two remain hum-cancelling.

Preset 'honky' tone using a different value cap from the tone control
Tone cap value switch

- basically do a similar thing, give you a 'cocked wah' type sound instead of the usual softened tone.

'Blower' switch - pickup straight to output jack.

Keefy

Replace the humbucker with a HB-size P90.

That is all 

JayGee

Seymour Duncan P-Rails...

https://www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/p-rails

...that and a few switches will cover a heck of a lot of ground.

Bennyboy-UK

StefB said:

If you can stretch to it, maybe consider a Barnacle pickup instead.

Ahrrrrrrrrrr, me hearties!

Funkfingers

DiMarzio makes bright yellow humbuckers and control knobs. They may also offer yellow humbucker mounting surrounds.

On CY serial number Squier STRAT guitars and the Hello Kitty models, my default choice is an EMG-81 … which I usually detest.

andy_k

I did one once that just had a push pull pot, pulled it worked as a wah, so I guess it was pull-tone.
You could probably add a switch to get coil split, or series / parallel, or 2 to do both.
I get 5 tones from my Esquire setup, Vol, Tone, 5 way switch, and that is with a single coil pickup.

TTBZ

I'd just do a split or parallel with a reasonably powerful pickup (so the split doesn't sound completely limp) and call it a day. The "eldred" style wiring things don't make it sound like a neck pickup, just sounds a bit crap and it ruins the simplicity of a single pickup guitar for me. 

grungebob

I’ve got one of these and it’s got 250k pots, they work really well with the humbucker to give me lots of tonal variations 

Adey

I know there is probably an obvious answer to this, but why do the Forum's moderators need to sort out an issue with single humbucker guitars? Haven't they got more important things to do?

Funkfingers

Adey said:

why do the Forum's moderators need to sort out an issue with single humbucker guitars?

Some of ‘em haven’t posted about project instruments for ages. It’s about time some of ‘em got their fingers out.

HAL9000

My two pen'worth - I converted a Tele to an Esquire-alike but without the three-way switch. What I've found is that a single-pickup guitar is a very different beast and it's a learning curve to get the best from it, and for a while I genuinely thought I'd made a  mistake getting shot of the front pickup. However setting the amp with a quite a bit more gain than I'd normally use, and a bit on the bright side means that the volume and tone controls can give a huge range of sounds. It really is a case of working out how to make a single-pickup guitar work for you.

paulphoenix

Cheers for all the suggestions . I’ve decided to make this a “how little can I spend type of project” so for now I’ll be adding a blower switch and changing the pots. The pickup change will have to wait as I’ve come to realise the hardware on this low end guitar is shite, and a worthy first upgrade would be new machine heads to improve the tuning stability. 

TTony

paulphoenix said:

 I’ve come to realise the hardware on this low end guitar is shite, and a worthy first upgrade would be new machine heads to improve the tuning stability. 

Will Trigger be getting a new broom?

paulphoenix said:
a 4 conductor cheapy Iron Gear HB.

If you've not tried them before, you might be pleasantly surprised by how good some of those IG pickups are.  Cheap yes, but definitely not nasty.

Whitecat

Kill switch...

paulphoenix

So I finished my re-wire today (as the mods silently chose to ignore my thread title request) using only components from the spares box and ended up with: 

50's wiring 
Push/pull B500K volume with partial coil cut using a 6K8 resistor (after modding the HB to 3 conductor)
Push/pull B500K tone to switch between a 0.022uF & 0.047uF cap
Blower switch 
New jack socket
New bridge ground wire (god it was noisy beforehand)

Overall I'm pleased with the results, but I'm not noticing a massive difference between the two caps (in full HB or coil cut mode) when switching between them, and all the changes happen between 0-3 on the tone dial.

Is this due to the B500K pots/50's wiring/6k8 partial cut resistor or simply down to an inarticulate and high output (16.4K) cheapy humbucker? What value caps could I put in to help this? 

EDIT/UPDATE: Out with the B500K push/pull tone pot and in with an A500K. I umm'd and ahh'd about cap values but went with a 0.01µF and the circuit all works perfectly now (very happy with range the 0.01µF gives me) in both full HB and coil cut. No more DPDT switch to change cap values but it don't matter none as I'll save that for another project.

Note to all - Don't use linear pots for tone controls.

I've also filed down the nut slots (Heath Robinson style) to improve action and intonation over the first 3 frets, and I have some new tuning pegs coming too.  

All in all a great beater guitar for >£25. I'm liking it so much I might just treat ol' Spongey to a new pickup.