HSS Pickup question

stickyfiddle

Just pondering on the do-it-all guitar question after a bottle of sake… 

Has anyone ever done a humbucker intended for an HSS layout that is a regular PAF but has an extra bit of single coil somewhere to be included for a bit more beef when you split it? Is it doable, or is there some reason it wouldn’t be good? 

Funkfingers

Yes. Ibanez made a three-coil pickup for their Chinese-made SA series. 

Like the EMG-89, the pickup is always hum-cancelling. Side by side coils in humbucker mode. Vertically stacked coils for the Stratty sound.

I am very fond of the Seymour Duncan TB-16 '59/Custom hybrid. In brief, '59 screw coil and Custom stud coil. Splitting to the latter makes for a more convincing "in between" sound when combined with the middle pickup.

Oil City Pickups' The Creature may be constructed along similar principles.

ICBM

That’s essentially what a partial split using a resistor does - it allows a little of the cancelled coil to remain on, so it gives a less thin sound than a full split.

It could be done with the pickup itself - you would need one tapped coil and one standard. The tapped coil would probably need thinner gauge wire, so it might not sound *exactly* like either a single coil or a normal PAF-type, but it might be close enough.

Funkfingers

Until recently, coil tapping within the individual coils of a humbucker was an almost exclusively Bartolini thing. 

Alegree Chameleon humbuckers appear to work on this principle. The schematic diagrams for exploiting all of the sonic possibilities are fiendish.

For full disclosure, I have a TB-16 in the bridge position of my Fender American Performer Stratocaster. The centre pickup is a certain SSL-2 previously owned by ICBM. 

SSL-2 + 8k stud coil = slightly aggressive "in between" sound, suitable for Rock. 

SSL-2 + neck pickup = pukka Strat in between sound.

DrBob

Isn’t that what Oil City’s Brassknuckle does ? 

Bennyboy-UK

There are also https://www.riograndepickups.com/tallboy-2 whihc has been around for yonks. I had one a few years back - it was pretty impressive in both modes.

Cheers,
Ben.

timmypix

I'm fairly sure the Brassknuckle - and I'm sure there's a Duncan equivalent - is a humbucker effectively made of two Strat coils next to each other in series.

You then get pickups like the Creature or BKP VHII where the coil offset is really exaggerated so the splits are still strong on one coil.

But as usual, ICBM's hit it on the head - what @stickyfiddle is describing is a partial split, where not all of the "off" coil is going to ground and so the split has more body and less of a volume drop while not sounding all that different. I've got it in a couple of my guitars and it works brilliantly. It won't fool anyone on a recording but it more than does the job in a live setting.

octatonic

You want to use pickup that works with 250k pots.
Not all of them do.
Duncan JB, Suhr SSV+ have been goo options for me in the past.

Or use 500k pots and a resistor for the single coils so that it behaves like a 250k pot.

I am personally wary of putting anything too hot in a HSS.
My Anderson Classic has a Suhr SSV+ with 2x ML single coils and they are well balanced.

LionAquaLooper

octatonic said:

You want to use pickup that works with 250k pots.
Not all of them do.
Duncan JB, Suhr SSV+ have been goo options for me in the past.

Or use 500k pots and a resistor for the single coils so that it behaves like a 250k pot.

I am personally wary of putting anything too hot in a HSS.
My Anderson Classic has a Suhr SSV+ with 2x ML single coils and they are well balanced.

Ha this is exactly the same custom Suhr set I bought when i was looking for a balanced HSS setup.  Funnily enough Suhr usually pair SSV humbuckers on their guitars but I wanted something hotter.  I originally ordered ML Classics with a DSH+ but that humbucker was way too dark on account of its output being too high.  Settled on the SSV+ and never looked back.  Pairs so well with single coils and position 2 isn't thin at all.  ( though I did wire it per Suhr's official HSS wiring diagram with a megaswitch and exact same pot, cap and resistor values).  

octatonic

SSV+ is a great pickup.
It is not too hot for the singles but still has the grunt I need when I need it.

Funkfingers

DrBob said:

Isn’t that what Oil City’s Brassknuckle does ? 

Brassknuckle amounts to two single coils, including rod magnet polepieces, mounted on a humbucker baseplate.

Creature is regular humbucker coils but of two wildly different resistances and, quite possibly, different copper wire gauges. 

The Duncan TB-16 is one coil of c.8k and the other of 4k. The figures for the OCP Creature are anybody's guess. 

OilCityPickups

Funkfingers said:

DrBob said:

Isn’t that what Oil City’s Brassknuckle does ? 

Brassknuckle amounts to two single coils, including rod magnet polepieces, mounted on a humbucker baseplate.

Creature is regular humbucker coils but of two wildly different resistances and, quite possibly, different copper wire gauges. 

The Duncan TB-16 is one coil of c.8k and the other of 4k. The figures for the OCP Creature are anybody's guess. 

Creature is in the ballpark of the Duncan resistance wise but has better hum cancelling. 

Funkfingers

Good answer, sir. 

The Duncan hybrid is very much the sum of pre-existing parts, conjured into existence by a Duncan pickups fanboi.

guitarfishbay

octatonic said:

You want to use pickup that works with 250k pots.
Not all of them do.
Duncan JB, Suhr SSV+ have been goo options for me in the past.

Or use 500k pots and a resistor for the single coils so that it behaves like a 250k pot.

I am personally wary of putting anything too hot in a HSS.
My Anderson Classic has a Suhr SSV+ with 2x ML single coils and they are well balanced.

This has been my experience too. I’ve preferred a less hot bridge humbucker when mixing with real singles. There’s still a decent kick going to the bridge humbucker anyway 

SSV and V60LPs worked well for me in a strat. I went the 500k plus resistor for the singles route. 

I find I prefer position 2 not to auto split, as I quite like the tone of PAF plus single coil. Push pull or mini toggle for partial split via resistor for the bridge humbucker sounds better than a fully split PAF to me

maltingsaudio

Pickup arrangement  On myY2D works really well 

humps.b

@guitarfishbay ; How would you describe the full humbucker and single tone by comparison? I've got a Dimarzio chopper set to autosplit, but I can't say I'm fussed about that traditional position 2 sound 

roberty

octatonic said:

SSV+ is a great pickup.
It is not too hot for the singles but still has the grunt I need when I need it.

Suhr humbuckers are so good. I have them in two of my Les Pauls

ICBM said:

That’s essentially what a partial split using a resistor does - it allows a little of the cancelled coil to remain on, so it gives a less thin sound than a full split.

It's hard to adequately describe how much better partial split is than full split. PRS use 1.1k on the neck and 2.2k on the bridge. I've experimented with different values but those seem spot on to me. Genuine great sounds, no compromise

guitarfishbay

humps.b said:

@guitarfishbay ;; How would you describe the full humbucker and single tone by comparison? I've got a Dimarzio chopper set to autosplit, but I can't say I'm fussed about that traditional position 2 sound 

A chopper autosplitting is quite different because it’s such a thin rail coil. I’ve tried it myself though only in a neck position in a 24 fret HSS. I haven’t actually compared to non autosplit in pos 4, I changed it for a Fast Track 1 as I wanted something brighter, I don’t split that pickup at all as it already sounds like a big single coil

With regards to the position 2 full humbucker plus single coil tone it’s thicker and less quacky than a typical strat position 2. I find a full autosplit with a PAF type can get a bit brighter and thinner, but the advantage is it can be noise cancelling (there is some hum adding a single coil and a humbucker together).

On balance I’d rather have the thicker sound of the full humbucker as my standard option in pos 2. I strongly prefer the partial split for the single coil tone on a PAF bridge, a full split can get bright and thin compared to real singles. The partial split pos 2 tone is thinner than the full humbucker pos 2 tone but again a bit thicker than a typical Strat.

As far as compromises go, that’s been my preference for a guitar that balances to my taste across each selection.

With hotter humbuckers I’ve gone for full auto splits, which do work well for the in between positions. However using single coils on their own sound drastically different to the humbuckers in that case, which I find less useful 

CasperCaster

stickyfiddle said:

Just pondering on the do-it-all guitar question after a bottle of sake… 

Has anyone ever done a humbucker intended for an HSS layout that is a regular PAF but has an extra bit of single coil somewhere to be included for a bit more beef when you split it? Is it doable, or is there some reason it wouldn’t be good? 

Partial splits have already been covered and can be very effective.

There are various other options if you are purchasing a new pickup, e.g. a tapped (as opposed to solely split) humbucker:

There are a couple of ways these can be implemented. Firstly a pickup where extra windings are added to the primary coil when the secondary coil is earthed (an example is the Fender double tap humbucker).

An alternative is an asymmetric split where the coil junction isn't used to split the coil, but a tap in the second coil is used , such that the secondary coil is actually contributing some turns when split, and of course these extra windings are actually on the secondary coil rather than being extra windings on the primary coil. This second approach retains some hum cancelling, and is how some Gemini pickups implement their coil split.

Dave_Mc

Gemini (and maybe also Catswhisker and Alegree) does something a bit like that- one coil is a genuine single coil with rod magnets, and the other coil is more humbucker-like. The single coil side is also tapped in humbucker mode so it doesn't overpower the humbucker coil in humbucker mode.

Obviously it's not identical to a PAF in humbucker mode, though. But it sounds pretty humbuckery, and get very good split tones.

SlopeSoarer

Not a PAF but I had a Lindy Fralin in an AXL Torino and it did a pretty good single coil.