Single coil sized ‘humbuckers’ - how close are they?

Crazyblue1779 · July 18

I’ve just picked up a rather lovely Mexican telecaster and I think this could become my main squeeze for a while.

Although I’m impressed with the bite that a tele SC bridge pick up has, I need something hotter for metal.

I’ve zero experience with single coil sized HB but I’m thinking that might be a good option for the bridge. How close (for heavy distortion) do they come to an actual HB?

Or do I look at getting this one routed at the bridge for a full sized HB ( from what I’m lead to believe this isn’t an overly difficult job for an experienced tech?)

Any thoughts?

Revolutions · July 18

The endless list of professional musicians who use hot rails should probably speak for itself. I’ve always been interested in the DiMarzio chopper as well, although never looked past Seymour Duncan rails pickups.

since I’ve gotten older & less angry, the Cool rails is one of the best pickups ever.

oh, how close are they? They’ve got their own thing going on. But so does every single Humbucker.

But if I were you I’d go for a Bareknuckle Piledriver. I toured for years with one of those in my Tele. Amazing pickup that gives you tight, controlled telecaster with ridiculously high output, and yet it’s easy to tame. Metal for days. You have to own one to really understand how good it is.

ICBM · July 18

Not that close, but they still have a usefully thicker, more powerful and aggressive sound. The DiMarzio Chopper T is a good place to start.

Routing for a humbucker and finding a suitable HB-cutout bridge that fits the body holes isn't *that* difficult, but it's not trivial either - I would try the small pickup option first.

Funkfingers · July 19

In my experience, the Duncan SHRT-1B Hot Rails is a one trick pony. Excellent for overdriven filth but far too mid-heavy for clean.

The Pearly Gates for Telecaster model is far more versatile.

I have DiMarzio Chopper pickups in the bridge position of a couple of ST type guitars. Plenty of chunk for overdrive. Not as twangy as the Fast Track T - not even with 500k pots.

Leftfield suggestion - Lace Sensor red.

Crazyblue1779 said:
Although I’m impressed with the bite that a tele SC bridge pick up has, I need something hotter for metal.

SD BG-1400?

OilCityPickups · July 19

ICBM said:

Not that close, but they still have a usefully thicker, more powerful and aggressive sound. The DiMarzio Chopper T is a good place to start.

Routing for a humbucker and finding a suitable HB-cutout bridge that fits the body holes isn't *that* difficult, but it's not trivial either - I would try the small pickup option first.

Spot on.

The actual reasons for the fact that SC humbuckers sound neither like single coils or full size humbuckers is fascinating.
If you want to stick closely to the form factor of say a Strat pickup but put two coils in you obviously have multiple size constraints.
One of the earliest example of a mainstream companies making a hum cancelling version of a popular single coil was Gibson with the PAF ... they simply took the 10,000 turns of 42awg wire used on their P90 and split it 5000 (or so) turns on two narrower bobbins with exactly the same coil height. The result was allowed to produce a wider footprint ... and in fact can come very close to P90 tones. Not exact ... but a nice sound none the less.

Now let's go back to our Strat pickup: Typically it will have about 8000 turns of 42awg wire with a much taller coil than say a P90 (one of the reasons for its tone) ... it's extremely difficult to fit two 4000 turns bobbins full of 42 awg wire next to each other to make a reasonably good low output Strat sounding SC sized humbucker .... it's impossible to fill those bobbins with the 5000 turns of 42awg wire needed say for a PAF while reducing the coil height needed to make the coil shape/aspect ratio the same as a normal humbucker. So the manufacturers compromise and reduce the wire gauge to get more turns on ... and this leads to a 'high output tone' on even a relatively low output pickup. This is made worse by the narrow space between the coils reading a short length of string and thus favouring a relatively narrow range of frequencies.

If you want the sound of a full sized humbucker then put one in end of story ... SC sized ones as @ICBM says sound like what they are ... which can be very good indeed - but they sound like 'mini humbuckers' not full sized ones.

fretmeister · July 19

I'm a big fan of the Dimarzio Chopper for this sort of thing.

Much better than the overpowered Hotrails. The Chopper is actually an excellent neck pickup too.

Crazyblue1779 · July 19

OilCityPickups said:

If you want the sound of a full sized humbucker then put one in end of story ... SC sized ones as @ICBM says sound like what they are ... which can be very good indeed - but they sound like 'mini humbuckers' not full sized ones.

Yeah this is realistically what I want. Ideally I’d like the guitar be able to cover all bases so I think I’m most likely going to go down the route of a full size humbucker with a coil split.

So,if this does end up being the path I take, is widening the space for the bridge pickup a relatively easy job for someone who knows what they’re doing?

I’m lucky to have a couple of really good techs local to me so finding someone shouldn’t be an issue.

And yes, before anyone says it, I probably could have just sourced a tele with a HB in the bridge but where’s the fun in that lol.

OilCityPickups · July 19

Crazyblue1779 said:

OilCityPickups said:

If you want the sound of a full sized humbucker then put one in end of story ... SC sized ones as @ICBM says sound like what they are ... which can be very good indeed - but they sound like 'mini humbuckers' not full sized ones.

Yeah this is realistically what I want. Ideally I’d like the guitar be able to cover all bases so I think I’m most likely going to go down the route of a full size humbucker with a coil split.

So,if this does end up being the path I take, is widening the space for the bridge pickup a relatively easy job for someone who knows what they’re doing?

I’m lucky to have a couple of really good techs local to me so finding someone shouldn’t be an issue.

And yes, before anyone says it, I probably could have just sourced a tele with a HB in the bridge but where’s the fun in that lol.

It's easy for a good tech with the right tools. :-)

ICBM · July 19

Crazyblue1779 said:

Yeah this is realistically what I want. Ideally I’d like the guitar be able to cover all bases so I think I’m most likely going to go down the route of a full size humbucker with a coil split.

So,if this does end up being the path I take, is widening the space for the bridge pickup a relatively easy job for someone who knows what they’re doing?

The most important thing is to find the correct bridge first - it needs to fit the string hole positions (critical) and the screw hole positions (desirable but not critical) relative to where the saddles need to be, which is related to where the front edge of the bridge is. Depending on the existing bridge, this may not be straightforward.

Once you have the right bridge, routing a hole under it in the correct place for the pickup is easy for anyone with the right tools.

If it does prove too difficult, the Chopper T also splits and works well both split and in parallel - three distinct sounds, all good. A friend has an Esquire with one in that I wired up like that.

guitarfishbay · July 19

Chopper T is excellent. Usable with a partial
split too. Definitely worth trying before routing IMO

I’ve tried hotter in the strat style (up to Tone Zone S) and feel its diminishing returns beyond the Chopper for my tastes in the bridge. Single sized humbuckers sound a bit more narrow in extension, so by the time you’re getting hotter and losing more high end it can start to sound more congested and less open than if you’d just used a standard size humbucker.

As an aside, I have liked both the Pro Track and Air Norton S in the neck if there’s a full size HB in the bridge.

Funkfingers · July 19

guitarfishbay said:

I have liked both the Pro Track and Air Norton S in the neck if there’s a full size HB in the bridge.

This.

The Air Norton S is great in both series and parallel modes. Perfect for the DiMarzio/Ibanez 2502N HH circuit.

Revolutions · July 19

Revolutions said:

if I were you I’d go for a Bareknuckle Piledriver. I toured for years with one of those in my Tele. Amazing pickup that gives you tight, controlled telecaster with ridiculously high output, and yet it’s easy to tame. Metal for days. You have to own one to really understand how good it is.

@Crazyblue1779 - quoting myself, but don’t overlook this before you start thinking about chopping a guitar up. You don’t need a Humbucker for metal with a Tele… https://youtu.be/3GkBLyIzKjs

matt_sefton · July 19

No love for a Duncan Little’59? I was thinking about putting one in my Silver Sky.

Revolutions · July 19

matt_sefton said:

No love for a Duncan Little’59? I was thinking about putting one in my Silver Sky.

I had a little 59 in a Tele for a while. It fed back like crazy. Sounded cool, but hard to control.

OilCityPickups · July 19

matt_sefton said:

No love for a Duncan Little’59? I was thinking about putting one in my Silver Sky.

Little 59 is okay ... sounds nothing like a PAF mind.

JayGee · July 19

I have one of the old Kent Armstrong Sky branded, far east sourced “Warm Rails” SC sized humbucker pickups in my deeply unfashionable ‘80s Telecaster, It doesn’t sound like a full sized humbucker but it is usefully louder, warmer, and all round “bigger” than a regular telecaster and it’s a very usable sound in its own right. it’s wired to a push/pull which gives a choice of both coils in series or parallel which I’ve found works lots better than the usual coil split. Again in parallel mode it’s not the same as a regular Telecaster (or any other single coil) pickup but it’s usefully brighter, quieter, and thinner than series and very usable in its own right.

Sadly it’s gone microphonic now to the point it’s not really usable much above round the house level but I still like the way it sounds and I’d really like something similar to replace it if anyone has a suggestion…

TTBZ · July 19

I didn't like the Piledriver when I tried a guitar with it. Didn't have much character compared to the other Tele I borrowed with a True Grit set which I thought was much better. Too dark and flat, didn't have that tele "depth" when you dig in (can't think how else to describe it!). The True Grit sounded like a tele but "more" with less of that hollow/thin singlecoil scoop.

I've liked the Chopper in a strat, not tried it in a tele but seems to work fine for Kotzen!

ICBM · July 19

I forgot to mention earlier - the Chopper has significantly mismatched coils, so if you split it you need to select the hotter coil (which I think is the bridge-side one).

The odd thing in the Esquire is that the split sounds more like a Tele middle position and the parallel sounds more like a single coil, which is the opposite of what I was expecting. It gives something not totally unlike neck/middle/bridge on a Tele, but from just the bridge pickup.

simonhpieman · July 22

I have an Air Norton S and Tone Zone S in a 1973 Mustang.

It keeps up pretty well with my Thinline Tele.

One thing to ignore is the "15k" or whatever readings. The little pickups have higher readings but for many of the reasons noted above tend to punch a bit below their weight compared to what you'd expect from a full size HB with the same reading.

I found DiMarzio's website quite useful in describing tones and good pickup pairings.

Do be aware that if you get the black painted rails, the paint will wear off almost immediately and discolour a white/cream pickup cover. I'd go chrome next time.

fretfinder · July 23

Joe Barden bridge pickup? I did have one in a Tele once but it was so long ago I’ve forgotten what it sounded like other than being quite ‘hifi’.

Svartmetall · July 23

Crazyblue1779 said:

I’ve just picked up a rather lovely Mexican telecaster and I think this could become my main squeeze for a while.

Although I’m impressed with the bite that a tele SC bridge pick up has, I need something hotter for metal.

I’ve zero experience with single coil sized HB but I’m thinking that might be a good option for the bridge. How close (for heavy distortion) do they come to an actual HB?

Or do I look at getting this one routed at the bridge for a full sized HB ( from what I’m lead to believe this isn’t an overly difficult job for an experienced tech?)

Any thoughts?

I have a Seymour Duncan JB Jr. in the bridge on a Mex Strat, and it's excellent. A Jailhouse Rail from Iron Gear is no bad thing either (and a lot cheaper) but I find the JB Jr. is somewhat fatter-sounding, so that may be closer to what you need.

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Single coil sized ‘humbuckers’ - how close are they?

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