1H Guitars

[Holy Diver]

Lets hear your opinions about one pickup guitars. Do you find that they lack versitility, or can you overcome that with amp settings or effects and stuff? I personally don't need a neck PU, so they are great to me. The treble position is all I use.

 

[Pierre]

Re: 1H Guitars

My Kramer Stagemaster is the best souding guitar I have, and she's only got one humbucker. I don't feel limited at all. Even better, you need to work it with your fingers and picking, it's great for technique.

 

[danglybanger]

Re: 1H Guitars

...settings or picking near the neck can't do enough to replicate a neck pickup position. Or well. And I use necks about 50% of the time.

Even then it's nowhere near as convenient to get up and tweak the amp. And most single pup guitars don't have enough controls to get enough variety.

If I HAD to I have a different idea about single pup guitars

 

[caprae]

Re: 1H Guitars

My son has the Showmaster Celtic tele. We put an older Bill (& Becky) Lawrence humb in there. One volume and straight out. Sounds great.

 

[jeremy]

Re: 1H Guitars

my esquire is one of my favorite guitars. one single coil pup, volume & tone with a three way for tone selection. amazingly versitle for such a simple guitar

 

[ErikH]

Re: 1H Guitars

I love 'em myself. Own a 1988 Kramer Baretta with a single humbucker and volume control. It makes me do stuff I otherwise wouldn't do with two or three pickups.

I've actually got a one pickup guitar project in the works. It's an Esquire, but with a humbucker (a Brobucker to be exact). The 3-way will be wired for series/split/parallel, plus volume and tone controls.

 

[scottish]

Re: 1H Guitars

not a fan of 1 pup guitars, i use the neck too much. like dangly, if i had to have a 1 pup guitar then it would have a neck bucker that i could split or change to parallel

 

[TimmyPage]

Re: 1H Guitars

Yeah, again, if I could only have one pickup on the guitar it would have to be a neck pickup.

 

[Holy Diver]

Re: 1H Guitars

I have to admit I never thought about 1H guitars being just a neck PU. That would not be my choice personally, but to each his own.

 

[Sirion]

Re: 1H Guitars

I don't own any, but I'm really attracted to both a 1hb Kramer/Charvel (coolest guitars ever), and a Fender Esquire. The Esquire is especially cool, in the way that the Tele give you nothing to hide behind, and it will force oyu to clean up your technique. The Kramer/Charvel is just the coolest guitars ever. While a neck pickup can be very nice, I spend most of the time on the bridge, both for rythm and soloing. Could I get a nice dark clean tone out of it as well, a one bucker axe would fit all my needs live.

 

[darnright]

Re: 1H Guitars

...settings or picking near the neck can't do enough to replicate a neck pickup position. Or well. And I use necks about 50% of the time.

Even then it's nowhere near as convenient to get up and tweak the amp. And most single pup guitars don't have enough controls to get enough variety.

If I HAD to I have a different idea about single pup guitars

Hey Dangly, is that more of a jazz setup or do rock with it? Looks cool and i love neck pups. About 50/50, I've been trying to use the neck more just to change what I've been doing for 40 years.

 

[Empty Pockets]

Re: 1H Guitars

My SG does just fine without a neck pickup...I kind of want a P90 in there but I don't really wanna route it y'know?

 

[XSSIVE]

Re: 1H Guitars

if you can't do it with one hum, you can't do it!

-Mike

 

[danglybanger]

Re: 1H Guitars

Hey Dangly, is that more of a jazz setup or do rock with it? Looks cool and i love neck pups. About 50/50, I've been trying to use the neck more just to change what I've been doing for 40 years.

haha... That's not quite my axe Even though I'm more unopposed to neck pickups only, I find no reason not to have the variety of a bridge. And oh yeah, a trem :laugh2: The resemblence is close though...

As for the sound of MMs/Duos/Mustangs, they have a really jangly, at the same time hollow sort of clean, that's fairly heavy in general, moreso than a strat, and GREAT under distortion... The neck alone gives a good jazz tone, but it really does rock with distortion.

They also made the Bronco which goes the reverse route of the musicmaster...

I'd be willing to flip what XSSIVE said and say if you can't do it with a neck pickup you can't do it at all, because if your axe is too muddy using only the neck pickup to do things you could do on the bridge, there's something wrong

But at the same time, why limit yourself? It's nice to have a bridge pup for surfy things or riffs that need to sound more defined, but there's nothing like kicking in the neck pickup for soaring leads... The neck pickup sounds cooler the higher up the neck you go is my general perception, vice versa for the bridge. Besides, I see no reason to eliminate a neck pickup entirely just cause you don't use it at the moment... why limit your future growth? It's not even like trem or hardtail, where it really affects anything.

 

[Empty Pockets]

Re: 1H Guitars

I just find I can focus on my playing better if I'm not constantly worrying about if what i'm playing would sound better with a different pickup. When I'm using my Strat to jam i'll often stop myself between riffs and go back and try the same riff a few times with different pickups and then lose my momentum and end up doing something completely different.

With my SG and the volume / tone knobs, and the split switch when i need it (it's usually split come to think of it...) i tend to just keep on jammin thru.

That's not saying I'm only playing single-pickup guitars tho...it's great to have all those options available if you're recording and stuff, or if you're good at flippin switches while strumming. I love the wiring on Jaguars just 'cuz you can sit there and flip switches forever finding new tones...but sometimes it's nice to keep it simple too.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: 1H Guitars

90% of the time i use my bridge pickup only.... so single humbucker guitars work for me...

but the tone i love and use other then that is a neck postion strat PU for some blues like stuff.... That glassy tone with a slight bit of reverb.... i have a few SSS strats just for that sound alone and on those i hardly use the bridge and middle PU's... and i use different amps for those sounds anyways...

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: 1H Guitars

I have three MIJ Fender Squier Strats set up with just one bridge humbucker: one with a Duncan Custom Shop 78...one with a 59TB...and one with a Custom Custom TB.

Those guitars are a blast to wail away on but with no neck pickup I can't gig with them because I can't get a neck pickup rhythm tone.

So for me, a single bridge pickup guitar is fun to rock out on, but kind of a one trick pony. It's a good trick though!

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: 1H Guitars

Took out the two singles in my HW-1 sometime ago...
Now I got a pickguard with one hum only, use it with a tone as well...
Love it for recording.

 

[dystrust]

Re: 1H Guitars

I used to have a 1-hum Charvel 25th Anniversary and it would have been the perfect Strat if it only had a neck pickup. I can live with only a bridge hum, but the lack of versatility bugs me.

 

[Holy Diver]

Re: 1H Guitars

I used to have a 1-hum Charvel 25th Anniversary and it would have been the perfect Strat if it only had a neck pickup. I can live with only a bridge hum, but the lack of versatility bugs me.

It's not really a lack of versatility that bothers me, but looking down and only seeing one pickup is kind of weird. The actual tones, or lack of them, I don't have a problem with.