Anyone Here Tried a Full Shred Screamin Demon Hybrid?

[SweetClyde99]

I’ve got a very dark sounding PRS S2 singlecut that I otherwise love. It plays and looks great. I put a set of Full Shreds in it, and no load tone pots, and the guitar sounds good, but I tend to like the extra harmonic content that you get from mismatched coils. All of my best sounding guitars have either hybrids or mismatched coils, so I thought the Screamin Demon would be bright enough to not throw off the EQ too much but still wound differently enough to give me that extra harmonic content. We’ll see how it goes.

Any experience or just thoughts in general are welcome.

 

[chadd]

Standard Demon is great with a full shred neck. I've experimented with different magnets as well, but never made one into a hybrid. I had a SNS set in my old S2 singlecut cemi-hollow and getting ready to order another set for my new one

 

[jeremy]

curious how the hybrid comes out, could be really sweet

 

[Bill Dennis]

I hope one of you gives it a go and reports back. My list of musical todo's are a mile long. I just don't have time to experiment with such things like I used to

 

[SweetClyde99]

The Screaming Demon gets here Friday, so I’m pretty committed at this point. I’ll try to record some before and after clips for anyone who’s interested in hearing them.

What’s the general consensus for which coil in a hybrid has the biggest impact on its tone—i.e., if I want to keep it more Full Shred flavored, do I use the Full Shred coil closest to the bridge or the neck? I would guess neck-side coil, but I know plenty of people out there have done this more than I have.

 

[jeremy]

the fs has symmetrical coils and the same pole pieces. the demon i assume has symmetrical coils, but different pole pieces for each one. are you planning on using the allen head coil to keep the look? you can use it in either position as long as you wire it right

 

[l0rdhumungus]

I'd be interested in trying this too

 

[GuitarStv]

What’s the general consensus for which coil in a hybrid has the biggest impact on its tone—i.e., if I want to keep it more Full Shred flavored, do I use the Full Shred coil closest to the bridge or the neck? I would guess neck-side coil, but I know plenty of people out there have done this more than I have.

The closer to the neck the coil sits, the more string vibration that coil of the pickup 'sees'. So if one coil is from a higher output pickup, I'd put it closer towards the bridge if I wanted to balance the tone between the two. Conversely if you want to emphasize one pickup tone a little over the other than put it's coil closer to the neck.

So yeah, use the FS closer to the neck and it'll naturally pick up a bit more string movement/be louder.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

But if you want brighter, you may want the hotter coil towards the bridge.

 

[GuitarStv]

But if you want brighter, you may want the hotter coil towards the bridge.

Yep. There's going to be a bit of a tonal shift too depending on where you put the hotter coil. Towards the neck - fewer harmonics and darker. Towards the bridge, more harmonics and brighter. The hotter coil will emphasize that relationship to some degree.

 

[Clint 55]

No, for bridge humbuckers, putting the weaker coil towards the bridge will make it brighter. Hotter coil toward the bridge makes it rounder. It always sounds like an equal mix of both regardless of the orientation or heat of the coils tho.

 

[GuitarStv]

No, for bridge humbuckers, putting the weaker coil towards the bridge will make it brighter. Hotter coil toward the bridge makes it rounder. It always sounds like an equal mix of both regardless of the orientation or heat of the coils tho.

I think you've got it backwards. The closer to the bridge you get, the brighter the tone - this is why the bridge pickup sounds brighter than the neck.

Also, I disagree that a pickup always sounds like an equal mix of the coils. The coils pick up the vibrations of the string section they're under. When the coils are unbalanced there is (or at least can be) a difference when you flip orientation of the coils. At least it's audible with a Tone Zone - upside down it's a little bit smoother than right side up.

A regular humbucker with matched coils will be a smidge brighter on the slug side rather than the screw side, although it's very minor and I can't hear a difference when flipping them upside down unless I really mess with the screw heights.

 

[SweetClyde99]

I really like the end product of this hybrid. It might be too bright in a lot of guitars, but this guitar was dark enough that it benefited from the extra high end of the Demon coil (I don’t know if the Demon is inherently brighter than the Full Shred or if it’s a result of the hybrid cancelling out less of the higher harmonics or whatever, but it is brighter than the stock Full Shred). The harmonic content also increased. Maybe not as much as something like the half-aired Tone Zone that I really like in another guitar, but I’d say it’s got at least as much harmonic content as the Burstbucker 3 in my Les Paul.

The hybrid was still a hair darker than my other go-to guitars, and I don’t like having to change settings between guitars, so after installing the hybrid, I also changed the 500k volume pot to 1 meg, and I’m really happy with it.

I still have the before clips I recorded, but since I also changed the volume pot value, I don’t know how fair of a comparison it will be if I record the after clips now.

And for the record, I’m using the “screw” coil from the FS and “slug” coil from the Demon, though they’re both hex screws. The FS is closer to the bridge, if that helps clarify. I’d imagine it would sound different if I flipped it, like the Tone Zone does, but I’m happy enough with it that I don’t want to mess with anything.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Yeah, I'd imagine that would've brightened it up a tad along with the pot change.

I don't find the stock Full Shred THAT bright, to be honest. It's leaner than brighter, I'd say.

 

[SweetClyde99]

And speaking of the half-aired Tone Zone, I have a few of them in Fenders with bridge humbuckers, and I really like them with the magnet touching the slug coil and the pickup installed upside down, with the slug coils closer to the bridge. It looks a little funky upside down, but I think it’s a great sounding pickup this way. I stumbled across this by accident, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone discuss half-airing it and flipping it in exactly this way, so i wanted to put it out there in case anyone else likes it as much as I do. It gives the TZ an almost raunchy high end that I really like.

 

[Clint 55]

I think you've got it backwards.

I think you've got it backwards.

The closer to the bridge you get, the brighter the tone.

Correct. So if you put the higher output coil towards the bridge it buffers the aggressive node more. More winding makes the pickup rounder, less winding makes the pickup more strident. Put the weaker coil toward the bridge and it gives it a more strident sound. Hotter coil toward the bridge gives it somewhat more of a rounder sound.

It sounds like you're speaking theoretically, this is what I've empirically observed from actual testing..

Also, I disagree that a pickup always sounds like an equal mix of the coils. The coils pick up the vibrations of the string section they're under. When the coils are unbalanced there is (or at least can be) a difference when you flip orientation of the coils. At least it's audible with a Tone Zone - upside down it's a little bit smoother than right side up. A regular humbucker with matched coils will be a smidge brighter on the slug side rather than the screw side, although it's very minor and I can't hear a difference when flipping them upside down unless I really mess with the screw heights.

I just said orientation matters. Why are you now refuting me as if I said it doesn't matter? I meant if you have a FS / Demon hybrid it doesn't sound like 65% FS 35% Demon even though the FS has a higher proportion of wire, it still just basically sounds like half of each.

 

[GuitarStv]

I wonder if it matters exactly how much winding there is on the coil. For very high output coils I totally agree with you. They sound much darker. Usually I'm dealing with PAFish levels of wind and only 5-10% difference between the coils. At those levels I hear the more wound coil as just being a tad louder which (is what I assume) makes it sound brighter when it's closer to the bridge. It would make sense that what you're describing holds true for high output coils.

 

[Clint 55]

It could be tested by flipping around the 59/Custom hybrid. One medium coil, one vintage coil. I believe the 59 coil is toward the bridge stock, but someone would have to meter it to confirm. Actually doh, then you'd be reversing the screw and slug also so you wouldn't be able to isolate the effect from winding level.

 

[Mincer]

Yeah, 59 is near the bridge.