Hello! and advice for pickup selection

R

Rust Guitar

New member
First I'd like to say hello!, after reading through many other threads this seems like a great forum and I'd really appreciate any advice you folks could give me in selecting a pickup.

For the past few years my main guitar has been a mexican strat with the standard pickups and I've finally decided to upgrade them with three new Seymour Duncans. After an intense listening session to all the clips on this site and many more on youtube I've decided that for the type of sounds I like to play live a JB Jnr in the bridge and an SSL-52 in the neck are perfect. What I would like your advice on is which pickup to put in the middle.

My tone knobs are wired to the middle and neck. The most common way I play lead/solos is to have my pickup selector on Middle+Bridge with the middle tone knob most or all of the way down to give the tone a "wahish" quality that is both smooth and cuts through a fuzz pedal rather well.What do you think would be the best option for middle pickup that when I have it mid+bridge with mid tone down to give me the strongest wah-like tone? I'm not sure if it's better to pick one with higher mids or treble.

One concern I have is the difference in output between the middle and bridge pickups. The current pickups on my strat have very similar if not the same output. The tone chart page on this site says that the JB Jnr's D.C. Resistance is 16k which worries me if I was to put something like a Duckbucker in the middle because it's stated D.C. Resistance is only 3k and I'm not sure how unbalanced this might make the blend between the two sounds. I was thinking an SSL-3 might be good because it has a similar output to the JB and according to the tone chart has alot of mids (but again I'm not sure if having alot of mids is what I should base the decision on).

A more objective way of looking at it might be to ask what pickup for the middle would give me the greatest difference/range in tone from the tone knob fully up to all the way down when in mid+neck to facilitate dialing in the right amount for the pedals and amp I'm using at the time.

I'm not too sure what I'd like my middle pickup to sound like on it's own (without the bridge and tone knob down) as I rarely use it. On this site's otherwise excellent sound clips page there doesn't seem to be any clips just for the middle pickup and youtube videos also usually focus on the neck or bridge. Is there anywhere else you know of to find more clips of seymour duncan pickups? I'd probably try and select a pickup that would give me the most versatility I could get alongside an SSL-52 and JB Jnr for a greater range of tones for recording. I'm also curious what you think would be the best middle pickup for that real Gilmour/Brian May singing sustain type tone?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read. Any advice or explanation for these things I'm confused about would be greatly appreciated. I would really like to learn more about all this and get more involved in these forums as I find it very interesting. Once I've made a decision I'm going to get my new pickups as soon as possible, I'd love to post up some clips to show how I got on.
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

Really sorry if my post is a bit much to read but I would seriously appreciate any help/advice :)

To simplify how about:

Neck: SSL-52
Middle: ??????
Bridge: JB Jnr

What middle pickup for the most versatility for recording?
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

Hey, welcome to the forum!

You are asking a really interesting question. It's a little bit niche though, so maybe I can stimulate some discussion and facilitate some brainstorming.

To be honest, I'm not sure I can give you a good answer to your specific question. I've always had problems mixing pickups with the JB, especially Strat singles, unless I'm using 250k pots all around. In my 'metal' guitar I really liked hot rails in neck and middle with the JB bridge, but you're going for something different I know.

I have used the 5/2 pickups in the past and I found them to be okay; I do think that had something to do with the Strat they were in though. I find the SSL-1 voiced more to my liking. If you like them though, the 5/2 neck and middle pickups do a nice blended tone in parallel.

Why not a full size JB? It's one of my favorite SD pickups in the bridge of a Strat for sure. I want to add that a JB splits really nicely too. Maybe 5/2 neck and middle with JB bridge (or Jr) with a split might get you where you're going?

Also, if you dig the middle/bridge combo on your current set, and that's going to be your primary lead sound (will it be?) why not stick with something similar but upgrade (like an SSL-1 set)? None of my business per se, just curious.
 
Last edited:
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

Thanks for the replies guys

I was originally intending to go for the everything axe but changed my mind for the neck pickup after hearing samples of the SSL-52 at neck position on youtube, it's mixture of lows and highs are exactly what I want for my clean playing.

The duckbucker seems to be a great choice for versatility but my concern was the difference in output between the duckbucker and JB Jnr is quite large. The lead tone I like is derived from my current middle and bridge pickups which are of equal output where the bridge keeps all it's tone and the middle's tone is reduced all the way. This would seem to me that the tone I'm used to is an equal mix of toneless middle pickup and full-tone bridge. I'm worried that if I install a high output JB Jnr (16k D.C.Resistance) alongside a Duckbucker (which seems to be an extremely low output pickup - 3k D.C. Resistance) the mix between the two will become unbalanced.

I'm still learning how all these guitar electronics work so please forgive any ignorance on my part
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

Resistance is not a measure of output. Go find whoever told you that and kick them in the dong.


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Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

I think a better question is what would you like to hear from your middle pup? What do you use your middle pup for?
But just to throw in a suggestion I would say a vintage hot stack plus
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

darthphineas said:
Resistance is not a measure of output. Go find whoever told you that and kick them in the dong.
Click to expand...

I was just going from the "Pickups 101" guide on this site: http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/find-your-tone/digging_deeper/

It says "D.C. resistance describes the degree to which the pickup resists the flow of direct current. Generally speaking, the higher the resistance, the louder the pickup."

As far as how I'd like my middle pickup to sound on it's own, I only ever use it live with it mid+bridge and the mid's tone rolled all the way down through a fuzz pedal. Although I run a small studio and would like to give my strat the most versatility tonewise for recording. I'm just worried about choosing a middle pickup with a drastic difference in output to the JB Jnr and messing up my lead tone's balance

I hope I'm making sense and thanks again for the advice :)
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

resistance is helpful when comparing pickups of similar construction, such as vintage single coils or vintage output humbuckers.
I think you are getting confused comparing the jbjr with the duckbucker, and looking only at the resistance, when they are constructed differently. since I haven't used a duckbucker, I can't tell you why specifically, but I suspect that the low resistance of ~3k tells us it's wired in parallel -- if you look at the tone chart, the Duckbucker has an asterisk by the resistance, but I don't see the explanation. ???
Setting that aside, if you look at the description of the jbjr or everything axe, you see that it recommends the Duckbucker with the jbjr. I have to assume that this means they work well together.

Another issue you have is that usually when you chose a strat set, you want to look at the set AS A WHOLE. For instance, usually you decide you want a vintage type set, or you need a 'noiseless' set, etc., etc. .. Generally, for me at least, I want the middle pickup to balance well with both the neck and bridge, so that the in-between positions sound good, because I use those more than the mid by itself.

The problem you have now is that you chose a neck and bridge pickup that have different characteristics -- that is, different type magnets and output. That's OK, it just complicates things a little. I think it's most likely that whatever you pick for the middle is going to match one better than the other, and you'll have to decide whether to get a humless or stack pickup that matches the bridge better, or a vintage type pickup that matches the neck better. Therefore, I'd say you need to chose between the Duckbucker that's suggested, something like a Vintage Stack, or a vintage type such as another 5-2, a Quarter Pounder, Hot, etc, etc..
I could give you a specific recommendation, but the fact is, I haven't had this particular problem.

Another thing ... if I read your post correctly, I'd consider wiring the bridge pickup to the tone pot too. That would give you more control over the bridge and in-between positions.
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

Rust Guitar said:
I was just going from the "Pickups 101" guide on this site: http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/find-your-tone/digging_deeper/

It says "D.C. resistance describes the degree to which the pickup resists the flow of direct current. Generally speaking, the higher the resistance, the louder the pickup." :)
Click to expand...

And you can just about fill up the grand canyon with those saying that resistance does not equal output. For example, I can show you a 9k humbucker that will hit the redline before a 15k humbucker using the same tone into the same board at the same level in the same guitar. And look at the Super V which has a 22k resistance and is considered moderate output.


At least now you know who to kick in the dong.




Sent from my armored battle station using Tapatalk
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

Thanks for enlightening me darthphineas, I've only really started to learn how pickups work 'neath the hood since a few days ago so any info is seriously appreciated :)


For tonal versatility I was thinking about a Twangbanger in the middle (along with SSL-52 in neck and JB Jnr in bridge)


What do you guys think?

(Also do you think the mix of a twangbanger with the tone rolled off mixed with the JB Jnr will give me a good nasaly wahlike tone for lead)
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

Sounds like you have a reasonable concern for keeping the volume similar from one position to the other. If you go through the pickup selection on the SD site, you should see where you can also look at the by output (vintage, moderate, high). Start by looking at options within the same category.

In some cases, if you find what looks like a good tone that might be too loud, you can lower the height a bit. Not so much to make a quiet one louder.

Also consider that you might happen upon a cool tone that works just fine when you have certain pickups mixed together that aren't similar output. There might not be an absolute answer anyone can give. You'll just have to take a stab and see how it works out.


Sent from my armored battle station using Tapatalk
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

IME the JB Jr isn't that crazy hot and balances with regular strat singles just fine.
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

Thanks for all the replies and advice guys :)

I've decided to go with a Twangbanger for the middle with a JB bridge and an SSL52 neck. I've never installed pickups or soldered anything before so I'm getting a pro guitar tech guy I know to both order in the pickups and install them for me. On my guitar at the moment pickup selection positions 2 and 4 give me that quacky out of phase sound, to get that sound with my planned setup how should it be wired and what should I ask the guy to do, I'm not sure if only middle pickups that are reverse wound and reverse polarity give that sound. If so can I get a twangbanger that is?
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

The everything Axe is what I'm leaning to as well. Beefier Strat sound with hum cancelling.
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

What would be the difference in tone of the middle/bridge position with a standard Twangbanger and a RW/RP one?
 
Re: Hello! and advice for pickup selection

the specs are the same, RW/RP just gives you hum-cancelling in the in-betwewen positions of a normally wired strat.
Rust Guitar said:
What would be the difference in tone of the middle/bridge position with a standard Twangbanger and a RW/RP one?
Click to expand...
 
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