Humbucker to pair with YJM neck pickup

L

Larsson

New member
Looking to replace the original pickups in my Charvel 375

I want to put a YJM fury in the neck, but was wondering what humbucker would go nicely with it? I know the JB is popular but what would match well with the YJM?

It's a basswood body with maple neck and rosewood board. I plan on just replacing the neck and bridge and removing the middle pickup then putting a 3 way selector in and a coil tap

I play everything from blues to heavy metal but usually somewhere in-between.

Also, in terms of redoing all of the electronics i'm assuming i'd just need new wires, pots (volume and tone), pickup selector and input jack?

Thanks!
 
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Re: Humbucker to pair with YJM neck pickup

I use a JB/SSL-1/STK-S10n in my HSS, it works for me. I use strat sounds from middle and middle/neck for clean and overdrive rythm, then engage the neck or bidge for soloing. I know lots of people feel the middle single is missing some of the magic from neck or bridge of traditional strat but for me it is au just ll about having enough contrast from different positions of the switch. The neck is a bit fat sounding, the STK-S6 sounded more like a single coil to me and better for the blues but for all the versatility that I need and going from blues to metal as you said then I kept the fury, but that is another pickup you can try. I use the fury neck in my poplar start and I am still trying to get an HSS pickguard to try it there, hpefully the whole thing should sound a bit better and I already like that pickup combo.

Other people from this forum had said they had tried other SD HB's and he prefered the parallel axis to match the YJM. I have not tried it yet.
 
Re: Humbucker to pair with YJM neck pickup

Thanks for some suggestions guys, i just don't want it the humbucker to be overpowering to the neck pickup - as it does now.

But since the YJM is like a humbucker i feel it would be ok matched with a humbucker? I really wanna use the YJM in the neck as i think it sounds awesome.

Also wondering, my guitar doesn't have the dips in the single coils in the body routing. would i need to modify the pickups for them to fit, heres a pic so you can see.

I also assume i'll need an F-spaced humbucker?

 
Re: Humbucker to pair with YJM neck pickup

My YJM neck does match the volume of my JB when playing cleans and high gain. However you really need to evaluate if that is really what you want. Having single coils I really fell the bridge humbucker unnecessary for cleans so I could try a different HB as long as it gets along with the YJM when playing overdrive/distortion. IMHO the real tricky part of the HSS is not matching volume of all pickups for clean but matching the tone for overdrive/distortion. For some a regular single coil can be too thin compared to a HB, so either a hotter/fatter single coil or a HB with lesser output is their choise.

If what you are after is actually a single size HB like a lil 59, cool rails, hot rails, etc
 
Re: Humbucker to pair with YJM neck pickup

There was a post on the Duncan blog recently about matching single coils and humbuckers. Essentially, do you want them to match well or do you want more distinction between the two? The latter gives you more options, and probably the highest output humbucker you'll want is something in the Perpetual Burn range at ~12 K, if you're looking for a metal tone. Are you looking to split the humbucker at all? That would open up some options, but if you're looking to a matched output to the YJM you'll want a low output humbucker and are going to rely on your amp or pedals for distortion. You could totally go for the mismatch in output though, if the tones of each pickup sound awesome why worry about it?

You will for sure need the F-Spaced humbucker since your guitar has a tremolo.
 
Re: Humbucker to pair with YJM neck pickup

My buddy uses a DiMarzio PAF Pro in the bridge paired with the YJM neck and they balance out pretty decently. Yngwie himself said that if he were to use a humbucker, it would be a PAF type. That interview was from years ago when he was with DiMarzio, so take that for what it's worth.
Id personally try to pair a Seymour humbucker up with the YJM cause Im weird like that, however in my experience, some of the best 'home made' pups sets have been pairings from different manufacturers. You can try a JB or something in that category and mess around with the pickup height to try and dial it in. There's a bunch of ways to go about it really...
 
Re: Humbucker to pair with YJM neck pickup

If you want to go PAF and SD, maybe Whole Lotta Humbucker? It can definitely get into metal territory relatively easily, with plenty of room for the cleaner stuff.
 
Re: Humbucker to pair with YJM neck pickup

Aasinsilta said:
There was a post on the Duncan blog recently about matching single coils and humbuckers. Essentially, do you want them to match well or do you want more distinction between the two? The latter gives you more options, and probably the highest output humbucker you'll want is something in the Perpetual Burn range at ~12 K, if you're looking for a metal tone. Are you looking to split the humbucker at all? That would open up some options, but if you're looking to a matched output to the YJM you'll want a low output humbucker and are going to rely on your amp or pedals for distortion. You could totally go for the mismatch in output though, if the tones of each pickup sound awesome why worry about it?

You will for sure need the F-Spaced humbucker since your guitar has a tremolo.
Click to expand...

I want the pickups to match relatively well in terms of the sound i'm getting. I am looking to put in a coil tap as well.

In terms of getting my distortion i look to my amp for that, i use a Marshal DSL50 head and 1936 cab with some pedals in front to drive it harder for a lead tone.

So maybe i should look into a lower output pickup? What would people suggest would go nicely with the YJM?
 
Re: Humbucker to pair with YJM neck pickup

Aasinsilta said:
Well, here's an article you should read about matching humbuckers and single coils: http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/t...t-strat-single-coils-and-humbuckers-at-peace/

I think you might like the 59/Custom hybrid, as it's a rather responsive pickup that cleans up well but can hang in the high gain crowd and has nice splitting capabilities due to having the hybrid coil setup.
Click to expand...

I did look at the 59/custom hybrid pickup, that sounds really nice from samples i've heard.

I'll be sure to read that article, hopefully give me some more insight seeing as i have a "fat strat" as well.

Thanks Aasinsilta!
 
Re: Humbucker to pair with YJM neck pickup

^^
Ouch! Especially if you have the Custom 8 wired to split with the middle.
 
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