Little ‘78 vs. Full Sized ‘78
Mapping out what I swear will be the last guitar I ever slap together (yeah ... RIGHT!) and currently debating between ‘little’ humbuckers in a traditional Strat pickguard or going with full size humbuckers. So far, my collection of slap-together guitars are all non-pickguard full size HB guitars, so I like the idea of having a slightly more traditional pickguard build for this one.
I ran into a few listings on Reverb for Little 78s and I am curious. Couldn’t find much on the forums about the little 78, but my research on this forum ran me into a thread wherein there was pretty strong consensus that the Little 59 sounded nothing at all like the regular sized 59. Several members found the Little 59 to be much bigger and fatter sounding than the full size version - which surprised me.
There was one response that indicated ALL ‘little’ versions of pickups rely on ceramic magnets - which seems to defeat the purpose of having a little version of a full-size pickup that relies heavily on an Alnico magnet for its characteristic tone.
So - how would the Little 78 compare with the full sized 78? How would the 78 pair with either a neck position 59 or a neck position Screamin’ Demon (Little or full size)?
Disclaimer - not chasing Eds tone - but I have found that the older I get and the longer I play, the less I like aggressive pickups. I play through a single channel master volume head, so my main tone is a crunch that I like being able to clean up effectively with my volume knob. My basic crunch tone wide open with a Spark Mini is my lead tone. The output of the 59 / 78 / Screamin’ Demon seem to be in the ‘range’ to do that sort of thing.
Thank You!
Mapping out what I swear will be the last guitar I ever slap together (yeah ... RIGHT!) and currently debating between ‘little’ humbuckers in a traditional Strat pickguard or going with full size humbuckers. So far, my collection of slap-together guitars are all non-pickguard full size HB guitars, so I like the idea of having a slightly more traditional pickguard build for this one.
I ran into a few listings on Reverb for Little 78s and I am curious. Couldn’t find much on the forums about the little 78, but my research on this forum ran me into a thread wherein there was pretty strong consensus that the Little 59 sounded nothing at all like the regular sized 59. Several members found the Little 59 to be much bigger and fatter sounding than the full size version - which surprised me.
There was one response that indicated ALL ‘little’ versions of pickups rely on ceramic magnets - which seems to defeat the purpose of having a little version of a full-size pickup that relies heavily on an Alnico magnet for its characteristic tone.
So - how would the Little 78 compare with the full sized 78? How would the 78 pair with either a neck position 59 or a neck position Screamin’ Demon (Little or full size)?
Disclaimer - not chasing Eds tone - but I have found that the older I get and the longer I play, the less I like aggressive pickups. I play through a single channel master volume head, so my main tone is a crunch that I like being able to clean up effectively with my volume knob. My basic crunch tone wide open with a Spark Mini is my lead tone. The output of the 59 / 78 / Screamin’ Demon seem to be in the ‘range’ to do that sort of thing.
Thank You!
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