Making Neck HB's Brighter

[blueman335]

I like to give a sharp upper edge to my neck HB's, which isn't always easy, especially in Les Pauls and 335's. I've been using several different methods to accomplish it, and thought I'd pass them along:

- 1-meg pots - tone, volume, or both. Not a drastic change, but there's more treble coming thru. The overall sound is the same, just a little more high end. Changing out a pot or two is cheap and simple.

- Hybrid PU's - Unbalanced coils give the sound of an HB blended with a single coil. A forum member was gracious enough to put together some of these for me, and I really like the sound of them in the neck slot. Gives a nice sharp edge and more clarity. If you have surplus HB's laying around, or can get a deal on some used ones, it's a nice little project. I recommend making them 4-lead, so you have all the wiring options available (you're in there anyways). This is the most expensive and time-consuming method, but it allows you to combine any two coils you want. The bigger the difference in coils, the more the single coil aspect will come thru. Even a 1/2K of difference can give some nice tones. My favorite so far is a '59B/50SR (50SR is the Gibson-made neck PU on Epi Elitists).

- Spin-a-Split - A very quick and simple way to get unbalanced coils, and you have the advantage of being able to dial out as much of one coil as you want. There's a lot of middle ground between two coils in series and single coil, and this lets you explore that. This is actually the quickest method of all, and doesn't cost anything. Just remove the cap from the tone pot, and make it a volume pot by connecting the left lug (looking from the bottom) to the pot casing as a ground, and running the one or two taped off wires to the lug that would normally have the hot wire connected to it. For Duncans, this would be the red and white wires. Since I wire my guitars for independent volume controls, I solder those to the middle lug of the 'new' volume pot (the artist formerly known as 'tone pot'). Takes 5 minutes to do, and you use existing parts. Nothing to buy. I'm going thru my guitars and any neck HB that's 4-lead and doesn't already have a push-pull, I'm converting to spin-a-split.

 

[CTN]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

also, another option is using a bridge version of that pickup, put in the neck position and wired in parallel.

bridge version to compensate for the reduction of volume caused by parallel wiring.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

de-mud mod?

 

[VHTJay]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

Good ideas! I will definitely implement some (or all) of these ideas. I love the smoothness of a neck pickup for leads.....but HATE the mud and flub that accompany almost every one I have tried.

 

[lemonman]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

Another: bypass the tone control, or better yet, buy or make a no-load tone pot, so it's out of the circuit when it's on 10. Always wanted to try the spin a split.

 

[ExplorersRock]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

That spin-a-split thing is a great idea. I like the idea of using it to hybrid the humbucker. Thanks, blueman!

 

[CTN]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

best suggestion for articulate neck HBs - DON'T USE A5!!!!
A2, A3 and A4 are much much better because they don't have their mids scooped out. Mids = articulation.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

best suggestion for articulate neck HBs - DON'T USE A5!!!!
A2, A3 and A4 are much much better because they don't have their mids scooped out. Mids = articulation.

I wish A5's didn't have all that low end! I've been using A3's in the neck slot here and there, and A4's are getting more popular. It's not that black and white with A2's, as they have little treble and a loose low end. It takes the right wind to bring out the best of an A2, and keep it's shortcomings to a minimum. Seymour understands this, but not every PU maker does. Some neck HB's aren't a good fit for A2's. For me, they should be under 8K, the closer to 7K the better. Although it's still a wild new frontier, with hybrids you can use hotter winds in the neck with A2's, as they add the treble that A2's lack.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

mag swaps and hybrids got me back into the game of liking the neck position again.

the spin-a-split is on the radar, but it's just a matter of making time to tinker with installing one.

I've tried a few 1-meg pots over the years and sometimes the perceived difference is more and sometimes it's less. either way, there is that vibe of more headroom that breathes a little more life into things. more of a feeling that an 'oh wow!' sort of thing and it's not as much of a jump as it is from a 250k to a 500k .

 

[blueman335]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

That spin-a-split thing is a great idea. I like the idea of using it to hybrid the humbucker. Thanks, blueman!

It's such a simple way to brighten a neck PU, and get that vintage PAF unbalanced coil sound. It makes push-pulls for coil cut obsolete, because with them it's all or nothing, double or single coil, nothing in between. Same goes for parallel.

As you play around with the (second) volume control on a spin-a-split, you can start with balanced coils and hear the treble increase and mids ease up. Likewise, when you start at single coil, you can hear the second coil start to kick in and add some volume and beef.

If you wire for independent volume controls, in the middle toggle position you can also dial in how much of each PU you want. Combine that with spin-a-split and you have quite a variety of tones. And all of it's stock parts and a few minutes of your time. Just moving wires around.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

mag swaps and hybrids got me back into the game of liking the neck position again.

the spin-a-split is on the radar, but it's just a matter of making time to tinker with installing one.

I owe this to you, for making those hybrids for me. That got me hooked on the great tones of neck HB's with unbalanced coils. I love that sharp high end, and the thinner mids. More usable. Spin-a-split is the (low-tech) poor man's way to do it.

Thanks again!

 

[Frogman]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

I put it a 1meg pot in a Mean 90 (A5/A3) and disconnected the tone pot.....was already great, now even better!!

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

That's what I love about the Fuglybucker neck model...very clear and articulate, no mud, a touch of singlecoilishness. It's due, at least in part, to the unbalanced coils. It would be very interesting to hook it up to a spin-a-split.

Does it matter much whether you use an audio or linear taper pot?

 

[darthphineas]

Making Neck HB's Brighter

I owe this to you, for making those hybrids for me. That got me hooked on the great tones of neck HB's with unbalanced coils. I love that sharp high end, and the thinner mids. More usable. Spin-a-split is the (low-tech) poor man's way to do it.

Thanks again!

Aw, shucks.






Sent from my armored battle station using Tapatalk

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

I've tried a couple of the suggestions mentioned and all have been an improvement of sorts, though I prefer single coils in the neck slot.

Agree about hybrid pups. Have a Jazz/59 in a guitar and it's great - articulate low, pretty top and mid. I'm not as fussed about whether a bridge pu is hybrid or not, but the neck pu seems to make more of a difference, to my ears at any rate.

The de-mud mod with the capacitor is also pretty good. Experimenting with different value caps allows for fine tuning.

Another thing I've tried, which has worked well on making those Asian made ceramic mudbuckers useable, is the air mod (both coils). It does reduce the output a bit but the benefits outweigh everything else, and the typically hotter wind of these things allows for it without much compromise.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

Agree about hybrid pups. Have a Jazz/59 in a guitar and it's great - articulate low, pretty top and mid. I'm not as fussed about whether a bridge pu is hybrid or not, but the neck pu seems to make more of a difference, to my ears at any rate.

+1. I think unbalanced coils and spin-a-splits are most beneficial in a neck HB, as that's where treble and clarity are often needed.

 

[VHTJay]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

So riddle me this: Many of us as players want more articulation, brightness and cut from our neck humbuckers.....regardless of the type of music we play! Yet, so many guitar companies stick neck pickups that are the exact opposite as stock fare! I am often left wondering why.

 

[ErikH]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

Smaller tone control caps. If it's .022uf, try .015 or even smaller than that. That'll add some highs back in UNLESS the tone pot is a no-load variety. In that case, slightly raise the pole pieces under the high E, B, G strings or even tilt the pickup a little so the bass side is lower than the treble side. Simple adjustments can do this without swapping out any parts. But I would try a smaller tone cap after the adjustments.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Making Neck HB's Brighter

clips or it never happened.

 

[ErikH]

Making Neck HB's Brighter

On the spin-a-split, I recommend using a no-load pot and a 470k resistor across the outer lugs to smooth the taper out. With the no-load, wire it so that when on 10, it's full humbucking mode. The no-load will remove the pot out of the circuit as if it didn't exist. With a regular pot, there's still some resistance on those leads and it will affect the perceived output and tone. Use a meter with the pot and you'll see it, Along with the difference between the taper with and without the resistor.