Neck Humbucker that's not glassy/hollow sounding (for strat)?

[GuitarStv]

How do you have it wired up? I usually have my 'buckers with independent volume/tone controls, and rarely run both full up at any given time. There are usually a lot of different tones in there where you start messing with the controls, and I've never had a problem getting rid of glassy/hollow sounds. If you use a smaller cap 0.010 or maybe .015 and roll the tone nearly off you'll get a throaty kind of mid boost with a paf style pickup and zero glassiness.

 

[tce44]

Ok thanks, Ill check those 2 wires to see if there connected together to the hot.

 

[tce44]

My guitar tech wired it for me,so not sure.its his favorite thing to do working on guitars.
I usually do it myself to the SD wiring diagram but not the greatest at sodering.

 

[freefrog]

Anyway: a wisely selected capacitor from hot to ground of any bright passive pickup would make it less "glassy" and heavier in the mids. I wouldn't change the PU itself before to have tested this easy solution - cost: a few cents and a few minutes. Start with 1nF, 1.5nF or 2.2nF (0.001, 0.0015 or 0.0022µ). Increase or diminish this value if needed. If it makes the pickup too nasal, put a 470k or 270k resistor in parallel with the cap...

BTW, I had forgotten there was a video about that on the Web. See below. The guy uses a 560pF cap for neck and middle single coils + a 2.7nF (2700pF / 0.0027µ) for the bridge one, illustrating exactly my advice to "increase or diminish [the] value [of the parallel cap] if needed".

For the record, it's NOT about caps coupled to tone pots: it involves components permanently wired from hot to ground. And it's not an "artificial" solution since it does nothing else than emulating the tonal effect of a long cable on any passive pickup (if one wants to alter the sound like a 2.7nF cap does, it "just" requires to plug the guitar unbuffered through 20 meters / 60 ft of average guitar cable)... I've myself a box with a rotary switch and various caps to ground, like the guy in the video, and I use it to mimic longer cables when necessary.
Tone pots with medium value caps (0.01 or 0.015µ) are something else and give the sound of a cocked wah when fully lowered. Which is not that surprising since the "sweep cap" of a stock Cry Baby is a 0.01µ / 10nF component.

 

[Clint 55]

The Whole lotta humbucker has the most crunch and isn't glassy or hollow like many in the line. You can also try A9 in the neck for more grit.

 

[Juanhanglo]

Check out the air norton and all of the petrucci neck pickups.

They do what you need