Re: Single Coil like Humbuckers
Jester700 said:
True, but technically that's not a "single coil" thing, it's a placement thing. That's like saying an EVH slanted bucker isn't giving you a "true humbucker tone" because Gibsons aren't slanted. Now if you say it isn't giving you a "true Fender tone", I'm with ya.
That's more or less what I was saying. Strictly speaking, when you split a humbucker, you are actually running a single coil pickup, so by definition it sounds 100% like a single coil pickup because it IS a single coil pickup. So the question becomes not whether it is a single coil tone but whether is it a DESIRABLE single coil tone.
As all things pickup, this is a matter of personal taste. But on the point of desirability, most people -- and I assume the thread-starter in here is no exception -- while realizing they'll never get a true Fender tone from a humbucker no matter how you wire it, still want a Fender-
like tone and you just can't get that with a single coil that isn't slanted.
Jester700 said:
Plus, who's to say that a straight across single isn't BETTER because of louder, fuller, less icepicky treble strings?
I assume you are referring to the slug coil -- or whichever coil is farthest from the bridge. To my ear, it just don't work (more on that below).
Again this is all about personal taste so I certainly can't say what is really "better" for anyone else. That said, I've tried coil-splitting bridge pickups both ways -- slug coil (farthest from bridge) only vs. screw coil (closest to bridge) only -- and slug-coil-only just sounds gutless and soul-less because it has no bite, no attitude. Screw-coil-only sounds a lot better since it has all the bite you could ever want but the bass strings are just way too wimpy and mosquito-y.
So whether Leo Fender intended it or it was a happy accident, he got it right with the bridge pu slant. It gets bite from the top strings and beef on the lower strings.
BUT...the good news is there is a way to get a viable Fender-ish "single coil" tone out of a humbucker without physically slanting it. You can sort of "slant" it electronically via the Spin-A-Split mod, which allows you to dial in as much or as little of one of the coils as you want. In my opinion, this mod works best if you set it up to dial the slug coil (or, again, whichever coil is farthest from the bridge) in and out and leave the screw coil on all the time. This way you keep the bite and attitude all the time and then dial in as much or as little beef as you want.
I guarantee you that
some-where between 1 and 10 on your designated Spin-A-Split pot, you will find a Fender-ish tone that you like -- in fact you'll probably find two or three different "sweet spots", some Fender-ish, some P90-ish, etc., especially if the humbucker in question is medium to high output.
It's a genius of a mod and it's SUPER-easy. Instead of soldering the red and white (Duncan color code)* wires to a switch, you wire it to the middle lug of whichever volume or tone pot you want to sacrifice for this mod. But even there, you can use a push/pull pot to switch the pot from a regular tone dial to spin-a-split if you don't want to give up any of your pots.
(* If you want to leave the screw coil on all the time as I do, instead of the slug coil, you will have to put the black and green together and wire them to the pot lug and the red and white become the main hot and ground.)
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