Single Coil to Pair with Saturday Night Specials?

[condenastee]

Title says it all: I've purchased a set of Saturday Night Specials and am wondering if anyone has recommendations for a single-coil that pairs well sitting between these two humbuckers? This is going to be for my first ever custom (built from a kit) project which is going to be a Strat-style guitar with an HSH configuration. Thanks!

 

[jeremy]

welcome to the forum!

im assuming youll be using 500k pots? do you care about being noiseless? if you want noiseless and are using 500k controls, id go with either a custom stack plus or vintage hot stack plus. both are a bit higher output than vintage and have a warmer/fatter tone that will sound good with 500k pots. a more vintage voiced pup usually sounds too bright/thin with those pot values and wont have the output to match up well with the buckers

 

[Mincer]

I'd also ask..
what is more important- matching output with the humbuckers, or pure single coil tone, or a balance between these?

 

[Ascension]

Texas Hot and in this case would get the RW/RP for the middle if you are going to use it with the SNS set split in 2 and 4. The Texas Hots are north leading so a RW/RP Texas Hot would the same as a standard wind Duncan single. That is I assume you want 2 and 4 to hum cancel with the split humbuckers.
Here is a great demo of this combo in a Kiesel Delos

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

If it were me doing an HSH I would want to auto coil split the humbuckers in P2 or P4, otherwise they might well overwhelm thecsingle coil in the middle.

 

[pskorz]

My preference would be to eliminate the single coil. Either an HH pickguard, or put a cheap sc in there but don’t wire it up. I say that’s my preference, because I personally like 2 humbuckers blended-especially with separate vols for each, and i usually find the middle single a detraction from that.

having said that, my gut tells me that the ssl-1 would sound great with both the neck and bridge sat night. SSL-1 doesn’t get a lot of high praise around here, but i think it would vibe nicely with them.

Or consider a 3 way switch for the hums and a blend pot for the middle sc. i had that on a superstrat years ago, and it was a good compromise for me.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

In that case get a HH puckguard and don't bother with the single coil.

I wired my HH Strat (59/Custom bridge, Jazz neck) with a 5 way superswitch, 2 independent volumes and a master tone. I wired it so I get:

P1 - bridge humbucker both coils
P2 - both slug coils
P3 - both humbuckers both coils in each
P4 - both screw coils
P5 - neck humbucker both coils.

I also flipped the magnet in the neck coil and wired it in "backwards", giving me a RWRP humbucker, and hum canceling single coil pairs.

When I just a bridge single coil, I just turn the neck volume all the way down. When I want a neck single coil, I turn the bridge volume all the way down.

Mincer deserves a lot of credit for coming up with this configuration, BTW .

I suppose if you did put a single coil in the middle, you could put in a push-pull to add it into the mix.

 

[condenastee]

I'd also ask..
what is more important- matching output with the humbuckers, or pure single coil tone, or a balance between these?

I guess a balance between the two? The idea for this guitar is it's supposed to be based on the brown guitar that Brad Nowell played in Sublime (which was a custom HSH with SD humbuckers and some kind of mysterious single-coil in the middle). I really love the sound of the Antiquity II Surf pups and in a perfect world I would want to use one of those, but I'm worried they might be too low-output?

 

[condenastee]

My preference would be to eliminate the single coil. Either an HH pickguard, or put a cheap sc in there but don’t wire it up. I say that’s my preference, because I personally like 2 humbuckers blended-especially with separate vols for each, and i usually find the middle single a detraction from that.

having said that, my gut tells me that the ssl-1 would sound great with both the neck and bridge sat night. SSL-1 doesn’t get a lot of high praise around here, but i think it would vibe nicely with them.

Or consider a 3 way switch for the hums and a blend pot for the middle sc. i had that on a superstrat years ago, and it was a good compromise for me.

Is the SSL-1 too quiet to keep up with humbuckers? I really like the idea of the 3-way hum switch with a blend pot for the middle pickup. That might be what I end up doing. Thanks!

 

[condenastee]

welcome to the forum!

im assuming youll be using 500k pots? do you care about being noiseless? if you want noiseless and are using 500k controls, id go with either a custom stack plus or vintage hot stack plus. both are a bit higher output than vintage and have a warmer/fatter tone that will sound good with 500k pots. a more vintage voiced pup usually sounds too bright/thin with those pot values and wont have the output to match up well with the buckers

Thanks! Yes I planned on using 500k pots. Do you have any thoughts about the Quarter Pound pickups? Those look like they have a similar output to the SNS.

 

[Mincer]

The Surfers and the SSL-1 would certainly be quieter than the humbuckers, but give you the best Strat sound in the middle position. Something like the Quarter Pound, or Vintage Hot Stack would be further from a true single coil Stratty sound, but closer to matching the humbucker output.

 

[pskorz]

Btw, I didn’t mean to hijack your thread and shove my agenda and preferences at you. An H-S-H setup with a basic 5 way switch, of course will do just fine and sound nice.
i tend to prefer old-school single coils, and happen to like the ssl1, and what i’ve heard of the surfers, they do seem a tad louder and richer in sound. I think either will give you a nice quintessential stratty vibe.

to my ears in that type of setup, I don’t notice enough of a volume change between a medium output hum like the sns and a vintage output single. To my ears, the actual volume output difference isn’t very noticeable, at least not enough to worry about. Where you’ll notice a difference is that if you’re going into a cranked tube amp, with either neck or bridge SNS you’ll have whatever the drive is. If you switch then to the middle single only, it’ll reduce the grind factor moreso than volume.

 

[Clint 55]

I guess a balance between the two? The idea for this guitar is it's supposed to be based on the brown guitar that Brad Nowell played in Sublime (which was a custom HSH with SD humbuckers and some kind of mysterious single-coil in the middle). I really love the sound of the Antiquity II Surf pups and in a perfect world I would want to use one of those, but I'm worried they might be too low-output?

You could use the Surfer bridge which is around 10k and would balance better volume wise.

 

[condenastee]

The Surfers and the SSL-1 would certainly be quieter than the humbuckers, but give you the best Strat sound in the middle position. Something like the Quarter Pound, or Vintage Hot Stack would be further from a true single coil Stratty sound, but closer to matching the humbucker output.

If i got a surfer bridge pickup, could it go in the middle position? Even if it’s not RW/RP, I could wire it up to the other coil of each humbucker pair to get hum-canceling second and fourth positions?

 

[jeremy]

you can wire the surfer bridge in any position you want! the form factor is the same, its just the wire and wind that are different