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Single coils are the sh*t.


zorrow

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My fave guitar tone currently is my tele's middle position...clean up to a bit of hair.......Chimey jangle but there is cut there too....think Joe Perry's solo tone on Dude Looks Like a Lady.....I have a Rumpelstiltskin Broadcaster in the bridge...it is 10k but still twangy...lots of beef.....it gives a perfect mid position tone. Every SC I own is a Rumpel except for 2 sets of Vintage Vibes wound by Pete Biltoft.

My Ric with Vintage Vibe toasters can get the same tone.....

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Every setup has its own purpose.

I love humbuckers for the big, metal riffs, and P90s for shutting up all the other guitars in the band...

P90s are the thing...

i still keep one guitar with humbuckers..

Now, a Vee with a single in the neck and a hum in the back..that is a nice compromise

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Imo, every matured guitarist will want to be able to produce the classic sounds of the strat/tele bluesy twangy and the Les Paul/SG's straight forward power chord. A high quality single coil is part of that equation. I went without a good one for an extended period and it was painful.

The DD HB103N single coil is one of the worst pup's I've ever had the displeasure of playing :)

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I recorded our 1st (and heaviest) album on a cheap strat copy (3 x SCs). Of copurse I'm all HBs now but I have nothing against SCs (I just don't have 'em)...

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I finally learned to appreciate the strat from two fronts:

1) Visiting my highschool buddy and being blown away by his Hughes & Kettner with his American strat on the middle pup.

2) Robin Trower. Something gave me an insight that he was playing the bridge with the tone down; I plugged in my Daytona and did the same and the sonic signature was clear to me.

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Yeah, the bridge can sound really great under gain with tone down some. On my Daytona, When it comes to clean sounds, I generlly like it best with all the tones on 10 and the volume down a little bit.

-

Austin

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I really like heavy metal sounds, so I gotta have a double-coil in the bridge.

But I hate double coil sounds in the neck. It is difficult to get a sound that isn't too saturated for me (interestingly, I like to listen to saturated neck position HBs on songs by others, but can't stand the saturated sound when I'm playing).

So I gotta have single coils in the neck. I love an HB/S combo, like in my Cali and Vandenbergs.

But about a year ago, I really started to dig the 2/4 position quacks.

I've found that one of the best guitars out there with the most different quacky sounds is, of all things, an Alvarez Dana II or Custom with the Tri-Force pickup configuration. The 3 triple coils together look like the Hamer Prototype, but I have no idea whether they are wired up the same or not.

In any case, I've found that I can get a far greater variety of tones with single coils than double coils. Part of it is I think humbuckers smooth out tonal variations, maybe. But an E played in the same octave on the 6 different strings sounds with single coils much different than the same E played in the same positions on all 6 strings with a humbucker. Changes of picking angle, pick attack, and even partial muting change tone color much more on single coils than humbuckers, leading to that broader palette of tone colors.

In my opinion, anyway.

So I love H/S/S the best, especially if I can get a coil tap for the HB.

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Sometime over the last 35 years the sound in my head changed. I was a strat/tele hater from the start and would not own a guitar that didn't have the mighty humbuckers. About five years ago I hocked almost everything and bought a Paul Reed Smith - which was hands down the most beautiful and well-made guitar I had ever touched - and just never fell in love. It just wouldn't make the sound in my head. Now, other than my Sunburst, my other guitars are strats and teles, and the only humbuckers are TV Jones filtertrons.

Go figure.

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I ditched strats a few years back and never thought I would have another. Mainly because of the noise and the thin sound. Now I have 4 because they have given me something I was missing..

1) Versatility. I generally use a pretty hot bridge pickup and warmer than vintage in the other slots with the bridge pickup wired into the tone. It makes that bridge pickup WAY more usable for lead work. I can get a really nice rock sound out of it and with a treble bleed just turn down the volume and the quack comes back in it's entirety. I have located some really decent hot pickup option that do not break the bank either..actually cheap..and they do not come from GFS..

2) Customization..You don't care for the neck, snag a new one, sell the old one...change out the bridge block..set up a new pickguard with different options..the list goes on.

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Except for my '61 RI SG with lower-output humbuckers, all my other guitars have singles. Three Strats with singles and my '64 SG Jr with one P90. My '84 Squier Strat has Rumpelstiltskin Pre-CBS pickups (my favorite from him), A Classic Player 60s has the stock Custom Shop 69s, and my '75 hardtail has the stock pups with an ancient Dimarzio FS-1 in the bridge. All three sound different, but they all sound like Strats.

I used to think Strat bridge pickups were good for nothing except swapping for humbuckers, but since getting a Super Reverb, my thinking on that has changed. Even with the CS-69s, the tones are big, expressive, and hard hitting... no "ice pick" tones to be found. Leo Fender really knew what he was doing. A fender guitar though a Fender amp is truly a thing of beauty.

Of course, the SG Jr just murderizes them all. Too bad it just sits in its case these days as I'm not playing anything I can get away using it with.

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I've been single coils for the past couple of years. I too was a "Strat-Hater". But I

never really played one that I could jell with, until I picked up my CS '69. Big honking neck,

and 'CS 69 pups. It really hit the sound I always had in my head, that a Strat should sound like.

(I'd like to modify the bridge pup, so I can control the tone on it, but I want to keep the

guitar intact without creating any new solder joints. Maybe I could make some connections by a

non-intrusive means.)

Then I put together my PartsOcaster, with a CS body, '69 pups, (with a bridge tone control), and Warmoth Fatback neck. Once

again I hit on another Strat that I really like. I find myself playing the PartsOcaster more than any of my other guitars.

I think for me, I find myself playing a lot less mid - high gain stuff nowadays, and the Strat fits my sonic needs

a bit more. BUT I still loves me some humbuckers.

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I've been converted over to the longer scale length. The Mirage and Daytona appeal to me nowadays. I like the humbuckers and the singles that I have in them. They certainly provide a nice array of tones that don't overlap too much. But I need to get a Tele and short scale HB guitar to round out the spectrum - because I am a fickle and faithless when it comes to guitars.

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I've installed P90s and Gretsch Filtertrons in a couple of my Flying Vs. Big change in sound-raw and gritty vs the more compressed sounds of a HB.

I also like the new mini-HB in the 70's tribute Gibson guitars. I have two of the Firebirds and I really like those pickups.

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After having a Tele as my main axe for 20+ yrs from the early '80's onwards, I was overjoyed to get back to my HB "roots". Was truly starting to despise the thin, snappy sound of a single-coil equipped guitar and get back to something with balls and a thicker, more complex tone. I'm quite happy with my three guitars now (SG Jr w/P90, SG Special w/mini-buckers and Kay 1410 w/Dearmond "Cheese-Grater") but will not long for the sound of a Fender-style guitar anytime soon.

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I'm already working on replacing the golden hardware of my red Dean V to chrome, so I can put the Hamer DDs on it without spoiling its look. In fact, I plan to change the pups, the tuners and the bridge very soon. The only point it's not clear yet is the V-plate, which seems to be a bit hard to find -but I'm also working on that with a contact Gene gave me (thanks Gene!)

Also, I recently custom-ordered a V that will have single coils on it. It should be ready for the next summer. I won't talk too much about this one though, as it should be a surprise -you guys who already know (you know who you are), please shut up for now! ;)

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When I hear DoubleDs my eyes light up. These pups are fantastic. They sure try to imitate Tele style from a P90 basis. Which is a contradiction in itself. However, they have a very authentic sound, but remain individual. In the Tally for me a no changer. Zorow, be happy to have a set of them.

Actually, I remember you had sold a pair of DDs once. I'm surprised you have bought them back again.

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Ended up with an extra set of Double Ds....Now I need to figure out what to do with them.......Pretty aure I do not want to let them go.

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Ended up with an extra set of Double Ds....Now I need to figure out what to do with them.......Pretty aure I do not want to let them go.

They might make a good job in the Newport too. Give it a more lovely sound as opposed to raw Phat Cats.

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