# stacked humbucker with single coil tone



## Grandpa Simpson (Oct 7, 2008)

i want to find a good bridge pickup for my strat that has a nice single coil like clean tone but takes distortion very well. i was looking at a Seymour Duncan jb jr pickup. any other suggestions, or is this a good pickup for what i want?


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## keefsdad (Feb 7, 2006)

Grandpa Simpson said:


> i want to find a good bridge pickup for my strat that has a nice single coil like clean tone but takes distortion very well. i was looking at a Seymour Duncan jb jr pickup. any other suggestions, or is this a good pickup for what i want?


I would stick to single coils for the tone you are describing, the jb jr is a humbucker. I don't know what you're using know, so it's hard for me to advise you.


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## Andy (Sep 23, 2007)

I'd take a look at the SD Cool Rails or Hot Stack.


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## Archer (Aug 29, 2006)

Remember that the Duncan Rail pickups are not stacked coils, neither is the JB Jr


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## Grandpa Simpson (Oct 7, 2008)

keefsdad said:


> I would stick to single coils for the tone you are describing, the jb jr is a humbucker. I don't know what you're using know, so it's hard for me to advise you.


i use the stock pickups in my 2007 standard MIM strat, im sick of the hum and my pickups sound worse then when i bought them. i know the jb jr is a humbucker but i was told that it sounded alot like a single coil. what about the fender hot noiseless pups? do they handle distortion well and still have the single coil tone that most noiseless single coils dont have?


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

Grandpa Simpson said:


> i use the stock pickups in my 2007 standard MIM strat, im sick of the hum and my pickups sound worse then when i bought them. i know the jb jr is a humbucker but i was told that it sounded alot like a single coil. what about the fender hot noiseless pups? do they handle distortion well and still have the single coil tone that most noiseless single coils dont have?


I had a set of Fender Noiseless pups in a strat clone I owned a couple of years ago. They were noiseless and sounded like single coils should, but there was something less than inspiring about the tone.

When it comes to hum/noise free single coils these guys are regarded as one of the best.

http://www.kinman.com/index.php

Matt


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The difficulty with trying to achieve "single-coil tone" in a SC package/footprint with hum-rejection is that having two separate coils instantly changes the inductance and resonant properties of the coil. The other thing that changes is that the sensing area often shifts.

In a standard SC, the sensing area is effectively between the top and bottom of the polepieces. Because the bottom is farther from the strings, the strings are sensed primarily within a very narrow aperture over one end of the polepieces. This is part of what provides the brighter, less mid-range-heavy tone.

In a standard PAF-style HB, the sensing area is also between the ends of the polepieces, but since the two sets of polepieces are magnetically coupled, the pickup behaves as if you had 6 U-shaped polepieces. So if you consider the sensing area as the zone between coil A and B, the sensing area is a lot more exposed to the string, and especially longer wavelengths . This is part of what makes HB pickups sound "meatier".

Things like dual-rails and other attempts to have two coils coupled underneath with polepieces pointing up also have their sensing area between the tops of the polepieces (or blade), yielding something which is not exactly PAF tone (the sensing area IS narrower because the pickup is too), but not exactly SC tone either.

Some 20 years ago, I had a long chat with the fellow who made Evans pickups about stacked humbuckers. His personal view was that they could certainly be designed to reject hum, but that they simply didn't - and couldn't - have "that sound". Evans utilized a design which was sort of like a split Precision Bass pickup in a Strat-size package. Lindy Fralin makes something like that now too, only using two blade polepieces. ( http://www.fralinpickups.com/stratstyleSB.asp#EG ) and the Z-pickups on G&L guitars operate in the same fashion (though without the Strat footprint/form-factor). These also provide hum-rejection, in much the same way as positions 2 and 4 on a Strat, where two pickups combined produce hum-rejection.


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## xbolt (Jan 1, 2008)

One pickup I've tried that has a fairly single coiled tone without hum is the SD vintage rail. It sounds good overdriven too but is not high output so more blues/rock OD tones.


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## theelectic (Mar 11, 2006)

mrmatt1972 said:


> When it comes to hum/noise free single coils these guys are regarded as one of the best.
> 
> http://www.kinman.com/index.php


Also if you hurry I think there's 3 or 4 days left in their 25% off sale.


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## david henman (Feb 3, 2006)

Grandpa Simpson said:


> i want to find a good bridge pickup for my strat that has a nice single coil like clean tone but takes distortion very well. i was looking at a Seymour Duncan jb jr pickup. any other suggestions, or is this a good pickup for what i want?


...i think, ultimately, you are going to be disappointed. a stacked/humbucker cannot do what a single coil pickup does, and vice versa.

that said, take a look at dimarzio area, lace hot gold and bill lawrence pickups.

as well, i think lindy fralin is coming out with some noiseless pickups soon.

-dh


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## bagpipe (Sep 19, 2006)

david henman said:


> ...i think, ultimately, you are going to be disappointed. a stacked/humbucker cannot do what a single coil pickup does, and vice versa.
> 
> that said, take a look at dimarzio area, lace hot gold and bill lawrence pickups.
> 
> ...


I agree with this post. I had the Bill Lawrence "stacked single coils" - L280s and am L290 - and while they are nice, and don't hum, they dont have the sparkle and zing of a true single coil. I ended up going back to the original single coils and just used my humbucker equipped guitar for the 'gainier' stuff.


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## david henman (Feb 3, 2006)

bagpipe said:


> I agree with this post. I had the Bill Lawrence "stacked single coils" - L280s and am L290 - and while they are nice, and don't hum, they dont have the sparkle and zing of a true single coil. I ended up going back to the original single coils and just used my humbucker equipped guitar for the 'gainier' stuff.


...that was my experience, as well, with both the L280s and kinman's traditional mk IIs. excellent pickups, both.

but, i got much more tone satisfaction by going back to traditional single coils and dramatically reducing the gain on my o/d pedals.

i also have a couple of guitars equipped with noise-cancelling electronics.

-dh


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## Grandpa Simpson (Oct 7, 2008)

hey guys, sorry about me not checking this thread i forgot about it kqoct
anyways, i took a look at some dimarzio stuff and i found out about these noiseless single coils that they have called area 61, and area 58. they have good reviews and people say that they keep the "single coil tone" and i have a question. my neck pickup seems to be dying, it seems thinner sounding and is quieter than my bridge pickup. i was wondering if i can take my old bridge pickup, when i switch it out, and if i can put it in the neck position without having any problems? i dont mind noise in my neck pickup mainly cause i play cleans with it and i dont use it much at all. btw my guitar is a standard MIM strat


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

I have S1's in my Tele and despite what others may tell you I find that they work very, very well. As another choice, for several years my main stage guitar was a Godin LGXT with SD Duckbuckers and I had no complaints with it either.


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## david henman (Feb 3, 2006)

Grandpa Simpson said:


> i have a question. my neck pickup seems to be dying, it seems thinner sounding and is quieter than my bridge pickup. i was wondering if i can take my old bridge pickup, when i switch it out, and if i can put it in the neck position without having any problems? i dont mind noise in my neck pickup mainly cause i play cleans with it and i dont use it much at all. btw my guitar is a standard MIM strat


...post this question in the guitar tech section - you're sure to get a few helpful suggestions.

-dh


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

You can stick any pickup in any position you want. The question is, "what could go wrong if you do?':

1) The output level of the pickups might be mismatched. Output at the bridge is often less than output at the neck because of the added bass content in the neck position. That's why "matched" sets often wind the bridge hotter to provide roughly equal volume levels, especially in the Strat context where you have one volume knob and no option for volume presets. Of course, the key question is "hotter than what?". You can always find an even hotter pickup to stick in the bridge position, so relocation as you describe is not necessarily problematic.

2) You can always adjust the height of the pickup to change the output level, but that can change tone, and can also play havoc with how much space you personally need to have around the strings to do what you do. So, relocating and height adjustment may work out for you, or it may not.

3) Contemporary 5-position Strats generally assume a RWRP middle pickup that can provide noise cancellation in positions 2 and 4. In one respect, this makes the bridge and neck pickups interchangeable with respect to the hum-rejection possibilities. Moving the middle pickup elsewhere, though, may muck up your hum-rejection.

4) Not all guitars have the same string to string spacing at the neck and bridge. Teles are a prime example of this. The neck pickup has much closer polepiece spacing than a Strat pickup. I had to custom build a neck pickup for my Epi Coronet because the only thing available that would line up with the strings was a Tele neck pickup, and I wasn't going for that tone. You'll also find that not all PAF-style humbuckers have the same polepiece spacing, particularly when you attempt to replace pickups on a Japanese or other Asian clone.


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