pickup debate

jeff robertson · Post by **jeff robertson** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 8:40 am

Single coil vs. humbucker.
Discuss amongst yourselves.

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:24 am

thats a no brainer.

Thats like... which is better analogue or digital. (also a no brainer)

so.... will there still be arguments? (the answer is a no brainer)

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:35 am

Chocolate or vanilla?
Two door or four?
No brainers rain down upon us!

What song, style, mood, arrangement are you interested in discussing? "Should I wear pants or shorts?" sort of depends on if I'm visiting Hoblit in FL or those crazy prog-rockers in Canada. In January.

I have three each in my closet.

Post by jb » Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:56 am

I like humbuckers better. Darker, crunchier, that's my preference. I saw a revival show with some 80's bands and there was Tommy Two-Tone doing "Jenny" on Fenders, all single-coil, and the Knack doing "My Sharona" on Gibsons, two humbuckers each, and the Knack's sound was so much harder and powerful, I just dug it immensely. Now, if you'rre going for that lighter, poppier sound, I think Single is great. But if I'm going to buy a guitar (which I'm not going to right now) it'll have a pair of humbuckers under the strings.

JB

bz£ · Post by **bz£** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:01 am

humbucker + fernandes sustainer!

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:11 am

roymond wrote:Chocolate or vanilla?
Two door or four?
No brainers rain down upon us!

What song, style, mood, arrangement are you interested in discussing? "Should I wear pants or shorts?" sort of depends on if I'm visiting Hoblit in FL or those crazy prog-rockers in Canada. In January.

I have three each in my closet.

I disagree with your analogies. But you probably knew that already!

jeff robertson · Post by **jeff robertson** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 12:18 pm

If you already have a "fat strat" type of guitar with a bridge humbucker, will a Gibson give you much you don't already have?

ken · Post by **ken** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 12:59 pm

No one prefers the P-90 pickup? My next guitar is going to have some.

Ken

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:15 pm

My Gibsons for power chords and crunch. But my Strat for clean guitar stuff. Pretty much the only electric I record with is my Gibson Explorer2 with two sets of double coils. I love the balls that guitar has.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:22 pm

Billy's Little Trip wrote:My Gibsons for power chords and crunch. But my Strat for clean guitar stuff. Pretty much the only electric I record with is my Gibson Explorer2 with two sets of double coils. I love the balls that guitar has.

At last year's Songwriters' Hall of Fame show, the guy in the band supporting Les Paul was playing a Strat. It was an awful faux pas. Funny thing is, Les plays with such a light touch and produces a very Fender-like tone on his Gibson.

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 2:39 pm

My bass player has an old Telecaster in mint condition that he noodles around on. I used it in place of the Strat on a couple of our studio songs. Between Fender and Gibson, I think the Teli is the closest merger of the two. The only problem I have with the Teli, is that I'm always hitting the volume knob when I'm deep in the playing, and it snaps me out of my soulistic euphoria, lol.

Paco Del Stinko · Post by **Paco Del Stinko** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:20 pm

Ken wrote:No one prefers the P-90 pickup? My next guitar is going to have some.

Just the other day I thought about how I've never played a guitar with those. Pray that I don't start thinking about this too much as I do not need another guitar.

Depends on what you're doing, and both have pluses and minuses, but if you had to pick one it would have to be humbuckers. Besides being more powerful they are typically quieter and it's easier to whittle the sound down than it can often be to fatten up with a single coil. Single coils are probably more articulate, though.

obscurity · Post by **obscurity** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 5:32 pm

Piezo.

I'm being serious.

rogerroll · Post by **rogerroll** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 5:46 pm

Optical?

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 5:59 pm

Chevy

Märk · Post by **Märk** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:14 pm

what about pickup lines?

My favorite is "Oh, no, I'm not drunk at all! It's just these drugs that I was court-ordered to take."

60% of the time, it works EVERY TIME.

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:30 pm

everyone should own at least one guitar with each kind of pickup.

Dan-O from Five-O · Post by **Dan-O from Five-O** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 9:01 pm

blue wrote:everyone should own at least one guitar with each kind of pickup.

Agreed, I'll have to get a picture of the collection I have someday. But for now, most people see this and think it's just a regular Gibson ES335, but it's not. It's an ES335TD, not sure what the TD stands for but I'm guessing the "T" stands for "Trapeze" which is the type of bridge it has. The "D" might mean "Dial" which some of these models had not unlike a B.B. King Lucille model. I've only played a couple of minutes on the "Lucille" type models, so I can only speak definitively about the guitar I own.

Look at the picture closely and you'll notice a toggle switch on the right hand horn. It's a split coil switch that basically makes the humbucker a single coil pickup in the down position, full humbucker in the up position. I would actually describe the effect as being closer to the P90 pickup that Ken mentioned than I would a true single coil, but it effectively gives the guitar 6 distinctive sounds as apposed to 3 without messing with volume or tone of course. I love this guitar for all the tone options it provides. The dial models, called a "Varitone", I assume offer the player 18 tone options and the B.B. King model has both mono and stereo output. (Not sure about any others) But I digress.

As Blue and others have stated, there are many, many tone options out there for guitar, and picking only one as the definitive best seems short sighted and well on the way to limiting your options.

And then of course you have to start thinking about amps. And don't even get me started on pedals!

bz£ · Post by **bz£** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 9:04 pm

obscurity wrote:Piezo.

I'm being serious.

I'd love one of those Parker combos with the piezo pickups. My next guitar is still gonna be a Fernandes, though. Maybe one day I'll be rich!

Amps are another story but I still want a Visual Sound Workhorse. My credit card company disagrees, sadly.

jeff robertson · Post by **jeff robertson** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 9:18 am

Dan-O from Five-O wrote:It's a split coil switch that basically makes the humbucker a single coil pickup in the down position, full humbucker in the up position.

That rocks. Didn't Jimmy Page have a Les Paul with a switch like that?

Dan-O from Five-O wrote:I would actually describe the effect as being closer to the P90 pickup that Ken mentioned than I would a true single coil

I thought the P-90 is a single-coil.

Rabid Garfunkel · Post by **Rabid Garfunkel** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 9:29 am

bzl wrote:My next guitar is still gonna be a Fernandes, though.

Do they still make the glass fretboard fretless? Drool...

I like my guitars to have pickups. Single coil, humbucker, splittable humbucker, mystery coil, whatever. Bring the noise!