single coil sized humbuckers

Jetfire

Are these actually any cop? I had one once and didn't really find it very good because the guitar it was in was pretty poor anyway but do they sound as big as a humbucker or is it all snake oil and bullshit?

monquixote

They can't sound like a full size humbucker because they don't sample enough of the string in the same way that a p90 and a strat pickup sound different. 

I've never found one I really liked.

ICBM

Also, in order to pack as many turns of wire into a smaller space, they usually use thinner wire and the coils themselves are a different shape - both of which affect the tone - and then to try to compensate for all these things, they often use more powerful magnets than the full-size equivalents. So really it's not a surprise that they don't sound like the full-size ones.

I haven't found many I've liked either.

monquixote

I think some of them are fairly disingenuous as well. 

I bought a lil'59 and was somewhat annoyed to discover it was ceramic. Now I know more I understand that it has to be to be powerful enough, but like a 59 it ain't. 

MattG

a hot rails in the neck is great for heavy soloing work!

ICBM

monquixote said:

I think some of them are fairly disingenuous as well. 

I bought a lil'59 and was somewhat annoyed to discover it was ceramic. Now I know more I understand that it has to be to be powerful enough, but like a 59 it ain't. 

I think the Li'l 59 is my least favourite of all of them, although possibly just because the real 59N is my favourite neck humbucker ever, so the difference is particularly noticeable.

I quite like the Li'l Screamin' Demon though.

hubobulous

Chopper and Cruiser are nice, along with HS3

richardhomer

I have a JB Junior in the bridge position of a 20 year old American Standard Strat which I mainly use for slide and I have to say, it's pretty good.

For a time, I owned an HSS Suhr and I preferred the sound of the bridge JBJ to that of the full-sized HB in the Suhr. Clearly they were different guitars, so the comparison was not just between the pick-ups - nonetheless, the 'smart' money would probably have been on the Suhr sounding better....

monquixote

hubobulous said:

Chopper and Cruiser are nice, along with HS3

Andy Timmons seems to get some fairly epic sounds out of the Cruiser.

bandmaster188

I always found the jb junior pretty decent in a strat, although I've had a full size bucker in it now for a few years. The jb always seemed to balance pretty well with the other pickups and sounded reasonably stratty when split.

Octahedron

Got a mate who put some Cool Rails in a old Squier Strat. I really like the sound of the Cool Rails.  

They've got that twang of the single coils (especially in the bridge position actually), but they have a bit of a creamier edge to them, I especially like the neck pickup.  

timmysoft

I had the stacked dimarzio yjm pickups in a USA strat and it sounded huge, but not in a humbucker way.

Stevepage

I've got a JB Jr and Lil 59 in my Strat. I had the JB Jr before and once again I really like it. The lil 59 is great too. The two together makes for a great tone, I'll be keeping them for a long while.

maidenfan

I have a Dimarzio Injector in the neck of a Jaden Rose superstrat, definition, dynamics and rolls off really well.

Megii

I tried an SD Lil' 59 for a while, in the neck position - like monquixote, I didn't get on with it. IMO not very like a true PAF humbucker (so a misleading name) and there was a cold quality to the sound, and just a bit brittle at times. I've also have a cheap 9K alnico rails type Artec pickup, which I actually think is considerably better - sweeter sounding, although not like a PAF type either - hard to describe, but not a bad pickup in it's own way. The best one I've found for being at least a bit similar to a sweet, low output humbucker sound was a Lace Blue - which isn't a humbucker of course, although it is a lot less prone to hum than a standard single coil.

martinw

Another vote for the Dimarzio Chopper.

No, doesn't sound like a full size bucker (not sure anything would) but has a great sound of it's own, like a beefy single coil, but still with nice definition and a bit of twang. I'd get another if I had a Strat,

ThePrettyDamned

martinw;380622" said:

Another vote for the Dimarzio Chopper.No, doesn't sound like a full size bucker (not sure anything would) but has a great sound of it's own, like a beefy single coil, but still with nice definition and a bit of twang. I'd get another if I had a Strat,

That's how I think of stacked or sc sized humbucker pickups - do they sound good in their own right?

The Lil screaming demon is quite a nice sounding pickup, and I've tried the Paul Gilbert sig guitar. They are hum cancelling single coils, and sound really genuinely excellent.

Richardj

I really like the Lil '59 in a Tele bridge, still retains a little of the traditional bridge tone but nicely fattens it up.  Lil '59 for Strat was OK, a sort of undefined sound, not fat or thin, just OK I guess, not special.  

I have recently put a DiMarzio Pro Track into the bridge position of my Blade Texas Pro and that sounds nice.  Again not 'PAF' like as described but definitely a fatter single coil tone that works well in that application.

I have recently acquired a set of Pearly Gates single coil size 'buckers from this parish.  They are a curious thing as they have alnico magnets rather than ceramic.  I tried them initially in the Blade but they didn't sit well with the VSC and it lost some of it's character.  I then put them into my Standard Strat with the EC mid boost and TBX and that is a winning combo.  They are lower output than the ceramic loaded versions but do have a more 'bucker like character which I like. A better defined tone and more dynamic.  Worth a look but not cheap if you buy them new.

Brize

My Hot Rod 57 Strat has a Dimarzio Tone Zone in the bridge and I really like it. Not as thick sounding as a full-sized humbucker, but it's got it's own thing going on.

xSkarloey

If you're thinking about popping one in you could potentially get one of the lower priced ones and see how you go. Like @Brize says I'd say these sorts of pups have got their own particular qualities. 

I once had an Irongear 'Jailhouse Rail' in the bridge position of my Strat. 

It's fairly standard spec for this kind of pup: c. 13k  output (6.5k when split); ceramic magnets; single coil sized. 

It was good. In full HB mode I'd describe it as a Strat on steroids: certainly a more full HB type sound with plenty of output, but still retaining the character of a Strat s/c with bite and cut, so less 'darker' than say a HB in a Gibbo style guitar (woods as well as the pup in play there I guess). 

In the out of phase position  with the middle pup it was like the normal sound but with a bit more of a deeper quality. 

In coil split mode it was great- lots of Strat cut but without being too toppy or shrill. 

Long story short it was a very good pup and I'd do it again but I decided to go back to the s/c in the bridge for the traditional looks of it as much as anything. 

guitarfishbay

I've got two Area 67s, an Area 61 and a BC2 (which is a Tone Zone S tweaked to Billy Corgan's liking).

My opinion is pretty mixed.

The 61 I did not like in the bridge at all, it was bright but really did not remind me much of a single coil.  It was fairly harsh unless the tone control was rolled down a little.  It is ok in the neck if a bit more scooped sounding than I expected.  I'm not sold on it.

The 67 sounds good in the middle, but in the neck misses 'something', and I'm not really certain what.  It is like the high end doesn't fully breathe properly in my guitar (US standard strat with stock pots, 250k value IIRC).  Versus a real single coil it doesn't have the same depth.  With gain it sounds fine, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone who mostly plays clean.  In between sounds seem to work slightly better with the 61 in the neck than with the 67, I think.  But in between sounds are already hum cancelling on standard strat single coils and I think they sound a bit better there too.

The BC2 acctually pretty decent under gain, but it is quite dark.  It doesn't compare to a fullsize humbucker but not in the way I expected.  I thought it would lack low end punch, actually the opposite is true.  It has equally big low end to my humbucker guitars but the midrange is very different.  It feels quite congested next to my humbucker guitars, and misses the 'sizzle' I like too.  It is a bit too hot and stuffy sounding for nice clean tones IMO.

I've got to say, I'd only recommend the 67 from the Areas if you do a mixture of gain and clean playing.  If you don't do much playing with crunchier sounds I don't think I'd pick one over a traditional single coil.  The BC2 is pretty good if you need to drop a SC sized humbucker into a strat, however if your neck and middle pickups are quite bright it won't balance unless you have them on a separate tone pot to the BC.  I find I run the tone pot on my BC wide open (it is bypassed on 10 IIRC) and I run my neck/middle tone pot about 7/8.  If I run the neck/middle tone pot on 10 my neck pickup is brighter than my bridge pickup, which makes no sense to me.

I sort of wish I'd just dealt with the noise of single coils.  At some point I'll go back to real singles but it isn't really a priority right now as I'm only really using humbucker sounds at the minute and I'm happy with the ones I get from my other guitars.