single coil sized humbuckers

Andyjr1515

I put  set of SD Hotrails into a strat for a guy who used to be the demonstrator for Vigier.  His playing probably had something to do with it but it sounded WILD!

I've also used Kinmans which are expensive but again, made a very, very good sound.

But I agree with the others - like one humbucker sounds different to another, a Hotrails isn't going to sound like a SD JR any more than a BK Crawler would

ab2014

Tele lil 59 bridge was very usable for me and employing a coil split makes it versatile. Jbjnr sucked in a strat, really thin and spikey. Chopper T really good in a tele for halfway between single coil and bucker sounds. Hot rails too overblown for me. Cool rails neck really nice with other hotter pickups.

Dave_Mc

monquixote said:

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.

Same here- although that's something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because I haven't liked the more popular ones which tend to be fitted to guitars in shops which you can try, I haven't tried any of the more obscure ones, 'cos I'm not paying to try something I strongly suspect I won't like! )

ICBM said:

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.

Yeah that's what my neck hot-rails sounds like- like it was too bright, but then they massively overcompensated and managed to make it way too warm (but not really warm in the way a regular humbucker would be). Not much fussed (it came stock in my Framus).

IanSavage

To echo a lot of the comments already made, the Iron Gear Steel Twin I've got in my Tele bridge does sound more like a turbo-charged Tele than a PAF or something, and the DiMarzio Pro Track I used to have in my Strat was like a beefier (FAR beefier, I'm not a fan of the standard Strat bridge sound) Strat bridge pup.

 

You're not going to get the sound of a Les Paul by sticking a SC-sized humbucker in a Strat, but of course it'll fill things out a bit (and get rid of that FUCKING hum!)

lysander

Bit of a thread revive, but I recently installed a chopper bridge and a pair of cruisers for middle and neck in a strat.
I found the chopper pretty great, but the cruiser were a big let down.
They sound good for clean, but have no clarity whatsoever with gain. They don't sound at all strat-y either to me. 

fretmeister

lysander said:

Bit of a thread revive, but I recently installed a chopper bridge and a pair of cruisers for middle and neck in a strat.
I found the chopper pretty great, but the cruiser were a big let down.
They sound good for clean, but have no clarity whatsoever with gain. They don't sound at all strat-y either to me. 

Put another chopper at the neck.

It's very good there.

Funkfingers

monquixote said:

it was ceramic. 

The majority of these pickups employ a ceramic magnet. Of necessity, it needs to be small enough to fit between the blades at the centre of each coil.

Fortunately, there are a few exceptions. The Seymour Duncan Custom Shop makes Pearly Gates for Stratocaster and Telecaster single-coil-sized humbuckers using alnico magnets. These are capable of sounding far more like a full-sized regular humbucker. The more affordable option is the SD Red Devil.

MattG said:

hot rails

Octahedron said:

Cool Rails

The thing I like about the rails pickups is that they are not pretending to be a full-size 'bucker. They are what they are. Take it or leave it. The SD Hot Rails in the bridge position of my Ibanez RS405 is going nowhere. 

Jetfire

Holy crap! Necro bump! 

Lestratcaster

I had the SD Everything Axe set in a Strat but it never gave me the tones I wanted. With them conveniently being single coil sized they slotted straight in but I didn't actually realise they were humbuckers. The JB Jnr didn't fatten up the bridge at all, being a Green Day fan I wanted that Dookie tone but it sounded very thin and weak. The other 2 (Little 59/Duckbucker) on cleans were ok but never had that bright snap from true single coils.

Last year I changed it all out for 2 Oil City single coils and then the full sized JB SH-4. Had to replace the pickguard but well worth it.