781

The Pickup Place / Re: Does anyone use a bridge pickup in the neck position?

« on: April 19, 2017, 05:41:06 AM »

I personally would not do it since most humbuckers designed for the neck position are too dark for me already but I have seen this quite often, and it can be done with great results depending on how you use the guitar. I remember having read about a guy using a Di Marzio PAF in the bridge and a Super Distortion in the neck which is counterintuitive but he used the bridge for the crunchy rhythm tones liking the tight tone the PAF gave him there, and the neck pickup in humbucking mode (coils in series) for single note leads. He had also a switch on the guitar to split the SD in the neck, and he used that or the middle position (bridge plus split neck) for his clean tones.

Cheers Stephan

782

The Pickup Place / Re: Need a Dimarzio neck humbucker with bite under gain

« on: April 19, 2017, 05:33:17 AM »

Will adding the resistor from the bridge pickup to ground change the taper of the tone pot for the bridge pickup?

In theory, yes, since at lower settings the value between the signal and ground is low. At those settings the added resistor is relatively large and has less impact on the total resistance to ground. At higher settings the resistor has more impact. The formula to calculate the total resistance to ground is

Rt = (R1 x R2)/(R1+R2), where

R1 = resistance between volume pot output and ground, and
R2 = the added resistor.

Remember when taking the measurement of R1 to disconnect the pickup - its DC resistance is also in parallel to Rt, so leaving it connected fouls up the measurements.

In practice I have not noticed any substantial change in the pot travel/action (the taper itself stays the same).

Cheers Stephan

783

The Pickup Place / Re: Chopper in Bridge + Area 61's in Neck & Middle. Help!

« on: March 31, 2017, 10:10:30 AM »

This should be a straight forward wiring but if everything sounds fine except the bridge + middle combination, try to swap the green and red wires on the bridge pickup.

Good luck,
Stephan

784

The Pickup Place / Re: Need specifics about Fender S-1 single coil "simulation"

« on: March 30, 2017, 03:57:41 AM »

Many thanks for posting this - so I was not that far off.

Cheers Stephan

785

The Pickup Place / Re: Wired in bridge super distortion in HSS guitar, now bridge + middle is very thin

« on: March 30, 2017, 03:56:52 AM »

Seems like it is out of phase with the single coil in the middle. Just swap the green and red wires on the Super Distortion and you should be fine.

Good luck,
Stephan

786

The Pickup Place / Re: Ultimate HSS setup?

« on: March 29, 2017, 04:38:56 AM »

And by the way - there is no such thing as "the ultimate HSS set up" but I guess you already knew  .

You will always have to strike some compromise between the two extremes - do you want the humbucker to balance with the singles when split (then it will likely overpower the singles in series mode) or do you want it to balance with the singles in humbucking mode (then it will most likely sound thin in split mode compared to the singles). The set up I described in my previous post roughly covers the vintage camp and extends into hard rock territory easily.

Cheers Stephan

787

The Pickup Place / Re: Ultimate HSS setup?

« on: March 29, 2017, 04:35:41 AM »

Hi,

the AT-1/Cruiser/Cruiser combination may work for AT but for me it certainly would not. I would be fine with the AT-1 but with the Cruisers I think it is too strong.

I have one strat that has a VHPAF in the bridge, a Virtual Vintage 54 Pro in the middle and an Area 67 in the neck, all with 250k volume and tone pots. I really like it - good balance over all five positions.

HB2 in the neck would also be a good option but I would go for a 500k volume pot in that case. You will have to check whether that is OK with the bridge humbucker and add a resistor to ground if it it too bright.

I have not yet tried the VV 54 Pro in the neck position of anything, so I cannot really comment on 67 middle/VV 54 Pro neck.

Cheers Stephan

788

The Pickup Place / Re: Experience/opinions wanted - Strat

« on: March 28, 2017, 03:31:10 AM »

Hi,

I am also not a fan of true vintage strat pickups.

Is anyone running a Virtual Solo in the neck position? Thoughts? I have an extra one and want to not waste it.

I only used it in the bridge. I could imagine that it works well with a humbucker in the bridge.

One choice - h/s/s Strat running a Suhr Thornbucker in the neck, thinking the VS might match up nicely. A "vintage" Strat neck pickup can be too strident for what I play.

You mean the Thornbucker is in the bridge? As I said that could work well. Virtual Solo in the bridge may be overpowered by a neck humbucker.

Another choice - VS in the middle of my s/s/s Strat (Heavy Blues 2 in the bridge). I still want some quack but am okay with it not being purely vintage-sounding.

Personally I would not use a darker middle pickup than the bridge pickup so I would put the VS in the bridge and the HB2 in the middle given these two choices.

I bought a Virtual Vintage 54 Pro. Choices are either neck or middle position of a s/s/s Strat. I'm thinking the 54 might enhance quack a bit in the middle to make up for the non-vintage bridge pickups.

VV 54 Pro in the middle is an excellent choice. I have one guitar where I have it with an Area 67 in the neck and a Virtual Hot PAF in the bridge and the VV 54 Pro in the middle provides for excellent quack in the #2 and #4 positions.

I have an Area 67 in the middle of my h/s/s Strat and like it. What changes can I expect if I replace it with the 54?

Is the Area 67 a good choice in the neck? Or would you use the 54 there?

The 54 is a bit darker and a tiny bit higher output than the 67. I prefer it or the 58 over the 67 for the middle position.

The Area 67 is my preferred choice for the neck, and I definitely prefer it over the 58 there. I have not yet used the 54 in the neck position.

Cheers Stephan

789

The Pickup Place / Re: Need specifics about Fender S-1 single coil "simulation"

« on: March 27, 2017, 04:18:00 AM »

I am not sure how they do this exactly but I have seen a few variants to this theme:

- standard coil splitting is to ground the series connection of the humbucker coils
- Bill Lawrence preferred to insert a 0.022uf cap between the series connection of the coils and ground. What this does is that the coil is not shunted off completely - only the highs get shunted above the knee frequency of the cap, everything else stays unaffected. Positive side effect is that the hum cancelling ability is maintained. I have used caps as high as 0.047uf with good results. The bigger the cap the closer you get to the true split - however, the signal drop out increases as well. With a 0.022uf the signal drop out is not noticeable.
- PRS used resistors in place of the cap in their DGT guitars (1.1k for the neck pickup, 2.2k for the bridge pickup). What this does is more difficult to describe. It is not so much a tone thing even though I think it takes away a bit of the harshness of the single coil tone but more of a feel thing in a way that the guitar appears to play easier. Humcancelling ability is lost, however, and so is signal strength.

So the Charvel method may be a combination of the Lawrence and PRS methods. So if your goal is to avoid signal drop out, start with the Lawrence method unless we hear from somebody that has one of these guitars on the bench and can check what's in there.

Cheers Stephan

790

The Pickup Place / Re: How does the Chopper fair when split?

« on: March 23, 2017, 05:37:37 AM »

I don't know - I have never set it up to split.

With regular sized humbuckers one would expect the parallel mode to be brighter than split mode. In practice this is not always the case, and that is due to the phase cancellations in parallel mode which occur since both coils pick up the signal. Since the Chopper is single coil size, the phase cancellations occur at different frequencies so the sonic impression between split and parallel may be different than with regular sized humbuckers.

Cheers Stephan

791

The Pickup Place / Re: Need a Dimarzio neck humbucker with bite under gain

« on: March 22, 2017, 04:58:23 AM »

Switch to 500k pots and get a Breed Neck. Stays crunchy even in milk. You will thank me.

That sounds interesting. I still have a Breed neck lying around and doing nothing at the moment.

Cheers Stephan

792

The Pickup Place / Re: How does the Chopper fair when split?

« on: March 22, 2017, 04:54:57 AM »

I have it set up for series and parallel modes. Parallel mode is brighter and lower output - a very useable tone.

Cheers Stephan

793

News & New Guys / Re: Unable to post attachment (Jpeg of just 11.7K)

« on: March 22, 2017, 04:53:49 AM »

This is a problem I also had and it seems to persist unfortunately.

794

The Pickup Place / Re: Need a Dimarzio neck humbucker with bite under gain

« on: March 20, 2017, 08:52:17 AM »

Just to be clear, you would leave the tone at 250k, but change the volume to 500k?

Yes - if you are only going to change one of the pots it should be the volume pot as it makes a bigger difference. The tone pot is only wired as a variable resistance, and a 250k tone pot on 10 is roughly the equivalent of a 500k tone pot on 8. To my (old) ears this difference is quite subtle.

Cheers Stephan

795

The Pickup Place / Re: Need a Dimarzio neck humbucker with bite under gain

« on: March 20, 2017, 05:06:42 AM »

Just checked the specs - the three controls are volume, tone (for both magnetic pickups) and a piezo volume control.

I second the recommendation to change to a 500k volume control. To make the bridge pickup see a 250k load, add a 470k resistor (or two 1 meg resistors in parallel for 500k) from the bridge pickup's hot connection to ground.

As regards neck pickups: this is generally difficult since string movement in the neck spot is huge and produces a lot of bass response. From the DiMarzio line up I had success with the Bluesbucker but I would only use it with 500k pots in the neck, otherwise it will be too dark. Seymour Duncan Full Shred neck is another good one. If you want to move away to a slightly more single coil tone you can use a Wide Range Humbucker in normal humbucker format (The Creamery and Catswhisker make them) or maybe a Zhangbucker Telebucker (that one has magnetic poles in the neckside coil like a strat pickup). The latter would benefit from a 250k pot.

Cheers Stephan