H-S-H Pickup Recommendations

Hi guys, not exactly a wiring question (but I'm sure that will come later) but more of a question about pickup selection.

My next build will be another Strat, but I wanted something a bit different this time. I am planning to go with an H-S-H pickup configuration. Most of my playing will be at church which entails everything from soft "background" music to overdriven rock. So versatility is the goal here.

So, being a bit of a numpty when it comes to pickups, I am after recommendations of what would be a good combination from the PBG range of Entwistle and Tonerider. As only Entwistle sell individual SC's the middle will have to be an Entwistle (but which one)? As far as HB's go, I am open to suggestions. I'm not planning on splitting coils, I'm afraid my brain would explode trying to get my head around all those permutations.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Cheers
rob

P.S. Adam, you have Red H-S-H pickguards, any chance you will be getting in any Black ones in the near future?

Hi Robin,
What type of amplifier setup do you use? Can have an impact on what you look for.
If you go slightly overwound like a rocksong on the bridge and something like an AC4 neck in Toneriders you could end up with a fairly versatile rig. As for the middle pickup not sure as have not used any.

Pickup selection can be hard as its a real personal preference.

The standard H-S-H Strat set up requires splittable humbuckers, as in positions 2 & 4 you will have either the north coil of the the neck pickup or the south coil of the bridge pickup with the reverse phase middle pickup to get the classic funky out of phase Strat sounds. You can't get these sounds without splitting the humbuckers.

Something like this will probably be the most versatile http://www.guitarelectronics.com/pro...SH5L11-02.html.

@ Tony
Thanks for the info Tony.

At home I have a cheap Fender Mustang practice amp and at church I play through the "House" PA. In both situations I use a Boss ME-70, so rely on effects for the overdriven sounds.

I hadn't thought of mixing different models between neck and bridge, so you have given me something extra to think about. Hmm, life just became a little more complicated lol.

Thanks mate.


@ Geoff
I didn't realize that I had to split the humbuckers to get that out of phase 2 & 4 sounds that I was after. You may have saved me a lot of re-wiring, so thank you.

And thanks for the link, I am sure I will find it useful.

Thanks guys

rob

Fon humbuckers, give railhammers a shot. Theyre uncommon and pretty radical but I use the chisel neck and bridge models cos I play Christian worship and metal, so I needed extreme versatility. Railhammer chisels can do metal, roll back the volume a little and turn off your distortion and youve got a great singing clean sound. Coil split them and they sound like single coils minus the hum. Too bad railhammers dont make single coils, but Id stick in anything really cos the railhammers set to the right height go well with almost anything.

Thanks for the feedback Eshays,

You are right when you said that the Railhammers are a bit radical, look cool though. Unfortunately a bit out of my price range.

Good to see a fellow PBG'er into Worship music. I don't need the extremes of going to Metal, I just use a bit of overdrive to spice things up a bit.

Interesting that the middle Single Coil is not that important. It was the one I was most worried about considering the higher output of most Humbuckers.

Can I ask how you have them wired?

Thanks for your help mate.
rob

Hi Robin, not sure it helps, but I do have pre-loaded (Chinese pickups) H-S-H Pickguard in white. It's only $49.95.

http://www.pitbullguitars.com/shop/p...ckguard-white/

You could start with something like this and then replace the pups that you are going to use most.

Thanks Adam, I had noticed that you had those for sale, and if I had any sense I would try them, but hey, where's the fun in taking the easy way out. :P

I am hoping that your Toneriders amd Entwistles will be a step above in quality, so I would never be happy with them until I upgraded, so might as well bight the bullet now.

As soon as I have decided I will put in an order.

Cheers
rob

Hi Rob,
I have my pickups wired to a 5 way. Position 1-full neck hum 2-coil split neck and middle single 3-middle single 4-middle single and coil split bridge 5-full bridge. When Im playing worship stuff, I use position 1 for overdrive, position 2 for anything non lead and non overdrive and position 3 for non overdriven lead. I dont really use postion 4 and 5, theyre more for when Im playing metal.

Thanks for that Eshays, that pretty much will do exactly what I'm after. Sounds easy enough.

Although I only intend on using 1 Volume and 1 Tone, which will leave me with a hole in a standard Strat pickguard for a switch of some kind. I'm going to do some more research and see if I can't also have it switchable to S-S-S configuration (using split HB's). I know I'm going to be in over my head pretty soon, I will probably regret it, but I'm in no rush.

Thanks again mate
rob

To do that, youll need a 5 way double wafer super switch. Its actually simpler than youd imagine to do that configurations but youll need quite a bit of spare wire. Also youd need to check that the cavity can fit a super switch. (Shame if it cant cos without routing theres not much you can do.) But the wiring for that would be to have the first wafer set up for the regular H-S-H pickup configuration and the second for S-S-S, but dont join the two wafers. Then have the wafers connected to the switch such that in one position it takes the signal of the one wafer and the other position takes the other wafer. Then wire up the rest of the controls normally connecting to the switch's output. The controls need to be after the switch in the signal chain. But itll be a great mod. Best of luck with wiring and have fun.

Robin, a variant of either of these, Seymour Duncan 2 'lil hum 1 single auto split or GuitarElectronics.com 2 hum 1 single auto split, would probably work for want you want to do. You could then add either a push/pull pot or a DPDT toggle switch (if you want to go the 2 pots plus switch option) to manually split the humbuckers in positions 1 and 5 for when you want the full SSS config.

wow its great having wiring and electronic gurus on the forum. Where would we be without you guys ?
excellent work Weirdy and Eshays

wow its great having wiring and electronic gurus on the forum. Where would we be without you guys ?
excellent work Weirdy and Eshays

Thanks Scott and Eshays, great info there, really appreciate the help guys.

I am a real wiring noob, and getting all this into context is doing my head in. I have spent hours on the Net and bookmarked so many pages lol. I am still undecided exactly what arrangement of pickups to go with but I am looking forward to wiring up the guitar and the best way to learn is to make a few mistakes. I'm only playing with electricity, what can go wrong haha.

@ Warren - you are right mate, PBG's Forums are the best.

@ Warren - you are right mate, PBG's Forums are the best. HANG ON!!! Double post. So that's how to become an Overlord of Music ;)

Cheers guys
rob