[Closed] Guitars

refers to the pickup config
S = single coil
H = humbucker

A humbucker is a type of pickup, typically a fatter sound than a single coil.
Example Strats have 3 single coils, S-S-S
Les Pauls have 2 humbuckers

humbucker - refers to removing hum

single coils are prone to a bit of hum (although millions of single coil users are happy to live with it)

humbuckers are essentially 2 single coils together, wired in a way that the 2nd pickup removes the hum. A side affect of this though is the fatter sound nugget refers to

HSS refers to a humbucker at the bridge position and a single coil in the middle and neck positions. This arrangement is popular as the bridge position is prone to sounding quite trebble heavy - so a humbucker here evans things out a bit

best buying advice - look at what guitars the players you want to emulate use - buy something close to what they have within budget. modern guitars are generally very good these days - evan the cheap ones

Can I put forward CORT as a maker to look at.

I hadnt played one till last night whence I tried a KX (i think) amazing quality for the price. Nice maple necks and all sorts of configurations for the HSS SSS HH etc etc.

Humbuckers are wired in series, but out of phase with each other,so any rogue interference is sent by one coil as a + signal and one coil as a - signal, canceling each other out and hey presto, no hum, hence they "buck the hum". Seth Lover who invented them, never actually used the the buck himself though , the disadvantage of this is that the design trims a little hf off and loses a little definition overall, but giving a fatter sound with usually higher output than a single coil

humbuckers give a beefy sound
single coils give a more tonal sound
p90's are lovely
and chickens don't have lips.

oh and just buy one you like the look and feel of, don't worry about the pickups too much.

>oh and just buy one you like the look and feel of, don't worry about the pickups too much.

And listen to it 😉

Just to confuse the issue, you can also get single coil humbuckers - they keep the narrowness of the single coil, but have two windings to give you the hum rejection of a humbucker. (I think Seymour Duncan Hot Rails might be one example). The hum, btw, is just picking up radiation from the mains wiring.

Strats are typically s-s-s, and Gibsons h-h. Ibanez etc do variants such as h-s-s and h-s-h. You can generally fit any of those on a 21/22 necked body, but 24 fret necked bodies more usually have a single coil nearest the neck (otherwise you're losing wood from around the neck pocket which will weaken it to a degree)

The bridge pickup will sound the most trebly, whilst the neck pickup will be more bassy - tho' the neck pickups probably used more in lead rather than rhythm 'cos of the way it sounds.

To confuse the issue further, on Strats (and probably some Strat-stylees) there's an out-of-phase setting for some of the pickups. I think it originally came about by setting the pickup selector between two positions - and that has a different tonal character (tho' my guitars have humbuckers, so I dunno much more than that)

buy second hand and don't be afraid to apologise and not buy the thing if it doesn't feel right!

those hot rail style single coils, they are just usually stacked humbuckers, with the coils vertical as opposed to horizontal,or two really narrow coils horizontally so you still get a humbucker tonality generally, but in a single coil size package,I fit a lot of 'em to stratalikesters, when I say don't worry about the pick ups too much I just mean don' get hung up on the type, it's whether you like the guitar or not that counts,and get it well set up and enjoy it, whatever it is:)

Thanks guys. I think this info will certainly help with my decision on what to buy. Will let you know! 😀

2nd hand is fine if you

already play/ have a mate who plays who can help you choose a good one

new is safer if you are a total novice - as you can rely on the shop for set-up/ warranty issues

there are bargains to be had 2nd hand for sure - but there are plenty of overpriced shockers that look the part too

if you're gonna buy one 2nd hand feel free to email me and I'll give you a list of things to ask/check, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do a few searches to work out a reasonable buying price and there's not really a lot that can go wrong with a guitar (that can't be easily sorted out with a good service, unless its a gibson with a cracked nut of course!)

Just on the off chance, I've got an Epiphone Les Paul Standard in Ebony with a hard case that I've just had professionally serviced, setup and restrung for sale. 😀

when you get a setup done, don't rely on the shop to get it right, ask around, I've seen some diabolically bad guitar set ups off the rack, big name brands and big name stores. If they are working in a store as a sales bod, they're probably not that good,unless they just do guitar tech there.

I charge about forty to fifty quid for a proper setup on a solid body electric, truss rod, intonation, action, pickup height and angle,and I'm quite happy for the customer to bring it back free of charge a few times till they're perfectly happy with it If they're not happy for you to bring it back after a couple of weeks to adjust again, walk away. Bit long winded but there you go.

MrNutt.....any Gibson with a cracked nut, should'nt cost more than 30 quid tops to replace for a brass or bone nut, and is pretty much a diy job anyway if you order the nut from allparts or axesrus.

Hey garylake how much are you looking for it?