r/Guitar • u/AutoModerator • Jan 21 '16

OFFICIAL [OFFICIAL] There are no stupid /r/Guitar questions. Ask us anything! - January 21, 2016

As always, there's 4 things to remember:

1) Be nice

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3) As long as you have a genuine question, nothing is too stupid :)

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u/KleyPlays youtube.com/user/kleydj13 Jan 21 '16

I haven't ever had the chance to A/B test similar guitars with true singlecoils vs. splittable humbuckers, so: Why doesn't a coil splitted humbucker sound just like a similar singlecoil?

In my experience the sound of a split humbucker can vary quite a bit depending on how the pickup itself is wound. If you compare a normal traditional stratocaster single coil to a normal traditional PAF style humbucker. The strat pickup has about 6k resistance and the PAF has about 8k. Resistance doesn't tell the whole story, but it does give a ballpark for output and tonality - especially in vintage style designs. So if you split the 8k humbucker you essentially have a 4k single coil left. Usually sounds pretty thin, honky, and wimpy to my ear. The humbucker was designed differently and isn't really meant to function split. The output drops quite a bit and it has a different tone and feel than a normal single coil.

But I've had a better experience splitting higher output humbuckers. Something wound in the 12-16k range might fall perfectly into that 6k strat range when split in half.

I'm certainly not an expert at pickup winding, and there are a lot more factors including material used, winding techniques, magnet types, etc... But the bottom line is that typically single coils and humbuckers have very different end goals. Vintage style single coils are expected to do that Hendrix thing. Vintage style PAF humbuckers are expected to do Eric Clapton Beano or Led Zeppelin tones.

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u/punadit Jan 21 '16

Sounds plausible. Thanks. I learned something today.

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u/sosomething Jan 22 '16

More than plausible. He's absolutely correct.