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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups for my guitar?

« on: January 22, 2022, 07:49:58 AM »

I have a prs se baritone tuned to A with a d-activator bridge, and bluesbucker neck. Exactly what you described: bridge gets that heavy, tight chug, and the neck is spanky without being too thin.

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The Pickup Place / Re: 2 stacked sc in SERIES

« on: January 22, 2022, 07:42:55 AM »

Tried them in series, and eh, wasn't what I expected. Does indeed sound like the stock position 4, just louder, and slightly less hollow. Guess I'll just go to a different guitar for neck humbucker tones.

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The Pickup Place / Re: 2 stacked sc in SERIES

« on: January 21, 2022, 08:16:31 AM »

Yes.

Two of my strats have Area pickups (from bridge to neck Injector neck/61/67 and Virtual Solo/58/Virtual Vintage 54 Pro), and both allow for bridge + middle, bridge + neck in series or bridge in series with neck and middle in parallel.

The tones are basically the same color as the parallel combinations, only louder, with more low end and less top end. An exception would be the Injector neck in series with the 61 - this is closer to a bridge humbucker than any other combination I tried with bridge and middle (VS + 58, Injector bridge + 58).

All in all is not different to putting two single coils in series - just see the stacked pickups as single coils.

Cheers Stephan

Interesting! You think dc res and output has a play in how "humbucker-ish" they get when ran in series?

In particular I have a 54 pro in neck, and a heavy blues 2 in middle that I'm interested in trying in series.

Also contemplating wether I should bypass the tone pot when putting them in series.

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The Pickup Place / Re: HSS - hot middle

« on: January 20, 2022, 06:09:24 PM »

So ended up buying a heavy blues 2 from banjomikez. As others have mentioned it did lack some sparkle, especially in comparison to the 54 in the neck, but I disconnected the tone pot, and now it seems to balance very well with the 54. It is indeed just loud enough that I can lower it and get it out of the way of my picking. Thanks for your suggestions!

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The Pickup Place / 2 stacked sc in SERIES

« on: January 20, 2022, 02:40:57 PM »

Anyone ever try running 2 area/virtual vintage pickups in series? As in, all 4 coils in series.

It's not an uncommon mod for true singlecoils to get humbucker-ish tones. Curious if it's been attempted with stacked singlecoils.

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The Pickup Place / Re: HSS - hot middle

« on: January 07, 2022, 06:32:43 AM »

For that application, Injector neck (DP-422) would be a good choice as it has good output and retains lots of sparkle if used with a 500k volume pot. The Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues 2 has the same output for all practical purposes (the small difference in rated output does not make a difference in practice, and yes, I had both in the same guitar) but it has a bit more warmth and midrange and a bit less sparkle. Between those two, I would choose for tonal reasons and not output. The Injector neck is definitely closer to the VV54 than the HB2 is.

I used the other two in the bridge position only. If it has to be one of those for the middle, I'd pick the Injector bridge, and then only with a 500k volume pot.

What value is your volume pot?

Cheers Stephan

Thanks for the reply! I have a master volume and tone with both 250k pots, but the tone control is wired only to the neck and middle singlecoils.

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The Pickup Place / Re: HSS - hot middle

« on: January 06, 2022, 10:02:27 PM »

Is the age of heroes no more? No voices out there?

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The Pickup Place / HSS - hot middle

« on: January 06, 2022, 04:03:31 PM »

I'm currently running a pair of vv54 pros, and a 36th bridge in a strat, and I'm having trouble with the 54 pro in the middle. I have to raise it pretty high for it to match volume-wise with the neck, which ends up getting in the way of my picking, and I find it a bit thin sounding.

Considering something that's not too different from the 54 pro in the neck, maybe a bit fatter, and loud enough that I can lower it but match in volume with the neck.

Anyone try and compare the virtual solo, heavy blues 2, and injector bridge? The solo might be too hot?

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The Pickup Place / Re: HSS with Stacked Singlecoils - to split or not split?

« on: August 02, 2021, 06:46:58 PM »

I'm thinking the pickups are too low output to split. I think I'll be running them full on all settings.

Thanks!

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The Pickup Place / HSS with Stacked Singlecoils - to split or not split?

« on: August 01, 2021, 05:04:43 PM »

Starting a new parts build and decided on a paf 36th neck in the bridge and 2 vv54s.

Positions 2 and 3 will be bridge and middle, and bridge and neck. My question is: should I run the pickups full? or split them in positions 2 and 3?

In position 4 I won't split the vv54s because I've read that there's not much difference full or split.

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The Pickup Place / Re: PAF Joe neck and Mo Joe bridge in alder

« on: April 17, 2021, 10:39:02 PM »

I recently replaced a breed neck with the paf joe, and it's great. It pairs nicely with the breed bridge. I thought the breed neck had too much low end compared to the bridge, and it had this sharp pick attack that I disliked. The paf joe is brighter, but it's somehow still smooth and doesn't have the icepicky attack.

There is a slight vol boost when switching from the paf joe to the breed bridge, but I actually like that.

My guitar has a swamp ash body with a bolt on all maple neck with 22 frets. I would not recommend the paf joe for a 24 fret guitar though.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Turn an Air Zone into a Tone Zone?

« on: March 22, 2021, 12:00:32 AM »

Interesting food for thought. I have some spare magnets, and I wonder if using an alnico 8 on a stock air zone would be about equal as a stock tone zone

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The Pickup Place / Tone Zone - screw vs slug coil

« on: March 20, 2021, 07:38:36 PM »

Anyone have any experience comparing both coils for splitting to? I know the slug coil has a higher dc res, but how does that translate tonally?

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The Pickup Place / Re: Middle single in an HSH

« on: March 20, 2021, 07:35:02 PM »

Try a seymour duncan alnico 2 pro (the singlecoil, not the hb). Tried a true velvet, ssl-5, fs1, and sds1 before settling on the a2 pro to pair with breed set. It's low output and warm.

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The Pickup Place / Turn an Air Zone into a Tone Zone?

« on: March 18, 2021, 01:24:44 AM »

Is this doable? Are the slug polepieces tapered at the bottom, so I'd need to place metal spacers on both sides of the magnet bar, rather than just on the screw polepieces (as with typical humbuckers)?

I ask because I can't seem to find an f-spaced zebra tone zone to buy (at a reasonable price anyway), but an air zone is available. Read a lot about doing the air mod on tone zones, but not the other way around on the air zone.