[mobys436]

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.

[darkbluemurder]

I would split them. Whenever I used the full humbucker in combination with single coils, in particular with the middle it did not sound right to my ear.

Actually I used the Virtual Hot PAF for a while with a VV 54 Pro in the middle and split both. The #2 sound was rather bright but had certainly enough quack. The 36th bridge would be similar, the 36th neck is a bit lower output - maybe even low enough to work without splitting.

Ultimately you will have to experiment and decide which you like best.

Cheers Stephan

[mobys436]

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

Thanks!

[darkbluemurder]

The way these pickups are constructed is that they have a signal coil and a dummy coil that has a much lower resistance. The idea behind this construction is to not cancel as much signal as (nearly) identical coils would. This means that the output does not change much (if at all) if you split any of the Area series. This is also something I can confirm from practical experience.

If you split any of the HS models, they get louder when split as the signal cancelling effect is gone - so is the humcancelling effect.

Cheers Stephan

[Guitar74]

I can confirm that as a former HS-3 user. That is exactly why I dig the VVHB2 so much. Full on, it reminds me of the HS-3 split.