Frequently Asked Questions...
How do you replace a Strat Pickup with a humbucker?
I have a bill lawrence L-500XL pickup and i want to put it in as the bridge pickup. i know i have to take out the pick guard, but what after that?
Answer:
1 remove the strings
#2 remove the pick guard, be careful not to remove the ground wire to the tremolo claw.
#3 be sure the body cavity is routed to allow for a humbucker (many are not)
#4 you will need a pickguard that is capable of mounting a humbucker in the bridge position.
#5 remove components from old pickguard and place them in the new one (except bridge pickup)
#6 make a note of where the hot and ground leads of the bridge pickup are and clip the wires.
#7 install Lawrence pickup in pick guard, follow wiring directions for pickup (*see note)
#8 carefully unsolder old pickup leads and re-solder new ones in same spot.
#9 plug into amp and test pickup function by lightly tapping on it with a screwdriver.
#10 if pickup is working, carefully replace pickguard, be sure that wires are tucked out of way.
#11 restring, tune up and play!
*NOTE* Many replacement humbuckers come with a 4 wire schematic to allow for coil tapping, etc. If you are setting it up for straight humbucker operation than follow the wiring diagram included with the pickup. This will entail soldering two of the wires together and the other two will function as positive and negative. There will also be the shielded ground cable that will need to be connected.
If you wish to set up the pickup for coil tapping (to allow for single OR double coil modes) you will need a special toggle switch or a push pull potentiometer with a built in SPDT or DPDT switch. Follow the instructions with the pickup to set up the pickup for dual mode operation or look it up on the Bill Lawrence web site.
It should be mentioned that you should only attempt this modification if you feel comfortable using a soldering iron and performing these kind of tasks. If you feel the least bit unsure of your abilities, than take it to your local music store and let them do it for you.
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Humbucker Pickup
Single Coil Pickups vs. Humbucker pickups in Electric Guitars Demo Video
Electric Guitar Clinic: Would you like single coils or humbuckers with that?
In this article we will take a look at some of the differences between Humbucking pickups and Single Coil pickups, both technically and tonally. Many think, "Isn't a Humbucker just two Single Coils side by side?" The answer is both yes and no as they both yield quite different tonal and technical characteristics. There have been many attempts to harness both sounds in one guitar or pickup, but the general consensus is that a guitar is either a Humbucking guitar or a Single Coil. Like they say, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
How a Pickup Works
To start out, let's talk a little about how a pickup works. A guitar pickup is essentially a magnet that creates a magnetic field right above the pickup. The magnet picks up the vibrations of the strings and sends the signal to your amplifier to be amplified. Most pickups in electric guitars are passive which means that they don't have any kind of pre-amp and it is the amplifiers job to boost the signal. Contrastingly, an active pickup uses weaker magnets than passive pickups but has a pre-amp to boost the signal output to a reasonable level. Active pickups are most common in acoustic guitars but can be found in a few electric guitars as well.
Single Coils: The First Pickups
Single Coils were the first pickups. The first single coil guitar pickups came in the late 1920's. A single coil pickup, as the name implies, is made up of a single coil of wire wrapped in one direction (either clockwise or counter clockwise) around the pole pieces. The pole pieces are the circular metal pieces under each string. One of the problems in early single coil pickups was that they picked up a lot of electromagnetic interference from other electric machinery or radio waves, which caused a buzz or hum
Why Humbuckers Were Invented
Humbuckers were invented to cancel out the electromagnetic interference. They use two coils, which are wrapped in opposing directions to give each coil opposing polarity. This would cancel out the electromagnetic interference and help get rid of the hum, thus creating a "hum-bucking" pickup. Humbuckers did not start showing up in guitars until the mid 1950's. When it comes to tonal differences, it gets a little harder to explain and really comes down to personal opinions and preferences.
Common Misconceptions About Humbackers
Many people think humbuckers are for distortion and overdrive, and single coils are for clean patches. This isn't necessarily the case because many guitarists use single coils for high gain distortion and others use humbuckers exclusively for clean tone. Humbuckers tend to be hotter pickups because they utilize two coils which does make them easier to distort. However, many jazz box guitars have humbuckers and are almost always used for a clean patch. They produce a thicker and darker clean tone than single coils do. The clean from single coils is a more sparkly high type clean that is often associated with country or "Eric Clapton Style" blues. They also are not as quick to overdrive as humbuckers. When single coils are played through a smooth tube overdrive, you can still hear the clean coming through where it gets lost with a humbucker.
Typical Guitars that use Humbuckers
Typical guitars that use humbuckers are the Gibson Les Paul, Gibson SG, most PRS models, most Ibanez guitars, and almost all hollow body Guild's and Gretch's. The most common single coil guitars are the Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster.
Increased Versatility of Both
Over the years, each style of pickup has become more versatile. Some humbuckers have the option of coil splitting or tapping. This is the ability to essentially shut off one of the coils in the pickup which can provide a fairly good representation of a single coil pickup. Single coils have gotten much better about electromagnetic interference and there are several "noiseless" single coil pickups available. However, this does not solve the single coil vs. humbucker conundrum because you only get a solid emulation.
The "Fat Strat"
Fender has attempted to solve the problem by creating the "Fat Strat," which utilizes a humbucking pickup at the bridge and two single coil pickups in the usual Stratocaster location. It does thicken the sound when using the humbucker, but there isn't the option running two humbuckers together as you can in a Gibson Les Paul or SG for a truly saturated overdrive. The guitar also loses some of the ability to get the really twangy bridge sound you can achieve with the single coil pickup.
Single coils and humbuckers are very different animals, and if you want both sounds, you need two guitars. If you need to choose one guitar, the best way to go about it is to go play several different guitars with different pickups through different amps and choose the one you like best.
About the Author
Matt Griffith, born and raised in Western Colorado, made the leap to move to Nashville 5 months ago to pursue a career in music along with the thousands of other hopefuls that call Music City home. Matt loves electric guitars and is currently playing lead guitar for the band Brookline. He writes electric guitar reviews for Music Gear Review.
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