Humbucker vs. single coil

Roy J

Member
I've setup some high gain presets that sound great with a guitar with humbuckers in it but when I played those presets through a single coil they sound very strange. They cut off the sound and sound really unnatural. Clean sounds still sound great through the single coils but those high gain presets sound horrible. Is it just the particular single coils in my Strat or are some presets best suited for humbuckers? I don't have another guitar that has single coils in it to see if it's just those particular pickups.
 
There's a huge sonic difference between humbuckers and single coils. Build your presets with the guitar you're going to use with it, and if you want to use both single coil and humbucker fitted guitars, copy the preset and make one version for each type of pickup.
You can also try using a compressor block and EQ block in front of the amp block.
 
Austin Buddy presets have scenes for each amp with humbucker settings and single coil settings. It's pretty nice.
 
Since the sound is cutting off with singlecoils, check your gate settings. I've used humbuckers and single coils with pretty much all of my high gain presets and while there is a noticeable difference, the singlecoils don't sound drastically different than humbuckers.
 
I've setup some high gain presets that sound great with a guitar with humbuckers in it but when I played those presets through a single coil they sound very strange. They cut off the sound and sound really unnatural. Clean sounds still sound great through the single coils but those high gain presets sound horrible. Is it just the particular single coils in my Strat or are some presets best suited for humbuckers? I don't have another guitar that has single coils in it to see if it's just those particular pickups.

This is pretty normal if you're going from humbuckers to low output single coils. Maybe not the sound "cutting off" (check your noise gate settings), but generally a high gain sound tailored to humbuckers will sound very different on single coils, usually much worse (thin and weedy).

If I put my strat through my hi-gain Marshall and IIC++ presets it sounds horrible.
 
I'm sure the cut off is a noise gate thing, due to the single coils lower output. There can be a world of difference between humbuckers and single coils, and although they'll give you a great range of tone between them, you really get the most expressive tones by setting each tone in your rig to a particular pickup in a particular guitar; furthermore, even if you have two guitars with just humbuckers and you set your rig to sound good with one of those guitars, it can sound weird and weak and terrible with the other. It's not an indicator of a bad tone, just the normal variances in how each guitar and pickup will push a pedal and an amp.

Now, you may be to dial in tones that can sound decent with that single coil and that humbucker, but you may find that a tone like that may just sound like a compromise, that it may not actually feel as expressive as a tone dialed in exclusively to either pickup.
 
Setting presets for different pickups is way out of my comfort zone right now. As is adjusting noise gates but I'll get there eventually. It's helpful knowing that you guys have so much knowledge and share it freely.
 
Setting presets for different pickups is way out of my comfort zone right now. As is adjusting noise gates but I'll get there eventually. It's helpful knowing that you guys have so much knowledge and share it freely.

If you did want to mess with the noise gate at all, a quick and easy way is just to lower the threshold until it stops cutting off. Best of luck, and know also that if you post presets (especially if you also include quick recordings), sometimes people will try to tweak stuff for you to get you where you need to go tonally. Posting your dry track helps immensely in that case.

But in the end, experimentation is the best way to get around with everything the Axe offers, and that takes time. It's its own world, but completely rewarding to learn.
 
Setting presets for different pickups is way out of my comfort zone right now. As is adjusting noise gates but I'll get there eventually. It's helpful knowing that you guys have so much knowledge and share it freely.

Easy way to approach is buy the Asutin Buddy Live Gold presets. Cheap investment. It has everything you are looking for.
 
I've setup some high gain presets that sound great with a guitar with humbuckers in it but when I played those presets through a single coil they sound very strange. They cut off the sound and sound really unnatural. Clean sounds still sound great through the single coils but those high gain presets sound horrible. Is it just the particular single coils in my Strat or are some presets best suited for humbuckers? I don't have another guitar that has single coils in it to see if it's just those particular pickups.
There can be different issues interacting:
  • Single-coils don't have the output of humbuckers usually. That means they don't drive the amp as hard, whether it's analog or digital.
  • Single-coils don't have the same frequency response as humbuckers, so the amp's gain behaves differently.
  • Unless you are at a stage volume you're not pushing as much air as you would usually, and that reduces the mids and gain, resulting in single-coils sounding thinner.
For the first item, I added the "Global Input 1 Gain" to my Global Performance Controls, which makes it easy to adjust how hard the single-coils are hitting the preset which hits the Amp block harder and forces more gain AND pushes the power-amp section harder which fattens up the sound. It can make a radical difference in the sound of a preset. I don't start out with that turned up though, because I want to hear the guitar into that preset at the volume we're using at its default setting. If it sings I'm good, and if it doesn't push the sound the way I want then I start raising the Global gain. Of course, if I switch to humbuckers I need to reduce it again but at least the adjustment is convenient.

It's also possible that the Master Volume in the Amp block needs to be raised. Once the power-amp begins to saturate, the Master Volume will increase the fatness of the sound of the block. Raise it too much and it might get flubby though. That could be added to the Performance page too.

I do nothing for the second item. I use single-coils for a reason, I "celebrate" their sound and want it with that amp and/or preset. If it's thin see the previous paragraph.

The third item is the same ol' thing, you have to be running loud. A Strat will react to volume just as well as a Les Paul because physics work the same on both. What I like is that the Strat maintains that upper range which hits the amp but the amp thickens it a bit, so the character is there but it's not TOO much character. I love the overall sounds of Hendrix, Rory Gallagher, Tommy Bolin, Jeff Beck, Mark Lettieri and others because, even with gain and distortion the lows and highs of the single-coils still sound more high-fidelity. John Entwhistle, the Who's bass player, had a huge sound and his bass sounded like a grand piano and I hear that in my Strats and it remains even in my high gain sounds.
 
I played on a guitar that has humbuckers that split into single coils, (sad thing is that I had forgotten about it) and it sounded much better when using the single coil mode than my Strat did. I'm guessing that my Strat's pickups are much lower output. I'm also learning that what I remember a preset sounding like on one guitar sounds different on another. It could just be ear fatigue. But since I will primarily use the FM9 for recording I'm going to look at the sonic differences as a plus.
 
I played on a guitar that has humbuckers that split into single coils, (sad thing is that I had forgotten about it) and it sounded much better when using the single coil mode than my Strat did. I'm guessing that my Strat's pickups are much lower output. I'm also learning that what I remember a preset sounding like on one guitar sounds different on another. It could just be ear fatigue. But since I will primarily use the FM9 for recording I'm going to look at the sonic differences as a plus.
One of the great things about the Fractal world is that the amp modeling lets the sound of your individual guitars come through. Every one of my Strats sounds different on the same preset...same with all of my humbucker guitars. I wouldn't want a modeler that sounded the same with every guitar.
 
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