What happens if you put drives designed for humbuckers through single coils?

chris said:
Monitors have tweeters. It’s likely the gain is higher than any of your other tones.

You can try turning the speakers away from the guitar slightly so they aren’t pointing directly at you. 2 feet away is pretty close.

It doesn’t matter what position any volume knobs are, it’s the actual sound level, perceived volume in the room.

As I mentioned before, you can try turning down the speakers to 5 instead of 8 so you can have more range on the AX8 knob.
Click to expand...

I lowered the RS to vol 5. I played around with the output 1 knob on the ax8 to various levels. I get almost no squeal or feedback now but a lot of static with the metallica setting. It sounds like a lot of static soft white noise like a TV in poltergeist lol, in the background now. What is this noise? It can't be 60 cycle hum. I have PUP position 4.
 
dsouza said:
Sadly, I thought buying a les paul would somehow stop that as strats are not known to handle metal music.
Click to expand...
This makes me laugh because it's such a blanket statement. "Strats" are the body style and can have many different pickups.

Single coils can all be used for any genre, just as humbuckers can. It's not the guitar or the pickup, it's how it's used. Turn down the guitar's volume if it feeds back uncontrollably because of acoustic feedback, just as with a humbucker. Turn down the guitar's tone control if you want a darker sound, or adjust the amp's treble control, again, just as you would with a humbucker.

The only real issue I know of with single-coils and high gain is the EMI that single-coils pick up but, given enough gain, humbuckers also get it, as can the wiring in the guitar, and in either case, use a noise gate or simply turn off the guitar's volume if noise between songs is a problem, or get active single-coil pickups.

dsouza said:
It sounds like a lot of static white noise in the background now.
Click to expand...
That's the gain. Turn off the guitar's volume or use a noise gate and it should go away.

Or, simply reduce the gain. I'd recommend reading 'The "Modelers Don't Clean Up with the Volume Knob" Myth' as you're probably using too much.

Gain is fun, but it can cause lots of problems with the sound of the guitar or the amp, so finding the right balance of all the parts involved in the sound is important. As the system's volume goes up the amount of gain needs to be reduced.
 
dsouza said:
I lowered the RS to vol 5. I played around with the output 1 knob on the ax8 to various levels. I get almost no squeal or feedback now but a lot of static with the metallica setting. It sounds like a lot of static soft white noise like a TV in poltergeist lol, in the background now. What is this noise? It can't be 60 cycle hum. I have PUP position 4.
Click to expand...
That’s just amp noise from a lot of gain. Single coils usually can’t handle that much gain so there’s more noise even in a 2 pickup setting.

You’ll need to adjust the preset to work with your guitar. Try reducing amp gain.
 
@chris
@Moke
@Greg Ferguson
@yek

Here is the quote I received on Single coils VS humbuckers from a trusted source. I will name this source Anonymous.

"The easiest solution would be to use a les Paul! Lol
Seriously, if you’re using a strat with humbucker you should probably cut the treble somewhere (cab block maybe), and possibly reverse the values of master volume and drive. Single coils by nature sound more trebly/harsh and tend to squeal with feedback with high gain." -- Anonymous
 
dsouza said:
I lowered the RS to vol 5. I played around with the output 1 knob on the ax8 to various levels. I get almost no squeal or feedback now but a lot of static with the metallica setting. It sounds like a lot of static soft white noise like a TV in poltergeist lol, in the background now. What is this noise? It can't be 60 cycle hum. I have PUP position 4.
Click to expand...
In addition to the good advice already provided: your playing technique is also a contributing factor. When playing high gain, it is important to dampen the strings you are not playing. If you don’t you’ll increase the chance of getting a lot of noise.
 
dsouza said:
When I asked the preset creator he simply mentioned, single coils are not designed for high gain and will squeal and produce feedback. The simplest solution would be to use a Les Paul or a strat with humbucker pickup.
Click to expand...
That is strange... I am wondering how Yngwie, Blackmore, Hendrix or Rory Gallagher achieve these high-gain tones :D

Anyway, who is the preset creator? What preset is it?
 
Jeronimo said:
In addition to the good advice already provided: your playing technique is also a contributing factor. When playing high gain, it is important to dampen the strings you are not playing. If you don’t you’ll increase the chance of getting a lot of noise.
Click to expand...

Agreed. You keep using the term dampen the strings. Do you mean string muting? Or is dampening the strings a different concept?
 
BTW, I had a Ibanez JS2450 with a humbucker neck pickup that squealed like pigs at the slaughter with the minimum distortion nearby any amplifier or PA. It was unplayable. I opened the pickup, sent a picture to Dimarzio, and they said that the hot-glue that they inject between the poles was missing. It was a faulty pickup.

A solution to that is to wax the pickup
 
Piing said:
That is strange... I am wondering how Yngwie, Blackmore, Hendrix or Rory Gallagher achieve these high-gain tones :D

Anyway, who is the preset creator? What preset is it?
Click to expand...

@Jeronimo
@chris
@Moke
@Greg Ferguson
@fcs101

Yes, those artists achieve high gain w/o problems. I also achieve high gain on 100 other custom presets with no problem -- on my strat with single coils. But it seems the ones that use the amp model I mentioned above , many times over, in this thread to be the culprit. I could play around with the input drive or output levels on the amp model but that only helps so much and takes away from the richness of the sound. Perhaps a noise gate as offered as a solution by Yek is the best way to deal with the high gain noise.

I can't share the preset creator because I'm not into ruining business relationships. For that reason I leave him anonymous.

The song preset I'm having problems with is "The Unforgiven" by Metallica. More squeal and feedback here than any other preset. Also extremely noisy and whitenoise in background indicating high levels of gain that even the volume knob on my strat can't tame. Also the squeal is independent of volume control. I can drop my guitar volume to almost zero and still hear it loud and clear. This the Tweeter squeal everyone has mentioned.

To deal with tweeter squeal in my small studio I have now moved my RS ELis 8's to about 7 feet apart from each other, and I now stand in between them and about 2 feet to the front of center. I have also got them from facing towards me to facing straight ahead. This has reduced the squeal considerably. However, I feel optimal levels of reducing the squeal is to literally have the RS Elis 8's 15 feet away from my guitar or more. Like in a concert venue on stage. I have also reduced volume on the RS ELis 8 to level 5, and the output level 1 knob of my AX8 to 9 am. (1/4 of the way up).

I am using them primarily in my home studio at this time which is my main place of work.
 
Last edited:
Jeronimo said:
In addition to the good advice already provided: your playing technique is also a contributing factor. When playing high gain, it is important to dampen the strings you are not playing. If you don’t you’ll increase the chance of getting a lot of noise.
Click to expand...
dsouza said:
Agreed. You keep using the term dampen the strings. Do you mean string muting? Or is dampening the strings a different concept?
Click to expand...
Yes, I mean muting. Note that I'm not a native English speaker so I picked the "wrong" translation.
 
Piing said:
That is strange... I am wondering how Yngwie, Blackmore, Hendrix or Rory Gallagher achieve these high-gain tones :D

Anyway, who is the preset creator? What preset is it?
Click to expand...
It's the same one specifically mentioned in the link Yek posted up above (Brit 800).
 
Man, I’ve got two Strats with all single coils and I love modern high gain, while I don’t use those Strats for those tones, I’ve never experienced that kind of squealing or noise when I HAVE played around with my high gain presets. Granted, I’m not using FRFR cabs, but the white noise sounds like it’d occur regardless of the monitoring system.

I have to snicker at the “Easiest solution to not getting my presets to squeal is to buy a $2500 guitar” :tearsofjoy: Not busting your balls, OP, just the dude who suggested that. I’m quite curious to hear how those presets sound, is the Drive cranked to 10 with a Drive pedal in front?
 
RevDrucifer said:
Man, I’ve got two Strats with all single coils and I love modern high gain, while I don’t use those Strats for those tones, I’ve never experienced that kind of squealing or noise when I HAVE played around with my high gain presets. Granted, I’m not using FRFR cabs, but the white noise sounds like it’d occur regardless of the monitoring system.

I have to snicker at the “Easiest solution to not getting my presets to squeal is to buy a $2500 guitar” :tearsofjoy: Not busting your balls, OP, just the dude who suggested that. I’m quite curious to hear how those presets sound, is the Drive cranked to 10 with a Drive pedal in front?
Click to expand...
He stated it was the factory preset for Brit 890 #34. If you follow Yek’s link above, there is a known issue with tweeter squeal with that amp.
 
fcs101 said:
He stated it was the factory preset for Brit 890 #34. If you follow Yek’s link above, there is a known issue with tweeter squeal with that amp.
Click to expand...

Ah, I was going off the OP where he said he was using custom Metallica and GnR presets initially. Those damn blue squealin tweakers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom