Anyone used the Seymour Duncan minihumbucker sets in a strat

[blackba]

A friend of my mine has a MIM strat, it was his first guitar so he doesn't really want to sell it, but recently has come to the conclusion he is more of a humbucker fan.

So we were looking at the Lil'59 neck, duckbucker middle, and JB Jr set. The Other set that SD mentions is a Cool Rails neck, Vintage rails middle, and hot rails in the bridge. I have a hot rails in the bridge of my strat and like it. His guitar has a 2 SD single coils in the neck and a JB Jr in the bridge. After hearing my hot rails wired in parallel, I am thinking of making the 3 pots push pull so you can switch each humbucker from series to parallel wiring. Anyone have any experience with these recommend sets from SD?

BTW, big thanks to the member 'boost' for recommending to me to wire the SD hot rails in parallel. I really like it in parallel mode, much more than I liked it split.

 

[boost]

You're welcome. Glad to help.

I have experience with the Hot Rails and the Lil 59, but not with the others. Still, I would think the 'all rails' combo would sound heavier than than the other combo. The combo of the Jb jr, Duckbucker, and Lil 59 would be a more versatile as far as different sounds go and probably clean up a little better.

I had the Lil 59 in the bridge position though and liked it. Seemed fatter and slightly more toneful than the Hot Rails. The Hot Rails won out in the chug department though. I guess it all depends on what he's looking to get out of it tonewise. I think you'd be fine with either. I've never tried the JB Jr. though as I never liked the sound of the full size pickup so I never bothered. Always sounded thin and harsh to me.

If it were me, I would wire up the middle and neck to one push pull tone pot and the bridge to the other push pull tone pot. I would leave the volume to a nice CTS or Bourns pot. I never liked the little mini pot push/pulls for volume.

 

[blackba]

Thanks for the info Boost. I don't think I can wire up the series/parallel for the neck and middle with just one push pull pot as a push pull pot only has a DPDT switch on it. I agree on the push pull pots, I like the full size CTS pots better if given the choice.

 

[ashesofphoenix]

i had the dimarzio's in my old strat and it was awesome... had to sell the damn thing cuz a had to pay for car repairs... but those lil dimarzios were killerz

 

[boost]

Thanks for the info Boost. I don't think I can wire up the series/parallel for the neck and middle with just one push pull pot as a push pull pot only has a DPDT switch on it. I agree on the push pull pots, I like the full size CTS pots better if given the choice.

Now that I think about it you may be right. If you go with the Duckbucker in the middle maybe you could just not tap that one.

I will throw this out though...

Dave Urich is a local guitar player that did a clinic a while back around here at a store. I talked to him a bit afterwards. He is endorsed by Ibanez and he has a HSH setup on the guitar. Middle pickup might have been a rail type I believe. Anyway, he had a push pull pot that tapped all the humbuckers at one time and essentially changed it into a stock strat type of set up. It also then ran through some resistors so the 500K pots would now be seen by the pickups as 250K. I thought that was a pretty neat set up, but never bothered to ask him any more or look into it any further. I didn't really use humbuckers so it wasn't something I was looking to do to my guitar. I did find that to be a very clever set up though.

Maybe you can contact Ibanez or see if there is anything on their sight regarding this. It doesn't seem like it would work, but apparently it does. Dave seemed to be fairly knowlegable about his equipment so I don't think he was mistaken. He did manage to get a wide variety of tones out of that guitar.

 

[Spaceboy]

Are there mini-humbucker pickups out there besides the JB Jr? I've been looking into that for my Squier CVC Tele, but I've read mixed reviews about it, so I'm curious about what else is out there.

 

[blackba]

Are there mini-humbucker pickups out there besides the JB Jr? I've been looking into that for my Squier CVC Tele, but I've read mixed reviews about it, so I'm curious about what else is out there.

Yes if you look at my first post I list all the ones made by Seymour Duncan. Dimarzio also have the single coil sized humbuckers available as well.

 

[blackba]

Now that I think about it you may be right. If you go with the Duckbucker in the middle maybe you could just not tap that one.

I will throw this out though...

Dave Urich is a local guitar player that did a clinic a while back around here at a store. I talked to him a bit afterwards. He is endorsed by Ibanez and he has a HSH setup on the guitar. Middle pickup might have been a rail type I believe. Anyway, he had a push pull pot that tapped all the humbuckers at one time and essentially changed it into a stock strat type of set up. It also then ran through some resistors so the 500K pots would now be seen by the pickups as 250K. I thought that was a pretty neat set up, but never bothered to ask him any more or look into it any further. I didn't really use humbuckers so it wasn't something I was looking to do to my guitar. I did find that to be a very clever set up though.

Maybe you can contact Ibanez or see if there is anything on their sight regarding this. It doesn't seem like it would work, but apparently it does. Dave seemed to be fairly knowlegable about his equipment so I don't think he was mistaken. He did manage to get a wide variety of tones out of that guitar.

I did the setup on my strat that is SSH with the 5way super switch and used all 500kohm pots. I then added resistors in parallel to have the Single Coils see about 250k, works well. I just thought the smaller humbuckers were designed to use with 250kohm pots, so what was what I was going to suggest that my friend stick with.

I like the idea of an HSH, he could leave the JB JR and middle pickup and then just add a lil'59 neck and put a push pull in the other tone pot position.

 

[boost]

Are there mini-humbucker pickups out there besides the JB Jr? I've been looking into that for my Squier CVC Tele, but I've read mixed reviews about it, so I'm curious about what else is out there.

I have the same tele. Lotsa high end and twang on that one. I had the Lil 59 in mine and changed out to a Hot Rail. Not that the Lil 59 was bad, in fact it was quite good. I just wanted a heavier tone out of this one.

Dimarzio makes some that will drop in. The Chopper I believe it is. GFS also makes some for very little coin. I have found that the overwound GFS pickups do sound a bit muddy compared to other manufacturers pickups that are about equal in output though. Never tried any of the Dimarzio pickups.

Change out the pots and switch on that tele too. You could switch to 500K pots, but I like the 250K especially if you plan on tapping them or going parallel with a push/pull.