• Ernie Ball
  • MusicMan
  • Sterling by MusicMan

hh vs hss

MCBTunes

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 12, 2005
Messages
300
Location
Canada
<div class="bbWrapper">what do you prefer and why? <br /> Also, what kind of tonal differences are there between the two? the can both obviously get the trebly bridge bucker sound but whats the diff between the 2 single coils and the neck bucker?</div>
 

jimmyp

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 25, 2004
Messages
381
Location
N Ireland normally
<div class="bbWrapper">Both, to be honest. I prefer HH so that the middle pickup doesn&#039;t get in the way, but I like a neck single coil sound or the ability at least to split the neck humbucker. Basically, buy guitars in every conceivable combination and you&#039;ll be fine - that&#039;s what I do...</div>
 

mhorse

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 15, 2005
Messages
362
Location
Amherst, MA
<div class="bbWrapper">I prefer the fullness of the neck humbucker. I agree that you can&#039;t get clear single-coil sounds from it, but you can get somewhat close either with coil-split, or with just rolling down the volume a bit. <br /> <br /> In the end, the choice depends on what you want, what you play.</div>
 

beej

Moderator
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Messages
12,489
Location
Toronto, Canada
<div class="bbWrapper">The big difference between HH and SSH or SSS is the &quot;quack&quot; you&#039;ll get with the middle pickup in combination with the bridge or neck. (If you don&#039;t need that typical strat type sound, then HH might do you just fine.) Other option is HSH- kind of the best of both worlds if you want thick humbucker sounds and quack.<br /> <br /> As for an S vs H in the neck or bridge, it depends how full a sound you want to get. Pros and cons both ways. I&#039;ve wired up a bunch of my guitars with coil splitting and humbucker coils in parallel- this gives you the ability to get single coil and humbucker sounds out of your &#039;bucker at the tip of your fingers.<br /> <br /> For me, when I play real heavy I like the buckers. When I dial it back, I like single coils. If you need *everything* ... buy more than one guitar. Or buy the Morse <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></div>
 

MCBTunes

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 12, 2005
Messages
300
Location
Canada
<div class="bbWrapper">by quack you mean mids?<br /> <br /> HH provides treble and bassy stuff(neck)<br /> while an ssH pridides more mids with a few lows</div>
 

beej

Moderator
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Messages
12,489
Location
Toronto, Canada
<div class="bbWrapper">&quot;Quack&quot; is the sound you get on a strat in positions 2 and 4. It&#039;s the out-of-phase sound of two single coil pickups combined. Another description would be &quot;plucky&quot;, a la dire straits. To get that kind of sound, you really need single coils that are close together.<br /> <br /> &gt; HH provides treble and bassy stuff(neck)<br /> &gt; while an ssH pridides more mids with a few lows<br /> <br /> You can&#039;t really generalize like that- depends on the type and combination of pickups, wood, etc.<br /> <br /> Generally speaking, the more inductance a pickup has, the smaller the frequency bandwidth it has. (Inductance doesn&#039;t exactly equate to power, but you can think of it that way.) So louder humbuckers have more mids and less highs &amp; lows. Single coils will have more highs and lows (as well as mids). When you combine pickups out of phase, the distance apart will determine what frequencies are cancelled out- the further apart, the more frequencies that will be cancelled (due to the difference in the string vibrations where the two pickups are located).<br /> <br /> Hope that helps.</div>
 
Top Bottom