Crayon Sky Music

Does the combo of humbucker in neck position and single-coil in the bridge work well in a guitar?

I own a Mexican Standard Fender Telecaster and I love it with all my heart and soul, but I’ve recently realized that I only really use the famously excellent single-coil in the bridge while the neck-position pickup goes to waste. I’ve decided I might try and fix this and max out the performance I can get from it, but I’m not sure if it’s OK to put a nice big, high-quality humbucker in the neck as I planned. I’ve just never really heard of it done that way round before.
Has anyone done this modification or heard of it done before, and will it actually help me to get the best possible output from it?

My initial reaction was to say “no”…. but it really does depend how you go about it.

Remember that humbuckers are higher output (often much higher!) than single-coils, so you’re going to want a separate volume control for it, which offhand is something that I don’t think a normal Strat has. Beyond that, the neck position is naturally higher output (picks up more string vibration) than the bridge, so usually you’d want a lower-output pickup in your neck position and a higher-output pickup in your bridge position to balance things out a little better.

Putting anything other than a low-output humbucker in the neck will result in unbalanced volumes, and not necessarily pleasing results, in my opinion.

If you do end up seriously considering this route, I would suggest putting a coil-tap on that humbucker – this turns off half of the humbucker, and gives you a more single-coil sound with single-coil output.

As far as pickup selection, for humbuckers I would consider the Seymour Duncan ’59 or Alnico II Pro’s… both are relatively low output, and give a relatively trebly or middy tone, respectively, something that I think would work well with a single-coil. I have an A2P in my LTD, and it coil-taps decently, I think.

Then again, I never seriously use the coil-tap option – I prefer higher output levels and can’t stand single-coil hum/noise.

You might also consider Seymour Duncan Cool or Vintage Rails…. these are so-called noiseless single-coils…. basically stacked humbuckers that fit into a single-coil slot, so have an approximation of a single-coil tone without the single-coil hum/noise thing. Fender Lace Sensors are another example of noiseless single-coils.

Check the site below for user reviews… I think these are an invaluable resource… and good luck!

Saul

Guitar Tone – Ibanez AGS83bbg vs PRS SE vs Samick AV1 vs Fender Telecaster, Vox Pathfinder 15r