Crayon Sky Music

guitar pickup choices?

i have a reissued gibson melody maker and absolutely love it, i have custom single coil humbucker pick ups which sound great. the thing is is that i want to get a more bluesier sound and these pickups wont cut it for what i want.

there are stacked humbuckers out there – humbuckers that fit into the same space as a single coil. you could go that direction. or stacked single coils – they have a single coil sound with no hum. there’s a possibility. either way, no routing necessary.

Go to the section that says “Strat Single Coil Sized Humbuckers” for those. The normal single coils are in the section afterwards. Look for the ones with flames or the word “Hot” in the description, they’re higher output and will drive your amp a little harder.

Another option is to get an onboard buffer circuit or preamp. A buffer circuit will change your high impedance signal and make it a low impedance signal without boosting it, meaning that you can drive long sections of cable and sometimes multiple pedals without losing tone – often times gaining a lot of treble that you didn’t know you had. A built in preamp will boost your signal into overdrive before it even leaves your guitar.

I have a buffer circuit in my LTD with a Seymour Duncan JB pickup in the bridge. It has a nice sound, it’s got enough bass to be warm but not so much that its farty, and with the buffer circuit the treble really rings out, but isn’t screachy. For a cheap guitar, it’s gold.

So, um, maybe try the onboard thing first? You might find that you like your pickups as they are, already. My tech handbuilt mine, but a few companies (EMG, for instance) make preamps that are relatively easy to install or have installed.

you might have to work to hunt down a buffer circuit. most of the ones i’ve seen online are in schematic form, meaning you’d have to build one yourself.

Good luck!

Saul

GIBSON MELODY MAKER DUAL PICKUP BLUESY TONE