A more balanced humbucker?

I've been a single coil player for about 10+ years now and I've recently been playing in an original 2 guitar rock band with a guitarist that plays humbucking guitars. Here's the problem - after we dial in our rhythm tones (where we spend most of our time) his unwound strings are noticeably louder/brighter/more present than mine. As the main lead player this poses a problem. I've even gone as far as buying an SG (which I really like) but I can't seem to bond with the dark wound strings/bright unwound strings issue inherent in humbuckers. So, does anyone make a humbucker that's more balanced like a single coil with the wound strings a bit brighter and unwound strings a bit less harsh?

Hi mom :D

How are you setting the amplifier? My general suggestion (for all pickups, even) is to turn down the bass, turn up the mids, and turn down the treble. With most amplifiers (if they're anything like Fender/Marshall/Vox), this will take out the mid scoop the amplifier creates, getting rid of boom on lower strings, putting back in the fundamental for the higher strings, and getting rid of the high mids emphasis decided by the cable capacitance and pickup inductance that can lead to unpleasant brightness/edginess/harshness. Those can also be the mark of poorly constructed pickups that are plagued by shorts in the coil, or are too greatly affected by metal covers and bases often used (very common for humbuckers).

My next suggestion would be to use a low capacitance cable. This will give you more high end extension, and somewhat curiously, probably get rid of the "brightness" if it's from the coloring resonance from the pickup inductance and cable capacitance interacting. My last suggestion is using Bill Lawrence's L90, which has superior clarity to anything else on the market and rivals even many Fender-style singles for definition and highend, without losing the smooth attack of a great PAF or sacrificing an incredibly balanced voice for highs.

You'd need a whole new guitar but a set of modified Wide Range Humbuckers would fit the bill nicely.

Listen to the sound clips at www.telenator.com

There are other manufacturers who make these too. Anything is an improvement over the stock re-issue WRHBs from Fender.

Did you know you can adjust humbuckers to balance out the sound of the strings?
- that's why the pole screws have slots in them.

I've got four guitars with humbuckers of one type or another and no problem between wound and plain strings. A good wound 3rd sounds little different to a plain one, shouldn't do, but the pole has to be adjusted so.

A "vintage" or PAF type humbucker about 8k wind will be brighter than as hotter type.

You and the strat should not try to use the same frequency band-width, but find your own hole in the tone palette of the band - don't compete.
I find if the other guys in the band are thrashing humbuckers or playing widdly-widdly on a strat, I can punch through a rhythm riff on the tele at low volume, whether by chord work or playing tic-tac on the bass line. Most of then have their gain turned up, so I might play clean, turn the bass down a bit (not the treble up) and the reverb off of course. Just by finding a hole in the sound to play in.

+1 with jefrs..... IF a humbucker has adjustable polepieces, you can adjsut the pickup for great string output balance regardless of the strings or the radius of the fretboard.
Ex: for a Gibson 12" fretboard radius andafter a proper set-up that properly radiuses the bridge to match the fretboard, here are the 'rough' adjsutments to take for a set of strings with a plain G. Leave the two E poles and the G pole flush witht he cover as it came formt he factory. Turn the A and the B poles out one full turn. Turn the D pole out 1 1/2 turns. This will get you very close to where you need to be. IF the string set has a wound G, turn that polepice out 1 1/2 turns.
FWIW, if you play a vitnage stagger Strat pickup, this adjsutability may tune your ear into hearing what Strat players have been fighting ever since the invention of the 'modern' set of strings with the plain G. The vintage stagger pickup was built for a wound G, which has a weak magnetic qulaity compared to a plain G string. Therefore, a plain G string on a strat will be totally out of balance with the rest of the strings. Strat players have been 'adjusting' that G pole for over 4 decades to better balance out that G string's output. YOu simply have to lower that pole to be flush with the top of the pickup...as are the two E strings. Wehn I first read of this in GP in about 1973, their advice was to use a screwdriver to press the pole down. They also warned of the possibility of ruining the pickup. I use a press sitaution that supports the fragile bobbin and boards of the pickups, and I haven't lost a patient yet. Big improvement. The 'hot' G string imbalance is one reason why Strat players who have not made this adjustment are sometimes bothered by the G string...it sticks out like a sore thumb. IF you put a wound G on a vintage stagger strat pickup, the balance is there...and the guitar is much more enjoyable to play.

It takes about 7 years to adjust the pole pieces on a humbucker and even then they'll still be wrong.

I have adjusted strat pickup.
I used an engineer's clamp and a nut.
The nut goes behind the pole piece, just large enough to accept it. The engineer's clamp squeezes down, driving the pole piece gently down in to the nut. After it has been moved by the clamp, you can move the pole piece with your thumb, or maybe with a wooden pusher. Please do not use a metal drift object such as a screwdriver or you may damage the magnet (screwdrivers are usually magnetized, and magnets are also brittle). You can push the poles up or down.
I converted vintage stagger strat to modern stagger.
You can do tele pickups too if they do not have a cover or a base plate.

Jefrs wrote: "It takes about 7 years to adjust the pole pieces on a humbucker and even then they'll still be wrong."

Well, I can do it in less than a minute...any radius, any string set.....
IF something is wrong the next day, the problem is with the listener's ears. (;^)

I don't think the OP is complaining about balance where volume is concerned. It sounds to me like he's concerned about getting the same "clarity" from the bass strings as he's getting from the treble strings. He wants balanced clarity.

In my experience, there are only two humbuckers that offer this low end clarity.

Mini-humbuckers, and Wide Range Humbuckers.

I will reiterate some advice that doesn't cost you anything to try. Mom, make those minor adjustments to the polepieces that I mentioned. THen, back the pickups away from the strings. You will notice more clarity, more transparency and better balance. These two things are the last two things I do for a set-up...after the truss rod, the nut regulation, correcting the radius of that 15" bridge, setting action and intonation.
IF this doesn't give you what you want, you will have spent time and/or money on the set-up that is needed anyway......and you can buy whatever pickup you want to try in that guitar.
I have never had the problem that you are having, and I have been playing Gibsons with humbuckers and P-9o's since 1963. Do mini-humbuckers have more clarity than a 'normal' Gibson humbucker at the same distance from the sterings? Yes. Can a 'normal' Gibson humbucker yield usable tones? Yes.
Last question......how many great players have made great music on LEs Pauls and SG's with 'normal' stock humbuckers? The answer to that question will tell you that there are some simple things to do to that guitar and your amps to make that guitar work for you.

I bought a 2001 Les Paul Special Plus a few days ago with stock Gibson pickups...and a factory set-up. The guitar didn't play well, and the pickups soudned terrible. I set the gutiar up comletely....all of those steps I outlined above. That guitar is a different beast now. Great playability and very good sonics. I might prefer some Alnico pickups with more of a vintage approach to things, but this is now a professional level, playable gutiar. Simple things that every guitar needs.

Oh yeah..an Sg is a dark sounding guitar. Try some GHS Progressives, too. There are certain strings that I won't use on a guitar. There are certain strings that I will use on certain guitars. Lots of variables.

Jefrs wrote: "It takes about 7 years to adjust the pole pieces on a humbucker and even then they'll still be wrong."

Well, I can do it in less than a minute...any radius, any string set.....
IF something is wrong the next day, the problem is with the listener's ears. (;^)

Yes you fell for that one.

Have you heard the old one (it's Elizabethan) about the 80 year old lute player, he spent 70 years tuning his lute...

I don't think the OP is complaining about balance where volume is concerned. It sounds to me like he's concerned about getting the same "clarity" from the bass strings as he's getting from the treble strings. He wants balanced clarity.

In my experience, there are only two humbuckers that offer this low end clarity.

Mini-humbuckers, and Wide Range Humbuckers.

I think the OP's SG would look a bit gappy with mini dropped in there. I don't know that they offer more clarity, I'd describe the ones I have in the Yamaha SA20B as "gritty", somewhere between a full-size and a single-coil. They're certainly more in-yer-face than full-size.

I'm sure your WRHB are wonderful, but I have no problems adjusting perfectly ordinary humbuckers such as Tonerider Rocksong to provide excellent clarity of tonal and volume balance across the string set.
Whether a humbucker sounds clear and sparkly like the Rocksong do in my Epi Joe Pass, or "brown" like they do in my Artcore AGS83, seems to depend a lot on the guitar itself.

Part of the muddiness problem of the humbucker stems from the fact that the two poles are apart and do not focus on one narrow spot on the string.
Another is the magnetic flux due to where the magnet is located below the coils and the type of magnet used, you do not actually need a super strong magnet but you do want a high flux density for the dynamic range. Alnico take your pick number.
And then there is coil saturation, an overwound coil can saturate (depending on the magnet), so the changing magnetic flux cannot generate any more current in the coil, so it maxes out. Great for sustain, not much use for clear ringing notes. Hence recommendation of vintage type about 8k wind (2x4k coils)

I've balanced humbuckers by plugging the guitar into a 4 track recorder, plucked a string, see how many bars it hit on the VU meter and adjusted the other pole pieces and slant of the pickup so they matched the original reading.

It's not scientific, but it gets you into the ballpark.

I like the tighter focus of pole magnet pickups. Bar magnet pickups are typically great in the bridge position but often lack focus in the neck position. They can get real woolly on the low notes and the adjustment screws do very little to make the lows more articulate. Just the nature of the beast.

Have you tried different strings?

My main guitar is an SG; I use Elixer Polywebs, which are really bright. I play with both pickups on most of the time, but have the neck pickup set pretty high. Both are fairly low output (Alnico IIs, I think), and the bridge has a good Tele-esque twang.

Generally speaking, I would say it is your amp, because I've never had a good pickup be the problem. However, it's all personal choice. You can easily get thicker tones with single pickups, though.

sounds like you're in a predicament that could be solved by plugging in a tele.

Have you tried different strings?

My main guitar is an SG; I use Elixer Polywebs, which are really bright. I play with both pickups on most of the time, but have the neck pickup set pretty high. Both are fairly low output (Alnico IIs, I think), and the bridge has a good Tele-esque twang.

Generally speaking, I would say it is your amp, because I've never had a good pickup be the problem. However, it's all personal choice. You can easily get thicker tones with single pickups, though.

You don't say which pickups? - are these the Classic 57?
They are ~9k wind and they are alnico. Alnico has a higher flux denisty than ceramic, but conventional humbuckers have the bar magnet below the centre line of the coils, and much depends on the efficiency of magnetic contact between this magnet and the poles. The wind only tells us how much wire is on the coils, but we do know the Gibson humbucker. For comparison the Tonerider "PAF" are ~8k and alnico IV and the Rocksong are 8k/12k alnico II. Alnico are as powerful as they are magnetized to (they vary from make to make), some are taken to saturation and then brought back down to the desired level. All of which are "bright" humbuckers (depending on the wood/hardware of the guitar). Whether a given guitar is bright, full toned or "brown" depends on how its strings vibrate which is determined by the construction.

I also agree that the neck pickup is less dependent upon its pole settings, barring the G/B adjustment for wound/plain strings, one adjusts the height of the pickup to find the sweet spot - much as one does with a tele.

sounds like you're in a predicament that could be solved by plugging in a tele.

Yes! I love simple answers! ding ding ding ding ding!

You don't say which pickups? - are these the Classic 57?
They are ~9k wind and they are alnico. Alnico has a higher flux denisty than ceramic, but conventional humbuckers have the bar magnet below the centre line of the coils, and much depends on the efficiency of magnetic contact between this magnet and the poles. The wind only tells us how much wire is on the coils, but we do know the Gibson humbucker. For comparison the Tonerider "PAF" are ~8k and alnico IV and the Rocksong are 8k/12k alnico II. Alnico are as powerful as they are magnetized to (they vary from make to make), some are taken to saturation and then brought back down to the desired level. All of which are "bright" humbuckers (depending on the wood/hardware of the guitar). Whether a given guitar is bright, full toned or "brown" depends on how its strings vibrate which is determined by the construction.

I also agree that the neck pickup is less dependent upon its pole settings, barring the G/B adjustment for wound/plain strings, one adjusts the height of the pickup to find the sweet spot - much as one does with a tele.
I have no idea what kind they are; they're the stock to my Gibson SG Special, 2005. I believe Gibson are using different pickups for that model now, because when I bought it, they were just described as Alnico IIs. No special name; just the stock pickups.

Again, as others have said, your Tele (Assuming you own one) should suffice if the humbuckers don't work for you.

Yes, jefrs, I missed that one. Still missing it....
Re: that lute player.....let's hope those other 10 years were full of good music, right? At some point, after getting things as good as they can be, one has to..in the words of Frank Zappa...."Shut up and play Yer Guitar!"

Yes, jefrs, I missed that one. Still missing it....
Re: that lute player.....let's hope those other 10 years were full of good music, right? At some point, after getting things as good as they can be, one has to..in the words of Frank Zappa...."Shut up and play Yer Guitar!"

No, I'm still tuning me lute :rolleyes:

My point, (was there one) is that we're never happy with what we got and will tinker with it until broken.