SSS is more versatile than HSS?

[metropolis_4]

Anyone else feel this way?

Every time I’ve had a HSS Strat I’ve ended up frustrated that I can’t get the tones I need out of the bridge for stuff like country and surf, and the position 2 tones aren’t as good.

But getting heavy crunch out of a SSS bridge is no problem.

I was just playing The Glass Prison on my SSS Strat and it sounded great to me.

Single coils in general seem so much more flexible to me.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Anyone else feel this way?

Every time I’ve had a HSS Strat I’ve ended up frustrated that I can’t get the tones I need out of the bridge for stuff like country and surf, and the position 2 tones aren’t as good.

But getting heavy crunch out of a SSS bridge is no problem.

I was just playing The Glass Prison on my SSS Strat and it sounded great to me.

Single coils in general seem so much more flexible to me.

Kinda with you; kinda not.

In a lot of ways I feel like HSS leaves me in no-mans land of usability. The #4 position on it just...makes me really miss having an actual #2 position, or alternatively a middle position on a 2-pickup guitar. The #4 spot just always winds up with me in a screaming match with my guitar "HOW ARE YOU AS ANNOYINGLY THIN AS YOU ARE MUDDY!!!!!!" Having a good humbucker in the bridge often...makes me wish I had a neck humbucker to balance it out.

But while I agree that, especially in modeler land, its not THAT hard to make a strat bridge pickup get genuinely crunch territory, I still find it easier to get a bridge humbucker on a strat to sound like clean-dirtyclean-light crunch tele-type sounds than with a strat bridge pickup.

 

[Blix]

I would agree to that.

 

[OrganicZed]

I was just playing The Glass Prison on my SSS Strat and it sounded great to me.

That comment made me think of this video:

 

[Eagle]

Anyone else feel this way?

Every time I’ve had a HSS Strat I’ve ended up frustrated that I can’t get the tones I need out of the bridge for stuff like country and surf, and the position 2 tones aren’t as good.

But getting heavy crunch out of a SSS bridge is no problem.

I was just playing The Glass Prison on my SSS Strat and it sounded great to me.

Single coils in general seem so much more flexible to me.

A nice paf in the bridge and HSS will work for you.

 

[norminal]

A nice paf in the bridge and HSS will work for you.

This. With the right bridge humbucker, you can achieve pretty convincing position 2 sounds. I’ve also had great success with a single coil sized bridge humbucker, such as the DiMarzio Chopper.

 

[metropolis_4]

A nice paf in the bridge and HSS will work for you.

This. With the right bridge humbucker, you can achieve pretty convincing position 2 sounds. I’ve also had great success with a single coil sized bridge humbucker, such as the DiMarzio Chopper.

I’ve tried them all. The best I’ve ever gotten was… OK-ish.

But I still find it way easier to get the humbucker sounds I need out of a single coil than to get the single coil sounds I need out of a humbucker.
And the humbucker sounds I get out of single coils are much better than the single coil sounds I get out of humbuckers

Humbuckers have baked in qualities you just can’t get rid of. With single coils I feel like I’m just adding something to what’s there to get into humbucker territory. But with humbuckers you have to try to take something out, and that doesn’t work as well

 

[FuzzyAce]

HSS has become my go to config or SSS with a blade style single bridge. I find it super versatile especially now that I use one of the tone pots as a bass rolloff. It really cleans up the bark and gains down the bridge pickup nicely when needed. Pseudo-single coil effect, but I like it better than a coil tap or parallel wiring -- although parallel wiring works very well with certain HBs too.

 

[djd100]

Don't forget the Dan Armstrong mod for SSS, gives a lot of power from the SSS with no loss of stock sounds.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Don't forget the Dan Armstrong mod for SSS, gives a lot of power from the SSS with no loss of stock sounds.

Series pickup wiring was one of the things I loved about the Danelectro guitars. That middle position on the '56 U2 was .

 

[JiveTurkey]

Always Just H TM

 

[norminal]

I’ve tried them all. The best I’ve ever gotten was… OK-ish.

I agree. There are even humbuckers that are advertised to be good at split tones. But for a gig, it’s acceptable. In my experience, they suffer with humbucker tones.

I guess you really can’t “have your cake and eat it too” in this situation. My solution is to have a SSS and HH in my arsenal.

On that note, Fishman has been adding single coil voices as a third option in their Fluence models. Maybe that is a viable solution.

 

[mbenigni]

Sometimes only a proper SSS Strat will do, but a humbucker in the bridge means I can go gain-crazy without bringing on the hum, and a single coil in the neck is obligatory for certain single-note tones (clean blues, saturated neo-classical). I've never had much use for a humbucker in the neck position, and I'm one of those weirdos who uses pos. 4 more often than pos. 2. Generally speaking, sign me up for HSS.

 

[kartikg3]

Sometimes only a proper SSS Strat will do, but a humbucker in the bridge means I can go gain-crazy without bringing on the hum, and a single coil in the neck is obligatory for certain single-note tones (clean blues, saturated neo-classical). I've never had much use for a humbucker in the neck position, and I'm one of those weirdos who uses pos. 4 more often than pos. 2. Generally speaking, sign me up for HSS.

100% same.

 

[mbenigni]

100% same.

No surprise I love the guitar in your avatar pic. Don't you wish you had a mini-toggle to coil tap the neck position pickup?

 

[woody]

It's pretty easy to bring down the resonant peak and boost some mids to make a single coil sound more like a humbucker.
Making a humbucker convincingly do single coil stuff is way harder, imho.

 

[itchyfingers]

Anyone else feel this way?

Every time I’ve had a HSS Strat I’ve ended up frustrated that I can’t get the tones I need out of the bridge for stuff like country and surf, and the position 2 tones aren’t as good.

But getting heavy crunch out of a SSS bridge is no problem.

I was just playing The Glass Prison on my SSS Strat and it sounded great to me.

Single coils in general seem so much more flexible to me.

100% yes! I never understand why anyone would put a HB in a Strat.

 

[kartikg3]

No surprise I love the guitar in your avatar pic. Don't you wish you had a mini-toggle to coil tap the neck position pickup?

Thanks! Working on that one!! The moment I played the neck pickup (loved it for high gain / higher gain / creamy lead tones") but instantly missed the single-coilness

 

[djd100]

You can do the Dan Armstrong wiring with stacked single coil sized HB's, or if using single coils use a RPRW SC pup in the middle, and the series and parallel options in that wiring scheme will all be humbucking.

 

[DrewJD82]

I’d agree.

Actually, last week I was wrestling with which guitar I was going to use in the cover band for the most prominent tuning, it was either going to be my LP or a Strat and while the Strat is considerably more versatile, I really just wanted to play a LP.

Especially those Gilmour EMG’s, all I had to do was roll the boosters up a pinch and I was out of the single coil world, I can get Zakk Wylde harmonics off that guitar.