whats the difference between humbuckers and single coil pick-ups? I`ve heard that humbuckers usually give a "warm" tone compared to the birght tone of single coils...can someone please elaborate...like which is suited for which genre...or does it make no difference?
It's preference really. Single coils are a bit thinner but have a certain tone and feel that humbuckers can never reciprocate. (well) For a lot of classic rock and jazz, single coils do VERY well. Also, sludge, post rock stuff. I personally prefer the sound of single coils. Humbuckers work well for more recent stuff. They're very well suited for metal and hard rock and give nice, warm clean tones. They're also, as is obvious from their names, less noisy and don't hum like single coils do. Listen to both, learn to use both.
Single coil is Jimmy hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore kind of tone. Sounds jingly-jangly, and has a hint of cleans even at pretty high levels of distortion/overdrive. Humbucker is your Slash sort of tone, warm, rounded, overdriven to higher levels.
that's why i bought a GB&A with H-S-S configuration ....the humbucker's give a good over driven tone...whereas the Single coils give me the bright tones........i was kinda tired of my H-H avion.......now planning to get EMG 81/85 combo on it........any suggestions other than this??? I play mostly soft metal/ hard rock/ Death metal sometimes..........
this is India mate.........yahan planning aur actual implementation ke beech kaafi time hota hai............
No-one mentioned hum. Quoting wikipedia A humbucker has two coils with opposing windings and polarities. The string motion induces current in both coils in the same direction, since the reverse winding and reversed phase of one coil create a signal in the same direction as the other coil. Electromagnetic interference, on the other hand, induces current in opposing directions in each coil because it is only sensitive to the winding direction, which is reversed for one coil. When the signals from both pickups are summed together, the noise is cancelled due to destructive interference, while the actual signal is increased due to constructive interference, thus dramatically improving the signal-to-noise ratio. This technique is called common-mode rejection by electrical engineers, and is also used in balanced lines in audio recording.
You can also check out the 81/89 combo since you are a fan of single coils... the 89 is same as 85 except that using a push-pull volume knob, you can switch the 89 between humbucking and single coil modes (coil tap).
Single coil samples https://www.seymourduncan.com/support/audio-samples/strat_replaceme/ Humbucker samples https://www.seymourduncan.com/support/audio-samples/humbuckers_and/