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Guitar Discussions -> Wiring two Dirty Harry (P-90 clone) into a Humbucker
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Wiring two Dirty Harry (P-90 clone) into a Humbucker - adam79 - 2-:08 -0-10-20
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I'm planning on swapping out the dismal pickups and electronics of a
cheap Squire Strat I acquired for $50. It has a great maple neck, and
the pups don't do the guitar justice. Instead of replacing all 3 single
coils, I'm just gonna replace the bridge pup. I played hard
rock/alternative, so I'm gonna go with a Humbucker. I was thinking of
buying two Dirty Harry single coil pickups and wiring them together,
turning them into a humbucker. Has anyone done this? What were the
results? It's either that, or a Seymour Duncan JB.
Thanks,
-Adam
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Re: Wiring two Dirty Harry (P-90 clone) into a Humbucker - Les Cargill - 2-:08 -0-10-20
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adam79 wrote:
> I'm planning on swapping out the dismal pickups and electronics of a
> cheap Squire Strat I acquired for $50. It has a great maple neck, and
> the pups don't do the guitar justice. Instead of replacing all 3 single
> coils, I'm just gonna replace the bridge pup. I played hard
> rock/alternative, so I'm gonna go with a Humbucker. I was thinking of
> buying two Dirty Harry single coil pickups and wiring them together,
> turning them into a humbucker. Has anyone done this? What were the
> results? It's either that, or a Seymour Duncan JB.
>
> Thanks,
> -Adam
I have not done this, but 1) they offer a RWRP for the middle position
and 2) Rio Grande makes good pickups.
--
Les Cargill
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Re: Wiring two Dirty Harry (P-90 clone) into a Humbucker - Squier - 2-:08 -0-10-20
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> adam79 <adam79@toast.net> wrote:
> I'm planning on swapping out the dismal pickups and electronics of a
> cheap Squire Strat I acquired for $50. It has a great maple neck, and
> the pups don't do the guitar justice. Instead of replacing all 3 single
> coils, I'm just gonna replace the bridge pup. I played hard
> rock/alternative, so I'm gonna go with a Humbucker. I was thinking of
> buying two Dirty Harry single coil pickups and wiring them together,
> turning them into a humbucker. Has anyone done this? What were the
> results? It's either that, or a Seymour Duncan JB.
>
> Thanks,
> -Adam
Adam - how is the guitar body routed ?
if it is SSS route then you can't put bucker in there
unless you break out the chisel or router on the body.
the easiest way to make a 'humbucker' out of 2 single
coils is to simply use the switching that is included
with Strats. The 'in-between' position of 2 reverse
wound singles is a humbucker. It's just that the single
coil poles are fatter and each coil is further apart than
a regular humbucker so it sees the strings from a much wider
stance (distance between middle/bridge or middle/neck)
Anyways, you create a humbucking position automatically
when you have reverse wound singles and select in-between positions.
Only thing you might want to do is instead of the usual
parallel set them up as series when they are on together.
Again - you need to have the singles reverse wound from each other.
A regular humbucker has smaller poles and they sit closer
together than you could place 2 single coils together so
they also see a tighter string vibration pattern.
Just go with the Duncan JB and be done with it.
(or you might like the pearly gates bucker too)
here's the thing though.
What I like to do is to wire a Fat strat up with
500k volume pot and then wire up the 2 singles to a standard 250k tone
pot and the bridge gets its own tone pot which you can try 250k or
you might like using 500k tone pot. Add tone cap(s) to taste.
start with standard .047 and go from there... .033 or .022.. etc.
This way the bucker bridge gets it own tone control (bottom) and the 2 singles
get their own upper tone control. But that's just the way I do it.
All you need is a little jumper wire across the 5 way switch (lots of
diagrams on the net about this) to have bridge on its own bottom tone control.
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Re: Wiring two Dirty Harry (P-90 clone) into a Humbucker - Tony Done - 2-:08 -0-10-20
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"adam79" <adam79@toast.net> wrote in message
news:CoadnRjmIMI0AO3WnZ2dnUVZ_qGdnZ2d@posted.toastnet...
> I'm planning on swapping out the dismal pickups and electronics of a cheap
> Squire Strat I acquired for $50. It has a great maple neck, and the pups
> don't do the guitar justice. Instead of replacing all 3 single coils, I'm
> just gonna replace the bridge pup. I played hard rock/alternative, so I'm
> gonna go with a Humbucker. I was thinking of buying two Dirty Harry single
> coil pickups and wiring them together, turning them into a humbucker. Has
> anyone done this? What were the results? It's either that, or a Seymour
> Duncan JB.
>
> Thanks,
> -Adam
I've done a few mods of this kind.
If you plan on replacing the bridge single with a standard humbucker, it
will involve modding the pickguard, but possibly not routing the body. This
is because some bodies have universal or humbucker routs to save money in
production.
If you plan on using the bridge and middle singles in humbucker
configuration they need to be opposite magnetic polarity and wired in
phase. You can also consider using a series switch on them for more oomph
than the standard parallel switching. The high output of humbuckers comes
from their series wiring, not the fact that they are humbucking per se. You
can wire any two pickups together in series *and in phase* to get more
output.
Another option is single coil-sized side-by-side humbuckers like the JB Jr
or Little 59, or the blade types whose names I have forgotten. The Seymour
Duncan site has plenty of info.
HTH
Tony D
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Re: Wiring two Dirty Harry (P-90 clone) into a Humbucker - boardjunkie - 2-:08 -0-10-20
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On Feb 8, 6:26=A0pm, adam79 <ada...@toast.net> wrote:
> I'm planning on swapping out the dismal pickups and electronics of a
> cheap Squire Strat I acquired for $50. It has a great maple neck, and
> the pups don't do the guitar justice. Instead of replacing all 3 single
> coils, I'm just gonna replace the bridge pup. I played hard
> rock/alternative, so I'm gonna go with a Humbucker. I was thinking of
> buying two Dirty Harry single coil pickups and wiring them together,
> turning them into a humbucker. Has anyone done this? What were the
> results? It's either that, or a Seymour Duncan JB.
>
> Thanks,
> -Adam
Seymour Duncan hot stack.....no routing needed. Or, the "hotrails" for
higher output/metal applications.
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Re: Wiring two Dirty Harry (P-90 clone) into a Humbucker - adam79 - 2-:09 -0-10-20
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Squier wrote:
>
> Just go with the Duncan JB and be done with it.
> (or you might like the pearly gates bucker too)
>
I've been thinking about it, and I already have a JB in my Mustang, so I
want to different pickup. I was thinking about putting in a Bill
Lawrence Humbucker. Are any of them F-Spaced? I play alot of hard rock
and metal, and there are so many versions of the pup, L-500, XL-500,
L-500XLC, etc. I'm not sure which on to buy. Any opinions?
Thanks,
-Adam
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Re: Wiring two Dirty Harry (P-90 clone) into a Humbucker - Mr. Green - 2-:09 -0-10-20
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On 8 Feb, 23:26, adam79 <ada...@toast.net> wrote:
> I'm planning on swapping out the dismal pickups and electronics of a
> cheap Squire Strat I acquired for $50. It has a great maple neck, and
> the pups don't do the guitar justice. Instead of replacing all 3 single
> coils, I'm just gonna replace the bridge pup. I played hard
> rock/alternative, so I'm gonna go with a Humbucker. I was thinking of
> buying two Dirty Harry single coil pickups and wiring them together,
> turning them into a humbucker. Has anyone done this? What were the
> results? It's either that, or a Seymour Duncan JB.
>
> Thanks,
> -Adam
I've wired two vintage spec single coils in series. As one was reverse
wound / reverse polarity the combination was also humbucking. IMO even
two 5.75 K single coils in series is too fat for anything except may
be the bridge position. A trick I found was to tap the centre
connection with a 0.033uf cap. This adds a bit of brightness back into
the tone but also allows some hum back in. All things considered, I
wouldn't wire those two pickups in series 'cause it will sound like
mud.
Green
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Re: Wiring two Dirty Harry (P-90 clone) into a Humbucker - Squier - 2-:09 -0-10-20
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> adam79 <adam79@toast.net> wrote:
> Squier wrote:
> >
> > Just go with the Duncan JB and be done with it.
> > (or you might like the pearly gates bucker too)
> >
>
> I've been thinking about it, and I already have a JB in my Mustang, so I
> want to different pickup. I was thinking about putting in a Bill
> Lawrence Humbucker. Are any of them F-Spaced? I play alot of hard rock
> and metal, and there are so many versions of the pup, L-500, XL-500,
> L-500XLC, etc. I'm not sure which on to buy. Any opinions?
>
> Thanks,
> -Adam
the bill lawrence pups that I know are 'rail' or blade type pickups
so f-spacing really isn't an issue since the rails go right across
(no pole pieces to line up on the strings).
I have liked the XL-500 but personally, in the long run, if you
go to the GFS website (guitarfetish.com) they have nice pickups
in all sorts of humbucker flavors which are excellent and they
are inexpensive enough to experiment with.
If you want a really hard rockin fullsized humbucker bridge pickup
(make sure to use a 500k volume pot on your strat) then check out their Power Rail
pickups or Crunchy Rails. Big fat rail pups that can handle all
sorts of high gain thrown at them.
The one thing you'll usually need to do is that most every
company that sells humbuckers will include the 2 mounting screws -
but these screws are almost always too long/deep to fit correctly
into a strat's cavity. So you will need to cut the screws to length
so that they can still thread into the pickup mounting tabs and be
able to hold onto the pickup when it is adjusted low - AND yet
still be able to sit within the cavity of the strat without the
end of the screws 'bottoming' out before the pickguard can sit flat.
Also - always make sure you do not get humbuckers that
have the really long/deep mounting tabs coming off the plate or
they won't fit into your strat (these are mostly for Gibson type
guitars with a much deeper cavity to fit humbuckers)
For single coil sized rail pickups - there are lots to choose
from. They don't get quite the sound of a full sized humbucker
although they don't sound like single coils since they have that
harder humbucker sound with compression as you turn it up.
(I'm talking about single coil sized rail/blade pups rated at 12k or more)
You can get very inexpensive ceramic magnet single coil sized rail or blade
pickups from companies like Artec.. etc.. 12k blades and they cost
really cheap... maybe $20 (US) for a pickup.
Dimarzio makes a nice single coil rail pickup called 'the chopper'
and it's more like a P-90 type sound from it. It's around 8.5k
and gets along well with single coils and sounds good for cleans but
really comes alive with overdrive / distortion / boost / etc.
It also likes a 500k volume pot installed (rather than stock 250k strat volume pot)
Unless you want a classic Dimarzio 'vowel' or mid yeow..wah type
sound for lead playing - then I would personally stay away from
most of the Dimarzio full sized humbuckers (but their noiseless Area series
single coils... Area 61.. Area 58.. etc) are excellent. (imho)
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Re: Wiring two Dirty Harry (P-90 clone) into a Humbucker - adam79 - 2-:09 -0-10-20
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Squier wrote:
>
> the bill lawrence pups that I know are 'rail' or blade type pickups
> so f-spacing really isn't an issue since the rails go right across
> (no pole pieces to line up on the strings).
> I have liked the XL-500
>
Since I already have a JB in my Mustang, I'm gonna go with the Bill
Lawrence. I'm still not sure which of the three different models of the
pup I want. I know that the XL is a hotter version of the L, but I'm not
familiar with the L-500XLC. How does this one compare with the other two?
Thanks,
-Adam
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Re: Wiring two Dirty Harry (P-90 clone) into a Humbucker - Squier - 2-:10 -0-10-20
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> adam79 <adam79@toast.net> wrote:
> Squier wrote:
> >
> > the bill lawrence pups that I know are 'rail' or blade type pickups
> > so f-spacing really isn't an issue since the rails go right across
> > (no pole pieces to line up on the strings).
> > I have liked the XL-500
> >
>
> Since I already have a JB in my Mustang, I'm gonna go with the Bill
> Lawrence. I'm still not sure which of the three different models of the
> pup I want. I know that the XL is a hotter version of the L, but I'm not
> familiar with the L-500XLC. How does this one compare with the other two?
>
> Thanks,
> -Adam
I only have personal experience with the XL500 so I really
can't comment on the others from any sort of personal experience
and I don't know anyone that plays with the other pups.
I just know the XL500 is a punchy nice fat sounding pup.
It lets you use overdrive/boost/distortion without flubbing out or
getting mushy. But it also has a punchy clean sound too which
is not too compressed at all.
ok. good luck on your decision(s) with the pups.
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