Humbuckers, Single Coils and playing dynamics

[guavajelly]

Thursday I saw Julian Lage with his trio in Dortmund. Great concert.

From a gear perspective it was stunning to hear him perform the whole dynamic range from whisper quiet to really loud WITHOUT ever touching the controls on his guitar – a Gretsch-shaped Collings with "Ellisonic" single coils. I contribute most of this to his virtuosic and very dynamic playing. But I imagine that also the pickups provide the basis for translating his huge dynamic range through the ampification.
Personally I go back and forth between the single coils in my tele and ES 330 (P90s so very different construction) and the humbuckers in my Ibanez GB. I imagine that I can hear a difference in the translation of the playing dynamics – the humbuckers seem to compress more, and a large humbucker more then mini humbuckers – which is sometimes welcome, other times not so much.

What do you think? Do single coils translate playing dynamics better then humbuckers in general?
Which do you prefer and why?

[ruger9]

Just from my personal experiences, I do feel that single coils are more responsive than humbuckers. But I've heard plenty of people play Humbuckers and it sounds very responsive as well, so IDK. I'm just going strictly off the guitars I own/play. For the "whisper quiet to roar" thing, I find single coils do it better.

ALSO- the strength of the pickup matters. Pickups that are too hot become less responsive. However, again- my own experience, pickups that are too WEAK (like Filtertrons) never really get to "roar". They're TOO clean.

[Gitterbug]

People tend to raise their humbuckers too close to the strings. Fixed P90s are often further away. I believe that more distance means more "PU headroom", i.e. a wider and more controllable dynamic range. Good players know how to make use of this. I had the pleasure of attending Frank Gambale's concert in Espoo, Finland on Wednesday evening. Many different guitars, PUs and playing styles. His right-hand technique was just fantastic - and so was everything else, of course.

[marcwhy]

Hey Guava,
I saw Julian a few months back, too, and was amazed at the range of sounds and "vibes" he created with that one instrument!

I've found P-90s can deliver "mellow" to "grind" easier than other pickups (and, gotta throw it out there -- with a nice tube amp!).

[Marty Grass]

I'm not sure humbuckers would have ever been popular except for the hum of the single coil. Once you can control that, I'd go for the single coil sound most often.

I use the Humdebugger and the Fralin P-92s a lot.

[medblues]

How about the middle position in a two P90s (one RWRP) setup ? It is quiet (no 60 Hz hum), but does it fully retain all the single coil qualities ? Did anyone test this ?

[docsteve]

I saw Julian in Cologne yesterday and I can confirm that he basically plays the electric like an acoustic – one setting for the guitar and the amp, and all the rest is in the hands.

However, he had quite an audible hum on his guitar. Don’t know if it’s due to the pickup or to the grounding. He turned the volume down between tunes so I can’t really tell whether the hum went away when he touched the guitar with his hands.

Guava, if you’re based in Cologne, why did you go to Dortmund?


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[citizenk74]

People tend to raise their humbuckers too close to the strings. Fixed P90s are often further away. I believe that more distance means more "PU headroom", i.e. a wider and more controllable dynamic range. Good players know how to make use of this. I had the pleasure of attending Frank Gambale's concert in Espoo, Finland on Wednesday evening. Many different guitars, PUs and playing styles. His right-hand technique was just fantastic - and so was everything else, of course.

I fully concur. You can lower pickups too far - adjustment screws are too short! - but my experience is that a little lower means slightly less output, but significantly greater dynamic and tonal range. Touch and tone are inseparable.

[ruger9]

I saw Julian in Cologne yesterday and I can confirm that he basically plays the electric like an acoustic – one setting for the guitar and the amp, and all the rest is in the hands.

However, he had quite an audible hum on his guitar. Don’t know if it’s due to the pickup or to the grounding. He turned the volume down between tunes so I can’t really tell whether the hum went away when he touched the guitar with his hands.

Guava, if you’re based in Cologne, why did you go to Dortmund?


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I'm sure the hum wasn't his guitar or amp- it was the power source. Yes, the single coil pickups add to that, but some places just have atrocious (noisy) power, due usually to whatever else is hooked up to it (neon lights, etc). There's not much to be done about that unless you carry a power conditioner/regulator around with you.

[rpjazzguitar]

We are talking about the intensity of vibration of the string having a non-linear relationship to voltage output.

Why would that be?

[Alter]

I would think Lage's sound in this setting has more to do with his amp of choice, which i believe is a champ type small tweed style amp. These things are as dynamic as an amp can get. I have a Victoria champ version and you can easily go from clean to santana with just pick control, even with paf humbuckers.

But i generally prefer low output pickups for the sensitivity and dynamic control, i do think they do that better than humbuckers. It all depends on the gain range you want to use. Low to medium single coils, medium centered P90s, higher humbuckers.

[marcwhy]

I would think Lage's sound in this setting has more to do with his amp of choice, which i believe is a champ type small tweed style amp. These things are as dynamic as an amp can get. I have a Victoria champ version and you can easily go from clean to santana with just pick control, even with paf humbuckers.

On his recent/current tour, he hasn't been using the Champ-style amps, but some other, bigger tube amp. I love his "tele/champ" stuff, too, though!

[entresz]

I think a huge part of Julian Lage's sound is in the way he plays. He's one of the most 'musical' guitarists I've heard. He has such great technique.
That said, my personal preference is for single coils, particularly pickups like CCs, Dynasonics, P90s, D'Armonds 1000/1100/FHCs. I've found humbuckers often sound very dull, and don't generally respond to dynamics in the same way. Most of the single coil pickups mentioned sound just as fat/warm, but with so much more detail and character.

[docsteve]

On his recent/current tour, he hasn't been using the Champ-style amps, but some other, bigger tube amp. I love his "tele/champ" stuff, too, though!

I sat too far from the stage to really be sure, but I thought it was a Fender Deluxe Reverb.


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[JCat]

Dynamics...an important subject but without a clear definition...

The way I see it the subject falls into different categories:
1. Performed dynamics; variation in loudness between notes or phrases (forte, pianissimo etc)
2. Audio dynamics; Dynamic range compression of a recording or a single instrument.

Let's break it down

Performed dynamics is about acoustics, fingers, strings and stuff; your touch.

Audio Dynamics is about recording devices, amplifiers, speakers, pickups, pedals etc; your gear

But there's more to it;

The loudness of a note (as written in a score) doesn't provide any information about the character of the note, the tone. Guitar volume on 10 vs 3 is not really forte fortissimo vs pianissimo, right? It's more about how we pick, with authority or with a light touch...but guitar volume is part of the equation too...and/or a volume pedal, a highly expressive tool.

Tone is a most complex subject that involves the character of the instrument, note attack and envelop, sustain and artifacts (like fret buzz, string fizz, wood creaking, hiss etc). Lack of tonal character means the sound is sterile, lifeless. Contemporary DAW plugs can generate synthetic fret buzz, in order to emulate the sound of a fretted instrument. Alternatively, when fret buzz becomes a nuisance, we could filter it out using a noise gate.

Think about that for a while...one man's trash is another man's treasure... Some prefer flat wound strings to get rid of string fizz...The tone of a single coil pickup has a lot of artifacts, noise. That's part of its tonal character and sometimes it's a nuisance.
An unpotted humbucker is partly microphonic and got more artifacts (clicks and squeals) than a wax potted humbucker. The pickup magnet, its size, material, shape and strength (e.g "degaussed rough cast A5") has an awful lot to do with the character of a humbucker. Pickup height is obviously a critical setup parameter.

And here comes the finale;

Your amp is part of your instrument. (It's basically not possible to play electric guitar without an amp). It means that the tonal character of the amp, the speaker and the pickups (your gear) is part of the sound and that whatever you do with your fingers (your touch) will translate one way or another through the speaker...
The keyword is sensitivity. Sensitivity and response of speaker, amp and the very guitar. The electric guitar player cannot (and don't want to) isolate audio dynamics from performed dynamics as these concepts are interlaced and dependent. A good amp can be sensitive and compress at the same time depending on your touch; when you play with a light touch with volume rolled back you can hear your finger nails, but when you dig in and attack, the amp will compress.

I personally find that the single most important factor for me to express a full dynamic range is the setup of the guitar. If the guitar plays stiff, performed dynamics will suffer. I go to great length in my efforts to make my guitars play compliant and smooth. From there it's all about gear, amp and speaker as much as pickups. I like singe coils and I like humbuckers, but I don't think dynamics is a differentiator.

[Bobby Timmons]

^ That lol. Thanks for differentiating between the correct definition of the word dynamics - meaning volume variation from the playing; and the incorrect definition that guitarists love to use of the change in tone related to the touch sensitivity of the pickup. Single coils and lighter wound pickups have more touch sensitivity and vice versa. However they have nothing to do with the dynamic range the player is able to execute. Any pickup will sound softly if the player plays softly and it will sound loudly if the player plays loudly. Quit the nonsense.

[ruger9]

I sat too far from the stage to really be sure, but I thought it was a Fender Deluxe Reverb.


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Could be, it's an easy backline amp to get. His personal "Deluxe Reverb" is a Magic Amps Vibro-Deluxe, which basically is a Deluxe reverb, optimized.

[ruger9]

^ That lol. Thanks for differentiating between the correct definition of the word dynamics - meaning volume variation from the playing; and the incorrect definition that guitarists love to use of the change in tone related to the touch sensitivity of the pickup. Single coils and lighter wound pickups have more touch sensitivity and vice versa. However they have nothing to do with the dynamic range the player is able to execute. Any pickup will sound softly if the player plays softly and it will sound loudly if the player plays loudly. Quit the nonsense.

My personal experience partially disagrees with your so-called "sense".

Yes, any pickup WILL do this. So will any amp. But some are better at it than others: guitars AND amps. In my experiences, amps without master volumes are better at it than amps with master volumes, and single coil pickups (which are USUALLY a little weaker than humbuckers) do it better than (USUALLY hotter) humbuckers. But it's all a sliding scale.

It certainly isn't "nonsense". You should try to get a clean tone out of a Seymour Duncan JB Bridge Humbucker, or a Dimarzio Super Distortion, going into a fire-breathing Marshall cranked, then get back to us.

The terms "dynamics" and "touch sensitivity" are often used interchangeably (altho as pointed out, that is incorrect) on Internet forums. Dynamics is a playing style/technique, and touch-sensitivity is also called "responsiveness", and that's the whole "gets-cleaner-when-you-lighten-your-attack" thing. And it's not just volume: it's also GAIN. But that depends on how the amp is set of course.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Any pickup will sound softly if the player plays softly and it will sound loudly if the player plays loudly.

Any pickup will sound softER if the player plays softly and loudER if the player plays loudly. But what matters is by how much - pickups vary greatly in both overall sensitivity to the vibrating string and to the relationship between input energy and output voltage. So all pickups do not put out the same voltage with the same pick stroke and force. Further, the output voltage curve is not perfectly linear relative to input energy or to frequency spectrum.

So pickups vary greatly in their response to the physical factors that comprise playing style. It’s neither surprising nor imaginary that player preference varies because we don’t all elicit the same sonic response from the same pickup in the same guitar.

[guavajelly]

I saw Julian in Cologne yesterday and I can confirm that he basically plays the electric like an acoustic – one setting for the guitar and the amp, and all the rest is in the hands.

However, he had quite an audible hum on his guitar. Don’t know if it’s due to the pickup or to the grounding. He turned the volume down between tunes so I can’t really tell whether the hum went away when he touched the guitar with his hands.

Guava, if you’re based in Cologne, why did you go to Dortmund?


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Hi, neighbor. Let's put it this way: I went to Dortmund to escape the hum in the Philharmonie in Cologne. :-)

Just kidding. When I looked for tickets all the good seats were already gone. My friend then proposed to go to Dortmund instead and offered to drive. Also we payed less than half than in Cologne.

Honestly there was no hum. He must have been lucky with the installation there. I know the challenge to roll back the volume between tunes. ;-)
Yeah he was playing something like a Deluxe Reverb. I think he shelved the tele into champ tone. His tone was clean even when he dug in. His playing and control over dynamics are excellent.
I just tried amps and guitars to choose for our gig on friday. When I changed from my ES 330 with the P90s to a tele with humbuckers (very sensitive ones) it really felt like adding a compressor. Yeah, I think in general single coils are more sensitive to playing dynamics. Probably the reason why such a dynamic player as Lage prefers them and lives with the hum.

[guavajelly]

I would think Lage's sound in this setting has more to do with his amp of choice, which i believe is a champ type small tweed style amp. These things are as dynamic as an amp can get. I have a Victoria champ version and you can easily go from clean to santana with just pick control, even with paf humbuckers.

But i generally prefer low output pickups for the sensitivity and dynamic control, i do think they do that better than humbuckers. It all depends on the gain range you want to use. Low to medium single coils, medium centered P90s, higher humbuckers.

Alter, he used a Deluxe Reverb or similar. And his tone was clean so picking dynamics really translated into loudness rather than distortion. Like docsteve said Lage plays the electric more like an acoustic and he has excellent control over the dynamics.

[Bobby Timmons]

It certainly isn't "nonsense". You should try to get a clean tone out of a Seymour Duncan JB Bridge Humbucker, or a Dimarzio Super Distortion, going into a fire-breathing Marshall cranked, then get back to us.

I thought we were talking about jazz? If a rig has no dynamic range because you can only get fff because the Marshall is cranked, that means the amp is providing the compression. That doesn't prove the pickups provide any compression. I could put a JB and a Super D in series through a jazz amp at jazz volume and still play pp to ff. Good job on your points there.

[Bobby Timmons]

Any pickup will sound softER if the player plays softly and loudER if the player plays loudly. But what matters is by how much - pickups vary greatly in both overall sensitivity to the vibrating string and to the relationship between input energy and output voltage. So all pickups do not put out the same voltage with the same pick stroke and force. Further, the output voltage curve is not perfectly linear relative to input energy or to frequency spectrum.

So pickups vary greatly in their response to the physical factors that comprise playing style. It’s neither surprising nor imaginary that player preference varies because we don’t all elicit the same sonic response from the same pickup in the same guitar.

That is true, but any pickup itself will offer a normal dynamic range through an amp at jazz volume. It isn't as if the pickup is actually 'compressed' volume wise like a compression pedal where if you play soft you get mezzo forte and if you play loud you get mezzo forte.

[Gitterbug]

How about the middle position in a two P90s (one RWRP) setup ? It is quiet (no 60 Hz hum), but does it fully retain all the single coil qualities ? Did anyone test this ?

I prefer the middle position on my humble Epi Casino Coupe. Neck alone is dry, bridge alone too bright.

[ruger9]

I thought we were talking about jazz?.

I thought we were talking about dynamics and touch-sensitivity?