Lollars vs Bare Knuckles

[CoolerKing]

Looking for a vintage tone. The six way splitter would let me wire the neck pup to isolate a single coil and get a SRV sound. Also I'd isolate a single coil in each humbucker in parallel to approximate the Knopfler sound. Lastly, would want bold humbucking sound in the style of Bonnamassa, while still getting a little metal st times.

I'm leaning towards bare knuckle. Anyone want to dissuade me?

[muscmp]

matthew: you may want to check gearslutz and the gearpage for opinions on this.

here is a quick and dirty google search that may help.

https://www.google.com/search?q=loll...utf-8&oe=utf-8

play music!

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by matthewpartrick

Looking for a vintage tone. The six way splitter would let me wire the neck pup to isolate a single coil and get a SRV sound. Also I'd isolate a single coil in each humbucker in parallel to approximate the Knopfler sound. Lastly, would want bold humbucking sound in the style of Bonnamassa, while still getting a little metal st times.

I'm leaning towards bare knuckle. Anyone want to dissuade me?

Vintage sound is where I live and from my experience I've never seen a great humbucker get great single coil sound. My favorite brand vintage style humbucker is Throbak. Okay there's my 2 cents

[Scotso]

Had both but on diff guitars so hard to compare. They both sounded good. As to whether they are vintage PAF sounding...IDK. I agree with the other poster that split buckers never get close to strat tones. I have one guitar that can get close to a Tele neck with split humbuckers(a Taylor T3) but even that requires some listener imagination.

[s2y]

I have a very old Kramer Pacer Deluxe with a JB bridge pickup. It has a very good split sound. It's still not perfect.

[rokdog49]

Talk to this guy before you buy anything:

http://www.dallenpickups.com/

He's "one of the guru's"

[57gold]

In one guitar.

There is a reason MK and JB have both LPs and Strats...night and day instruments.

"Swiss army knife" guitars, like 1980's Strats with hum bucker and single coil mixes (two of one, one of the other)...can get in the "ballpark", but not close to home plate. PRS and others have attempted to achieve this...all have failed.

Best advice is to find, and that means playing a bunch of, LP and Strat style guitars to find resonant ones that have a good acoustic sound with natural sustain and overtones. They do not have to be expensive (played some great sounding/playing Mexican Strats...don't tell the Prez), custom shop or even Fenders or Gibsons. Then voice the instrument with pick ups that compliment it and get you to what you hear as "classic" LP and Strat tone. Fralin Strat pick ups and Throbak humbuckers are amongst the finest...but Lollars, OX4s, Wizz, and more mass market ones such as SDs, D'Marzios can do the job.

Bottom line is no LP does Strat well and no Strat does LP well.

FWIW, I have a like 20 guitars with hum buckers, 13 of them are real pre-1960 PAFs, none are set up to split coils.

[s2y]

Originally Posted by 57gold

Bottom line is no LP does Strat well and no Strat does LP well.

I think a pickup like the Duncan JB bridge does an excellent Les Paul sound out of a super strat type and has an excellent single coil sound. While it's not a perfect and pristine Stratocaster, it's pretty **** good. It's more than adequate in this department once you throw in a band, pedals, FOH, etc.

I would agree that a 24.75" scale, mahogany, solid/semi-hollow set-neck instrument doesn't have much Strattyness when the pickups are split.

[fazool]

slight derail, but relevant:

I was considering a custom PUP/switching arrangement recently. I realized that I want every possible combination.

If I were to do one, I would do it all the way with every possible option.

Imagine splitting and running the rear coils in series and running the front coils in series, then running those circuits in parallel for a huge humbucker.

What if you want a split rear and a tapped front PUP ?

OK, this gets crazy but I half-wanted to start mapping out a maximally configurable switch, which would see all four coils separately, then sub-switch the B & N PUP to be S or P. Do the same sub-swtiching to the N PUP.

Then switches to switch the PUP coil pairs to each other.

sheesh that gets crazy but maximum configurations

I think, if I did my map correct it gives 24 configurations

[s2y]

David Myka, who has recently retired would sometimes utilize a 5 way for each pickup and a 5 way between the pickups with all sorts adding middle pickups, different caps for the tone, etc. Wild stuff.

[fazool]

Originally Posted by s2y

David Myka, who has recently retired would sometimes utilize a 5 way for each pickup and a 5 way between the pickups with all sorts adding middle pickups, different caps for the tone, etc. Wild stuff.

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!

[s2y]

Originally Posted by fazool

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!

It's too bad his website is closed. There were some wild wiring jobs out there.

[CoolerKing]

Thanks for chiming in folks. For this specific guitar I'm definitely leaning towards the PAF tone and if, secondarily, the split neck coil doesn't sound particuarly stratty, that's ok. There's always next year!

Thx folks

[CoolerKing]

Originally Posted by 57gold

In one guitar.

There is a reason MK and JB have both LPs and Strats...night and day instruments.

"Swiss army knife" guitars, like 1980's Strats with hum bucker and single coil mixes (two of one, one of the other)...can get in the "ballpark", but not close to home plate. PRS and others have attempted to achieve this...all have failed.

Best advice is to find, and that means playing a bunch of, LP and Strat style guitars to find resonant ones that have a good acoustic sound with natural sustain and overtones. They do not have to be expensive (played some great sounding/playing Mexican Strats...don't tell the Prez), custom shop or even Fenders or Gibsons. Then voice the instrument with pick ups that compliment it and get you to what you hear as "classic" LP and Strat tone. Fralin Strat pick ups and Throbak humbuckers are amongst the finest...but Lollars, OX4s, Wizz, and more mass market ones such as SDs, D'Marzios can do the job.

Bottom line is no LP does Strat well and no Strat does LP well.

FWIW, I have a like 20 guitars with hum buckers, 13 of them are real pre-1960 PAFs, none are set up to split coils.

You are of course right. I've got the custom Liggett les Paul style coming and ordered a custom strat to scratch that itch.