HH middle position

[simes]

This may be a stupid question but … how many people here use the middle position on a HH guitar? I’ve always found this position much more useful splitting the coils to clean the sound up and give it more definition. Maybe it’s just me, but I just can’t seem to get to grips with an HH middle position with overdrive.

[ijustwannastrat]

My suggestion, put the pups out of phase with eachother. I NEVER use middle position, but I like the sound my buddy's les paul gets with it's out of phase pups... it brings character to the middle position.

[newey]

I have the middle setting OOP on my electric pumpkin. I use that setting a lot when I play that guitar, so I agree with WannaStrat.

We discussed this a few months ago in connection with the Peter Green mod, which does this.

[wolf]

simes
I never liked the middle position either and considering that sound is 33% of ALL the sounds you can get from a typically wired Gibson HH guitar, it led me to rewire my SG. (You're lucky that at least you have coil split options).
Not to plug my own website again, but in the last few years I came up with a wiring called "Super Seven Switching" (what folks here call "Binary Tree Switching"). It gives you a LOT of choices for neck, bridge and a huge amount for the middle position.
Here's the wiring diagram:
www.1728.com/guitar6.htm and some pictures are here:
www.1728.com/super7.htm
As a matter of fact, I just rewired my eighth HH guitar with this circuit. (Photo to come soon).

[simes]

Hi guys. Thanks for the suggestions. My post was not so much brought on by a lack of ideas regarding alternatives to that middle position, but curiosity as to whether I was some kind of aural freak or heretic. To be honest, very few guitarists I know use that position unless it's with clean tones. Myself, as I hardly ever play entirely clean, I just split for outer coils.

[ashcatlt]

I do use the middle position on my LP quite a bit actually. The bridge alone is so nasally that it's almost a special effect. The neck alone is overwhelmingly boomy. On mine, anyway, the parallel inductance seems to open up the top end quite nicely, and makes a very useable sound both clean and overdriven.

Course when I'm looking for heavy nasty distortion I switch it over to the system series position.

[simes]

I've been listening to Zeppelin's "How the West Was Won" over the last few days, and it sounds to me like JP uses the LP middle position quite a lot for soloing (not to be confused with the OoP middle position Tele sounds he uses on the first couple of albums). In fact, it sounds pretty much like he uses the following four settings through a very trebly amp pretty much the whole time on live recordings at this time:

• neck PU with volume backed right off for clean sounds
  
• neck PU with volume backed right off + bridge PU with volume at 10 for some leads
  
• bridge PU with volume at 10 for some leads and dirty rhythm/riffs
  
• neck PU with volume at 10 for occasional leads
  

[sydsbluesky]

I'm with newey and strat. I only use this position OoP normally... but...

My LP has a P-90 in the bridge and a mini in the neck. Mixing the two can give me some more interesting sounds than you normally get from that spot in phase.

[simes]

Hmmmm ...

Speaking from a position of happy ignorance (a couple of fine Spanish double malt beers have had only negligible influence on this particular flight of fancy), would there not be some kind of "middle scoop" option to be afforded by caps or some other component as an alternative to an HB coil split or local parallel rig? That might clean up the HH middle position quite nicely. Probably wouldn't sound entirely like an SC, but then again, neither does either of the other solutions I just mentioned.

Cheers,

Simes

[4real]

I used to play an LP extensively...for when I played rock and for most things...and now I play a tele, I still do (though it's an usual combination of pups)...

I liked the mix control options, turn down the neck pickup a bit and in the middle you get a nice drop and less boom than neck alone and can switch up to a louder bridge sound for the cutting lead work.

I like the neck pickup, but it lacks the harmonics in the sound. On my tele, I get a really nice smooth and detailed almost jazz like sound (SCn tele neck) but you can barely hear the harmonics other than those on the 12th fret say...add in the bridge and it is a very similar sound, but these higher frequencies can sound loud and clear.

I think that a lot has to do with distortion sounds though...you just are not going to hear the subtleties with this kind of sound...with high gain kinds of things I use almost exclusively bridge pickup to get as much harmonic content in it.

Distortion squashes and compresses everything, LP neck pickups can often sound boomy or bass heavy (ok for an effect like the 'woman tone' perhaps) and doesn't cut through that well.

...

However, I have always favored the middle position and used coil taps and the volume controls to create a wide range of sounds...but most of this is only available with a clean or crunchy tone.

...

That 33% thing is a bit misleading...it is a percentage of what is available, but not what everyone is going to find useful. Overdriven sounds quite often work best on the bridge pickup and using the voilume to change tone...remember EVH took out the neck and changed the volume control label for "tone" for this very reason...with one pickup, overdrive and that one control, he was able to get quite an array of sounds from it.

It does come down a lot to the tone and style you play. 33% only applies with a tone you can actually tell the difference and is optimal to it. Remember that the LP was designed to be a jazz guitar really, the overdrive sound came later to the design and the voicing of the pickups and the selection. Play clean and you will find that perhaps the middle position is more than 50% useful...well, that's my experience with it.

These days, more a fender guy, but have a new LP project in the works that I hope you guys will input on and have a wider range of options for a 2xHB guitar (with possible piezo)...and trem...

[newey]

4Real:

but have a new LP project in the works that I hope you guys will input on and have a wider range of options for a 2xHB guitar (with possible piezo)...and trem...

As well as a sustainer? Welcome Back, 4Real!

[simes]

Great post, 4R, very much in line with my experience. I currently have a great B+N sound on a Strat with hotrails-type PU's, hotter at the bridge than at the neck.

Bear in mind that my idea of heavy distortion is Jimmy/Angus at most.

So, anyway ... that middle scoop idea ... any takers?

[sydsbluesky]

I've never been a fan of bridge pup for gain sounds... or, rather, not with a 4x12. With a small amp it sounds better. I like the bassy... "boom"ier sounds of the neck, I guess. I've never had a normal LP, only the minihumbucker version, but from what I can tell, the neck humbucker with the '57 or the burstbukers, even, is a bit muddy for me.

Hard to get a good feeling for it in a GC.

But I happen to love neck pup for my main guitar.

Oh, and bear in mind that my idea of heavy distortion is pretty brutal.

[sydsbluesky]

Okay, how about this one...

Earlier today I pulled out the LP, as I do from time to time, and started playing with the controls a bit.

My LP is a bit different. I got the LP Deluxe(reissue), because it was decently cheap(for a gibson), the color was spot on(wine red!), it had full body binding and I wanted P-90s(stock mini humbuckers.) The p-90 part happened in the bridge but not neck, and I think I found my new favorite high gain tone today using a combination of the two.

I have a few other combos I use, but this is a new one from today.

Middle position - bridge P-90 (duncan S P-90 2) Vol and tone at 10 and neck pup volume 10 tone 0.

I get great rhythm sounds out of it, with the classic HB sound, ya know? But along with it, I have the bite from the p-90, which includes those squeelie little harmonics down low on the E.

Then the 0 tone neck HB cools down the P-90 enough to get rid of not only the hum, but also that sloppy mess that single notes tend to become when they're played through the lower registers of the guitar. Makes it a little less sensitive... because that thing is kinda mean sometimes, ya know?

Then I still have a little fiddling to do to get the lead tone.. Lead tone is the same as that but with the neck vol on 7-8... Might have to get that rotary after all...




That having been said, I like the neck mini humbucker more than the full sized '57 pups Gibson usually uses in these things, and the p-90 blows most bridge pups out of the water with ease.

[simes]

I've been playing around with a couple of HH guitars, one of which is a hollow (not semi-solid) 335-type with independent volume pots and the other is a solid LP-type with non-independent volume pots. So, one allows you to mix the two PU's at different levels in the middle position, and on the other either one of the volume pots acts as a master volume in the middle position. The 335 sounds a lot muddier than the LP. This could be to do with their PU's, their construction or their wiring.

From what I've read here and elsewhere:

1. Standard Gibson wiring is the non independent volume controls type.
2. Independent volume control wiring does bad things to the tone of the guitar in general.
3. 1950's wiring, with or without independent volume controls, is often thought of as giving a "better" tone in general, and allowing you to back off the volume without losing highs, as long as you don't mind losing some volume when you back the tone pots right off.

Am I on the right track with the above?

It seems a pity that independent volume wiring should be at the cost of tone. I think I'm going to wire one of these guitars up with '50's style wiring, non-independent volumes and perhaps a local S/P push-pull for the neck PU and see what that does for general tone and specific middle position sounds.

Any comments before I take up the pickaxe and blowtorch?

[Runewalker]

guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=wiring&action=display&thread=1885

[simes]

Yeah, I'd already seen that. Although some of it's bit over my head, technically speaking, I understand that modern and 50's wiring have certain effects on how the pots respond and are just a matter of preference.

My last post, however, was more about the independent/non-independent volume pots thing rather than the modern/50's issue.

[simes]

Anybody care to pronounce upon the idea that independent volume pot wiring messes up the tone?

The reason I ask rather than just experimenting myself is that I have a teething 5-month-old, which means I have to use any spare time I have very carefully, preferably without heading down dead ends ...

[cynical1]

Obviously, anything you put in the signal path has an effect. Good or bad, IMHO, is somewhat subjective.

Personally, I prefer to have the control over the volume on every pickup and a common tone...or tone split by p/u type. (IE: HSS with one tone for the H and one tone for the SS...or a bass with Jazz/P-Bass p/u that has one tone for the J and one tone for the P)

Others will chime in accordingly, bit that's how I'd do it.

HTC1

[JohnH]

May 12, 2010 7:32:10 GMT -5 simes said:

Anybody care to pronounce upon the idea that independent volume pot wiring messes up the tone?

I think the main problem with the way independent volume control are wired is that they are likely to result in a serious and unavoidable loss of treble when you turn down. With the centre lug/wiper going to the pickup and the upper lug to the output, as you turn down, a large part of the pot resistance is being put in series with the output. This causes the capacitance of the cord to deeply cut into the treble, and makes it more vulnerable to noise. This output impedance at low volume is about four times greater with this reversed wiring than for conventional wiring. Also, although there are still tone loss effects with conventional wiring, they can be largely fixed, if needed, with treble bleed circuits, which are not good with reversed wiring.

The tone loss is further exacerbated, as the volume pot shunts the pickup with a low resistance, causing treble loss by interaction with the pickup inductance.

Anyway, the reason to do this wiring, to help make mixes of pickups, is not really valid - it works as well with normal wiring. the problem of non-independent controls shutting off all sound only occurs if one is set very low - by which time it has long since faded from the mix, so don't set it there!

Apart from all of that, independent volume controls are absolutely great and I recommend them!

cheers
John

[simes]

Thanks John. That clears things up nicely.