Scott Henderson Discussion

[fenderfanatic]

Hi Scott, I’m debating whether to put a bridge humbucker in a strat I’m putting together. Neck and middle will have single coils. Do you think with a midrangey kind of pedal like a TS in combination with turning the tone control down on a single coil bridge pickup I can get close to what let’s say Suhr’s SSV sounds like? I should say that if I were to install a single coil bridge it would not be hot. Thanks.

[Scott Henderson]

First of all, it's all personal taste so don't give a lot of weight to my opinion. I stopped using humbuckers a long time ago - I have one strat with a humbucker in the bridge position and haven't used it in at least 10 years. It's too honky a sound for me, and practically no bass at all. I've heard Landau play many times with both style strats, and I always like his single coil tone more - that helps me decide because it's cool to hear the difference when other people are playing and not me. I don't miss one thing about that sound. To me it's an 80's sound, my least favorite decade for guitar.

[Thumberstrummer]

Hey Scott.
I'm in the same mood.
Beyond my #1 axe, a classic S-S-S strat, I have an old Fender American Standard strat (bought in the 90's) that back in the days I have heavily modded - beyond all, I have equipped it with a Seymour Duncan 59 in the bridge.
I suspect it has never sounded properly, so that a few days ago I decided to put my hands on rewiring it with a couple of 500K pots and a new 0.022 PIO cap, removing the crappy TBX tone system the guitar was coming with stock.
Just for comparison purpose, I have modified the tone pot in order to be NO load, and understand the difference between the HB tone with or without the tone in the circuit.
Well, with the new 500K volume pot the 59 sounds more organic along the whole frequencies spectrum, even though I do not love the harsh mids & highs coming out when playing the B and E strings, especially with volume set to maximum.
When I roll back the tone, the magic in the low 4 strings disappear, and the whole tone becomes much more throaty and scooped.
The only way to reach a good mix seems to be taming the volume - it attenuates highs a bit and do not cut that much bass and mids.
In the end, it seems that the only way this guitar sounds playable is when I roll volume down to 6 or 7.
Reality is that the PAF pick ups (that the SD 59 emulates), especially the original ones, where very bright sounding pick ups (that's why Gibson use 300K pots). Coupled with a very bright sounding strat (like mine), final result is a mess. Sometimes I miss a good HB tone, but I have no idea on how to make it sound properly on my strat...
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Germino Club 40 plexi replica + EJ Strat w Suhr ML st. pups. I'm not asking for more so far (but... who knows...?)

[Scott Henderson]

Mixed pickups never worked for me either - in Tribal Tech I put a humbucker in the neck too, and hardly ever used the middle pickup. Just my opinion, but Landau is the only guy I can think of who somehow makes it work, even though I still prefer his single coil tone. Holdsworth and Van Halen sounded good with humbucker strats, but those were one-pickup guitars, which make EQ'ing an amp much easier than playing the "trade-off' game with two different kinds of pickups. Now that I think of it, my favorite Allan tones were with the SG and Marshall, and after the strat period when he started using the headless guitars. That's just personal taste though so don't pay attention!

[Thumberstrummer]

Thanks Scott.
It’s funny, ‘cause you are the one who, in my opinion, has sported some of the best tones ever, in both worlds.
I loved your roundy, deep tone back in the days with e.g. Zawinul Syndicate, and remember well how surprised I was when Dog Party came out, with a new era of SH’s tones I felt totally in love with, from Well To The Bone on.
Nevertheless I couldn’t be amazed for some of your HB tones in some Tribal Tech records, as well as in Saturn 5 (I suppose it’s HB?)
Awesome!
However the end of (my) story is that, after having messed too much around with that 59 pick up in my AM strat, I put back a SSS pickguard with three decent pus and... God... that guitar rocks!
Is a kind of a vintage guitar (bought in 1990) which has been played a lot, and dried right. Gorgeously resonant, with singing highs and mids and a comfortable neck with a rosewood fretboard...
Still missing an HB guitar, but now I have a new-old bluesy punchy strat that fights with the other to be granted the status of #1!!
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Germino Club 40 plexi replica + EJ Strat w Suhr ML st. pups. I'm not asking for more so far (but... who knows...?)

[Scott Henderson]

Glad to hear you've got your guitar sounding the way you like it! I get my humbucking fix with my Les Paul - I should probably use it more. It's not amazing like the super-light vintage ones, but it sounds good and I like playing it, once I get used to the different string tension.

Saturn 5 was with the humbucker - I don't hate the tone but I can't help noticing the serious lack of bass, which makes it sound very small compared to the tones I'm getting now with single coils.