Shake & Bake: H-S Pickups

When I was still in high school, I started collecting guitars, and before long I had a Gibson SG and a Fender Strat, but I was dying for a cool Ibanez superstrat. Something with a Wizard neck and a Floyd Rose, s’il vous plait.

What showed up for $500 (in 2002 money, calm down) in the Super Shopper classifieds if I was willing to drive to Barrie was a 1989 USA Custom Jackson Soloist that had been through hell and back. It had been built for Daniel MacMaster, the lead singer of 80s rock band Bonham, who was from Canada. Somehow the guitar had made its way to Barrie, to a trailer in back of a rental building, with the name Terry Baker engraved on the truss rod cover. It was beat to shit, but I instantly fell in love with that guitar.

Anyway, that guitar was my first introduction to what’s become my favorite pickup setup on an electric: the humbucker - single setup. Actually, it was ALSO my first introduction to double-locking trems, which I keep giving chances to and hating.

No, YOU only have a crappy picture of the only guitar you regret selling.

That Jackson had a Gibson humbucker (and later a Jackson J50BC) in the bridge, but a very Hendrixy, clear single coil in the neck, and I found between the two I could just get… kind of anything I needed. Rhythm on the bridge, leads on the neck; easy peasy. I always have found neck humbuckers a little flubby, so having a single coil in that position always made extra sense to tighten up the bass and cut a little better.

You see HSS setups a lot more commonly, but I find the middle pickup gets in the way of my picking hand, and the sound of the neck + bridge together is really special, moreso than either neck + mid or bridge + mid.

Eventually, I forgot how special that Jackson was and sold it in the early 2010’s. If I recall, I only got $500 for it, so even money with what I paid, but stupid, stupid. If you know where Jackson Soloist J5475 is, please drop me a line.

At the moment I’ve got two G&Ls with this setup - a Fallout and LE-2. These raise the stakes even more - besides the clear neck, thick bridge and blendy middle, they both have coil-cuts on the bridge. The Fallout in particular sounds like a really great single-coil with the cut on the bridge.

The G&Ls, though looking very similar, sound quite different - beyond the body woods (swamp ash vs alder) and the necks (roasted maple vs rock maple), the bridges (trem vs hardtail), the LE-2 has MFD pickups, so the neck is quite chimey and full, like a cross between a Jazzmaster and a Tele pickup. The bridge is thicker, but not warm, exactly; it’s still very clear. In constrast, the Fallout is much more polarized — the bridge is hot and bright, and the neck is kind of indistinct in the mids, much softer. I have a notion to replace the P90 with an alnico-pole version and the JB with a PAF style pickup to kind of bring the Fallout more in line with a Jazzblaster sort of vibe.

As I cycle through other guitars, I’ve realized this setup is kind of the ideal pickup setup for me - 3-way toggle makes it easy to go from rhythm to lead, you can easily get nice cleans and dirty dirts, and as long as you’re willing to make some quick adjustments to the volume knob levels can be kept in line.

I was always confused by guitars with the humbucker in the neck and single-coil in the bridge, like you’d see in a Tele Custom… until I spent some time with a Tele, which had a neck pickup I did NOT get along with. Now I get it - the bridge pickup of a Tele is a total vibe, but having a humbucker (or a wide range humbucker) gives a lot more, I would expect, useful variation. Not that I’ve played one. Yet.

I’d love to know any other guitars that shipped with an H-S pickup setup, let me know if you find any. I had a Hamer Californian that would’ve shipped from the factory like that but someone put a Hot Rails in the neck 🙈