You can't expect to simply A-B single coil pick-up guitars against humbucking pick-up guitars just like that. Just like when you adjust the tone based on the single coils and then plug in the Les Paul or 335 and everyone says "eeew, that's all dark and muddy" One thing that I've seen MANY times is that if you adjust the amp and everything else to sound "good" with humbuckers and then plug in a strat or a telecaster, the instant reaction from everyone is "ewww, that's WAY too bright and thin" I spend lots of money trying to rectify overly hot and muddy pickups, and I hear so many people saying "WTF is up with my muddy sounding Gibson/ Epiphone/ etc?".
Before investing in amps, before investing in expensive guitars, i'd always recommend people to install those switches with aftermarket pu's.
What i'm ultimately saying is that parallel is almost single coil sound, but with no drawbacks of the single coil (excess hum noise), with none of the drawbacks of the full stacked series humbucking sound. The JB that I now have in there, on full series humbucker is too muddy-but with the parallel wiring sound, the same muddy sound from the same pickup, same guitar, same amp settings, everything opens up alot more.īut then again, i'm super picky in my whole setup. I put a Duncan Phat Cat P-90 humbucker sized single coil, and it opened up significantly. I put a Gibson Classic '57 in there, same thing. While there's some decent tones to be heard, here's why I say this-my Epi Les Paul is made excellently, it's one of their higher quality limited edition ones. I think the point is that it's silly to make a simple equation : humbuckers = muddy, single coils = good
It would be nice if thye slowed down a bit so they don't crack in my amp.Wwittman wrote on Tue, 04 November 2008 10:41ĭO I have to go put together a list of great guitar tones made with more modern humbucking pick-ups as well? Time is money so they must be crankin' those tubes out as fast as they can. It still wants to break because the energy is partially stored but it needs a little more energy to help it along. When cooled slowly that energy is dissipated across the workpiece. Transitioning quickly from hot to cold shocks the glass. The key to any kind of glass casting is to slowly cool the workpiece. Why can't they get 12AX7s to 100% consistently hold vacuum? I can guess.
the Czech Republic leads the world in large format glass casting. They're not as nice as 5AR4s but whaddaya expect for ten bucks?Īn AC-30 is cathode biased so you can swap rectifers without checking bias.
Nice thing about a 5U4G is they were used in countless electronic devices. A 5U4G will make a 1970 or earlier Princeton Reverb or Deluxe Reverb transformer run dangerously hot. It requires a 3 amp rectifier supply and if you don't have it you don't have it. Note you will get three different supply voltages so you must check bias in fixed bias amps when you swap rectifiers.įender used the less expensive 5U4G in the '70s. A 5Y3 is suited to small amps although some old PA amps use one supplying a pair of 6L6s. If you have a 2 amp filament supply as found in '60s Fenders choose a 5Y3, a 5V4 or a 5AR4.
They're roughly but not exactly interchangeable. "Guitar amp" Rectifiers divide into two categories, those with 2 amp filament such as the 5AR4 and those with 3 amp filaments like the 5U4G. Some clever person figured out you can use different rectifiers but there are a few caveats and warnings: Some of the imports has dismally short lives. NOS Mullard 5AR4s are $150 each but they last forever. I was excited when we had affordable alternatives to expensive NOS. Click to expand.Yes, a rectifier tube can fail without warning.