Single coils that sit well with a War Pig.

[Loomer]

Now.. Now stay with here, okay!? Don't laugh, please.

Okay, the thing is I have a semi-old Squier Stagemaster (HSS'ed, floyd'ed, reverse headed) guitar that I am quite fond of.
I have already thrown an A-pig in the bridge position and that works beautifully. However, since I am considering actually using this as a live guitar*, I might upgrade the single coils just for the hell of it.

I'm sort of thinking Sinners, in this department, since it is a metal guitar. The main thing is just that they need to sound really nice for cleans and stuff, and maybe do distorted lead fairly well.

All things aside, I have heard that having an absurdly high output pickup (which we can quite safely say the piggie is) in the same guitar as other pickups with significantly less output (which we can safely say stock Squier singles are) will somehow "drain the juice" from the highpowered pickup. Is there any truth to this, or is it an old wive's tale?

*Seriously, the prospect of seeing other metal guitarists' faces knot up in wtf-ness at my shows when I show up with a hideous old Squier, is just too good to pass up!

[1reeper]

The only thing i can say is about the last part.  from experience, I can't really remember any "draining" from a higher-powered pickup if you select it by itself.  In parallel, that might end up happening though.  But if you're really worried, just wire it so it goes directly to the output jack, bypassing volume and tone.  It'll give a bit more output too.

[Madsakre]

The only thing i can say is about the last part.  from experience, I can't really remember any "draining" from a higher-powered pickup if you select it by itself.  In parallel, that might end up happening though.  But if you're really worried, just wire it so it goes directly to the output jack, bypassing volume and tone.  It'll give a bit more output too.

'
Its a 5 position toggle.

I would go for trilogies :D

[dave_mc]

I *think* what you're saying about "drain the juice" is when the two pickups are selected.

the theory (by that I mean the theory behind the myth/old wives' tale/whatever you want to call it) seems to be that, since generally the higher-power pickup has a higher resistance, when the two pickups are selected, more of the signal will go through the lower-powered pickup as it has a lower resistance and electrical current will take the path of least resistance.

Of course, I've also heard people say the exact opposite, which is that if you have two really mismatched pickups, that the more powerful one, in the mixed position, will overpower the lower output one.

Dunno which is right (or both could be wrong :lol: ). All I know is that, in theory, if you're going to use the mixed position a lot, you should try to get fairly well-matched pickups, so one (whichever one) doesn't overpower the other. I'd certainly say that, in my limited experience, the mixed position does tend to sound better when the pickups are matched to sound good together.

[Nolly]

If you want it the outputs to balance, they have to be Sinners really. However, I think they would be perfect for what you're after. Bear in mind that with 500kΩ pots they will have more top end sparkle than you hear in the clips on the site (which were done with 250kΩs) so the cleans will still sound great. Of course when you switch to a lead tone the Sinners really wail - an awesome thing to behold.

[1reeper]

the theory (by that I mean the theory behind the myth/old wives' tale/whatever you want to call it) seems to be that, since generally the higher-power pickup has a higher resistance, when the two pickups are selected, more of the signal will go through the lower-powered pickup as it has a lower resistance and electrical current will take the path of least resistance.

If you're talking pure resistance, then that makes a bit of sense since the total resistance in parallel is 1/R_t = 1/R_a + 1/R₂

But the problem ends up being that pickup tone is not defined by resistance alone, so we're back at the starting point.