Can You Play Metal With Single Coils?
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- Tonight, join me as I briefly dive into the world of single coil pickups, and their use in metal music.
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my favorite example of single coils in metal is the band baroness. they manage to get these killer yet magical tones out of their guitars and describe using strats and teles like using a scalpel instead of a hammer
thanks for the introduction to Baroness
Saw them open for Lamb of God. Horrible in my opinion.
upvote for Baroness 👍
@@Brent-Nelson68 I thought they were pretty good.
@@Brent-Nelson68 same. Not a fan of them whatsoever
Tony Iommi actually used a Strat first (and recorded „Wicked World“ from Black Sabbaths Debut-Album with it) before he switched to his (P-90 equipped) Gibson SG Special, when a Pickup of the Stratocaster broke.
You're right 🤔
It's important to note that Tony did not like the single coils on the Strat because they were susceptible to picking up interference. Also, while his original "Monkey" SG had P90 pickups, and the P90 is technically has a single coil, it's a different beast to a standard single coil. They have a much wider bobbin and therefore a higher output with less hum. The P90 is much more suited to metal than a standard single coil.
It's also worth noting that Tony very quickly moved onto humbuckers and uses them to this day, so is not the best example of a single coil user in metal music.
@@GarryParker That is completely Right! I personally like P-90 much more than the Fender-Style Singlecoils because of the reasons you mentioned.
And yes after the Monkey-SG Tony used Humbuckers (and designed a great Set with Gibson - I love his signature Epiphone) - I was just pointing out the fact, that Metal kinda started with Singlecoils…🙂 🎸
All in all everybody should use the type of Pickups they like most.
20 points... most don't know and or refuse to believe it.
If I could only choose a pickup for the rest of my life it would be a P-90, you can literally go from jazz to heavy metal on it. I find humbuckers too muddy for clean tones.
Single coils are great for leads and layering, I like to record one guitar track full humbucker then layer it with a single coil/split coil recording. Also I think Hank Shermann from Mercyful Fate used single coil strats
That's a cool idea. gotta try that
I have seen him using single coil strats, but also humbucker equipped strats and flying Vs.
KIRK HAMMET PLAYED A SINGLE COIL STRAT IN ONE
That Melissa tone sounds super singley
You can play metal on any old type of guitar, with any type of pickups. I've seen people play Slayer on plastic kid's guitars, and do it very well. It's the player that matters most.
I'll never forget seeing Zakk Wylde play Black Sabbath on a mini Hello Kitty guitar
@@sixstringtv1 I've got one of those! It's adorable!
My Tele is my favourite metal guitar. I find the pickups slightly hotter and by rolling off the tone a bit you can get some killer high gain tones. I prefer teles over strats simply because of the fact that the volume pot doesn’t get in my way
I'm not a big fan of Teles, but I somehow still really want a thinline.
@@sixstringtv1 me too lol. They just look so damn good
Lmao. Teles are the True metal guitars.
Not gonna lie, In high gain music Semi Hollowbodies are good too. I used to gig with my band back then (Metal) using Epiphone Dot. But when recording of course I'm using my Ibanez's.
If I played Guitar I would have the all black Telecaster the $850 Fender or the $500 Squire (before tax) with the Bridge standard and pickup in the back a Humbucker, this way I can also do a Country Metal or Southern Metal sound when using both sets and switch to the bridge, when need be in parts, or do some Outlaw/Alt Country with just the Bridge and have that Alt country/Man in Black look to the instrument.
The first time I heard a single coil playing metal is on a comparison video, it's really unique. But I think I'm just gonna stick with passive humbuckers
That's cool too.
lol, never listened to Malmsteen ?
@@multslash not a big fan of malmsteen, some of his bigger hits are cool but idk it just seems like he is throwing arpeggios around hoping it fits...
Deathhammer have made some of the most brutal, raw Thrash metal albums of the last 20 years with a single coil pick up Strat. Don't sleep on them, those norwegians play some of the best old school metal in the world and their sound its pretty unique.
Kirk Hammett used a single-coil Fernandes Strat on many songs, including Master Of Puppets.
They were a full set of EMG SA single coils, which this guy specifically says don't buy (0:50). So don't buy them whatever you do, even if Kirk used them on his famous "Enda" Strat.
On the One music video no less...
@@GarryParker "Don't buy them whatever you do, because this guy said so"? Hmmm
I have several Stratocaster guitars and I love the single coils. I play them much more than my Kramer Baretta Special much like the Cosmo Kramer, I only had the strat for a long time so I played everything from rock, metal, etc… and tbh I prefer the single coils with some distortion to my humbucker.
Me too
Yngwie used traditional low output pickups in his strat for Marching out and the debut with Rising Force and it sounded good 👍 I think you could use single coils for Heavy, Power, Black and even Thrash Metal without my problems.. I think that's what the bass player is there for anyway. In positions 2 and 4 a strat is hum cancelling so no problems.
Didn't Yngwie use noiseless or stacked singles? His sound isn't that thin of a classic strat single, I guess
@@jaerdalas He used dimarzio hs2 which are stacked but sound fairly traditional and are very soft/low output.
Most "extreme metal gear" sounds like crap and is just given scary names then sold to teenagers. Its use for recording is minimal.
@jaerdalas he did use a more traditional sounding pickup earlier on.. the Dimazio's are closer to sounding like a strat pickup than the YJM SDs. Maybe Richie Blackmore is a better example of a single coil Hard Rock/Metal guitar player.. he's definitely the guy that most power metal/neo classical players try to emulate. I also heard that Praying Mantas used to use single coils on their early stuff.
That Harley Benton bass sounds absolutely massive in the mix, I’d love to see a video of how you record bass.
I don't currently have a bass amp, so I actually recorded this with Bias FX 2 🤣
@@sixstringtv1 Whatever settings you are using sounds great! Keep up the good work!
Tony Iommi used a Gibson SG with P90s on all of the early Black Sabbath stuff so I don't wanna fucking hear it if someone says you can't use single coils for metal.
I used to use a squier strat and I don’t have it anymore but there was something about the single coils in that guitar that I liked for higher gain applications and sounded unique in a good way, wish I still kept it
I have a 97 affinity strat. The wiring started to fail so I replaced the guard with noiseless. It's cool but you're right; those "crappy" ceramics were exceptionally crisp. I also noticed recently that the fret gap is 1\16" shorter at the 3rd fret then on most fenders clones, Almost Exactly like Gretsch frets.
@@Mike28625 I think part of it was that most cheap ceramic pickups are connected to 500k pots instead of the usual 250k, so theyre louder and brighter.
Weirdly, i felt the same way about a cheap kramer pacer humbucker guitar, which had 250k pots and absolutely shredded
@@euro51116 in spite of my initial enthusiasm, I've come to realize that i don't like how the fender noiseless sounds. I play Gretsch broad'trons mostly which are kinda sorta in the filter'tron family, which are Very clear sounding humbuckers. I was hoping that the noiseless pups would be something like that but sound shrill and flat to me.
@@Mike28625 Same. I put a pricey fender noiseless vintage pickup in my esquire tele and just can't get into it. To me it's about how pickups react and their dynamics, part of why I prefer singles but love humbuckers as well, different but each great.
Noiseless pickups IMO feel like a vegan meat substitute, and i'd rather eat real meat or not at all.
@@euro51116 the impossible pickup
John 5 plays alot of telecasters with single coils in them
Yngwie said of Joe Satriani playing in Deep Purple "I love Joe but he's playing Richie's stuff with a humbucker and that is just wrong"
Facts
I enjoy my lazy Fishman pickups... 😞
Me too tho
2 seconds of Stevie T puts me in a bad mood.
I play metal with single coils since 20 years 😂...and yes...i mean the fender standard ones not something fancy.
Shure i dont sound like kerry king ore james hetfield...but i dont want to sound like them.
I like the sound of singlecoils..thats it.
And yes...i play with humbuckers, too...why limitate yourself?😂
Do you use pedals when you play metal with single coils? I mean, are pedals necessary to get a metal tone out of a guitar with single coils?
Fender Strats tend to have this percussive sound that doesn't fit the warmer mahogany tone of most "metal-conforming" guitars.
Exactly what makes me love them even more
Single coil guitars...like the strat or tele...the stratocaster you are playing..they sound anemic...get a real guitar ..get a schecter with EMG pickups
A real guitar 🤣🤣🤣 you really thought we're getting him with that one huh? 🤡
Let's not forget Bernie Torme from Gillan. Listen to his single coil strat sound...not metal but powerful hard rock sounds ...and he did that gig once with Ozzy.
Dude, you made a little mistake in the beginning.
When you listed Active Pickup users.
You mentioned Randy Rhoads.
Overall great video, even though i didn't prefer your single coil sound for rythm.
A lot of his signature models are EMG equipped, I assumed he used those towards the end of his life no?
@@sixstringtv1 Couldn't tell you about Rhoads but I know for certain that Alexi Laiho did not at any point of his career use anything else than EMG's, yet you mention him to use passive pickups.
@@sixstringtv1 From looking at pictures of the guitars he used, it doesn't seems like they did had active pickups.
In general, jackson is an interesting brand.
Since all their models where custom ordered guitars.
Because Jackson started as a Custom Guitar Shop.
@@luciel3893 Alexi Laiho used Passive EMG pickups.
@@sixstringtv1 the Jackson Rhodes's legacy as a guitar is definitely beyond just Randy Rhodes.
Most of the Jackson Rhodes guitars out there are not speced like how Randy would've liked them, same deal with the Gibson Les Paul (sorry Fluff, you can bully me on Facebook all you want lol)
I think you can play anything on anything but I'm watching this anyway because I just like this channel!
I'm a big fan of oddball alt metal and those bands use unorthodox gear combinations often.
Exactly!
I like how single coils have this sort of untamed, wild thing about them. When you put a pedal out in front, and you're really going at it, it's so chaotic and unhinged that I feel it does a better job at expressing the spirit of rock/punk/metal. Hendrix is the finest example of this. You watch Voodoo Child at Woodstock, and your jaw just hits the floor. The feedback, the noise, the squealing bends, the other-worldly palette of sounds... none of that could have been possible with a humbucker. Yes, as you mentioned, using a humbucker makes everything so much easier. But as you also mentioned, that's not always a good thing. I've used both, and I really prefer single coils.
took me a while but even my strat tracks sound alot more rockin then my humbucker metal tracks....
Well said!
Your audio is low. I have to increase it compared to the other videos here in RUclips.
Excuse me for making you go through that
Why is the volume of your videos so quiet?
I had to crank the level on this one and it still not loud enough.
I don't understand why some people say it's "too" quiet. My videos are a bit below average volume-wise but If I turn up the volume on my phone they're way too loud
bass tone is growly - good job
Why your hair look fake??
Strats have so much heart that with the love you can give them they will sound in all possible scenarios, unless you are a purist.
Facts!!
In the era of amps with insane gain stages,hi quality emulations like axe-fx kemper and the likes or very high end but also quite affordable amp sims that live inside your DAW you really dont need much to drive those amps hard and i prefer the added clarity of a single coil(even if driven hard) over a high powered but a bit muddy humbucker....its like punching vs knifing.....a punch ll hit you hard and bruise you up...and the knife ll make you bleed.....all in all i prefer noiseless pickup single coil sets for everything....
Depends on what pedal or amp you have. 5150, yes. Origin 50 without a pedal no, with a pedal yes.
I recently got a peavey raptor 1 for $60, and put a leftover gfs overwound in the bridge position, it sounds really good, my other guitar is dual humbucker, and it sounds great too, but I do prefer the single coil bridge/middle sound for leads, humbucker neck position for rhythm.
If I'm not mistaken, Brian May has used single coils extensively. To me, his tone is an example of a crushing single coil sound.
Yeah...but he has said that he himself switched polarities on his pick ups, so he basically gets a humbucker.
@@cycomiles4225 May's pickup polarities were wired series and "out-of-phase" so NOT humbucking
@@cockysonuvaB I quoted him directly, it is what he said. He mightve thought as in no single coil buzz that you get, so he eliminated that. Thats what he meant, or at least thats how i understood him.
I started playing guitar like 1 and a half years ago, and bass around 4. I am 25 and an absolute noob on both Instruments BUT I gotta say i already love single coil bass tones for metal. And that Strat sounds fucking killer!
Tips to getting a good metal tone with a single coil Strat: (1) Throw single coil Strat in the dumpster (2) Get a humbucker equipped guitar.
EVH solved this problem like....a half a century ago?
There isn't anything virtuous about working twice as hard to get half as much.
Unless you're just a masochist or some hipster s--thead.
How is the single coil thing even a question Toni iommi has been using p90 pick ups for decades
Hey idk, but I've reveived tons of comments under my other videos saying I should stop using strats for metal so I thought I'd clear things up
@@sixstringtv1 I think it’s from to much conformity in the metal community but single coils will always sound good for lead and work great for rhythm too
I love single coils as I feel they are more expressive, but the L500 is my all time fave pickup. I have an original 80s L500R and it just seems to bring out pinch harmonics with no effort.
Mine from '91 is sick too. Favorite humbucker by far
Just a tip. Bass should live in the center.
bass is living in the center. bass is not panned. bass merely distorted the entire track once uploaded.😙
I run a telecaster with a warmoth barotone neck rocking single coils and it fuuuuuucks. Im running Bare Knuckle's Sinner pickups. Its a 15ohm neck and a 21.5 ohm bridge. I almost exclusively run the neck because of how heavy it sounds. Im thinking of switching the bridge to a humbucker soley for a tone variation since i honestly believe nothing can compete with that neck pickup as far a heavieness.
Honestly it's about preference really. The bridge pickuo on a strat gets a lot of shit for being brittle but it handles gain really well. I find that I can put unreasonable amounts of gain on a single coil and get a good sound but with humbuckers, there's a sweet spot depending on the output. Granted I'm not into very high gain sounds anyway but single coils can maintain a lot of clarity, especially the strat bridge. If you have any doubts just go and listen to old school Ritchie blackmore or yngwei.
💯💯
I havnt used actives yet but the sound of emg 81s are so badass but the Seymour Duncan JB has done the job well for me , and the new Thrash factor pickups are those on steroids lol best pickup for metal I have used… and Yngwie is a good example BUT he uses stacked single coils so even he technically uses a pickup closer humbuckers
(That Stevie T clip is cringe.. u said it best the strat sound is a single coil neck or bridge bell like tone )
It’s interesting in this video that after hearing the single coil, the humbucker sounds kind of lifeless. The single coil is very articulate and detailed. I am listening on a phone, but it’s still a pretty pronounced difference. I love single coils. They just have a ton of character.
Its sooooo subjective. The bass seemed to really come through with the butterscotch guitar.
Yeah single coil or double coil pickups? Electric guitars. Here is another choice anyone can play the bass if you don't know any songs to play. If you can walk out the store with an electric guitar and a practice amplifier for $135 and you keep the 5 dollars that's a good deal. I like the noise of sound. Yellowbeard
I own a silver triple single coil strat and it sounds terrible with distortion/gain up to 10 when I try to play metal or rock on this silver strat. I'm still saving up for a new guitar with humbuckers which will sound better for metal and rock
since the 1980's the can you play Metal on a Strat had been settled. The classic bridge and neck single coil with the bridge having the Telecaster metal around the bridge debate got settled in the 1970's when some early metal was done by Led Zepplin like the Immigrant song on a Telecaster in some live performances or a few bands used a Telecaster like Deep Purple in the late 1960's early 1970's.
If you wanted a real demonstration, you should've played a regular single coil Telecaster. The Tele can play Metal just fine on it's own with that overwound beefy single coil in the bridge. Strat pickups are bright and lower output by nature. The single coil equipped Fender guitar that Metalheads really want is the Tele, not the Strat. You can blame marketing for why few realize this.
This would have been a cool vid if just the guitar was played back to back rather than with a double guitar and a bass to drown out or Flub it out. Why did he do that 😂🤷♂️🤦♂️
So "back in the day" getting a higher gain sound out of an amp was hard. You basically turned it up and even then it wasn't super "gainy" like a lot of today's amps get. So you used humbuckers because they had a higher output and helped push the amp into overdrive. This is why companies came out with "super distortion" type pickets because they would help drive those amps. In addition, humbuckers had a very nice midrange to them which really helps thicken up rhythm guitar.
But these days you have an enormous choice of amps and pedals to get you a very overdriven/distorted sound. So with some tweaking you can get some really nice heavy tones with single coil pickups.
Finally, some of that classic metal was not made with really distorted guitars. The use of medium output humbuckers in the 70s through cranked amps is kind of a classic "rock" sound and it was where metal got its start. Early Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, etc... did not have super overdriven guitars.
Sounds pretty damn metal to me!! Sorry I been commenting on all the videos bro, just trying to help you against that unforgiving algorithm. I just realized I cant binge watch old videos anymore and now i gotta wait for more content haha thanks for all the hard work man. This channel is kick ass. Gonna spread the word in the musician groups im part of. Looking forward to future content, bud.
I'm always happy about comments 😎
I love that you had the fan on for the playing parts
Oh come on, my man... We all know single coils serve well for heavy metal, the thing is having a good technique and practice a lot so you won't sound like crap... Even Janick Gers admitted that Fenders with single coils are great...
I recently picked up a tele replica cuz it was cool but dude it sounds so awful with a little distortion. I’m not sure if it’s my focusrite or Amplitube 5. Whats a good combination for recording? Maybe I just won’t use this guitar for distorted tones idk.
Strats for metal? Sure. Why not! You pointed out a couple of reasons.
And as for the Toxic riffage, awesome!
I remember seeing them back in the day on their tour for Think This in my hometown Hengelo. It was quite a dangerous expedition to get to the venue as it was during Storm Daria on January 25th 1990.
Also saw them on Dynamo Open Air before that in '88.
DAMN! Wish I could've been around to see that
@@sixstringtv1 the 80's and early 90's were a golden period for metal. At least the way I remember it. But metal isn't dead. There is still a lot of talent around. New talent. We have decades of great music ahead of us! 😎
You can play good/classic metal up to the 80s with single coils and best of all they prevent you from playing chugga wugguh baggy pants metal.
I don't think it's fair to say that people don't even try to use single coils for any high gain application. Keep in mind, metal isn't the only high gain genre. I've see tons of noise rock guitarists that rock single coil equipped guitars.
Question, for a SSS configuration - do you use just the bridge or bridge+mid ?
Only thing I disagree with is the morton statement about tonewood. Tonewood is fake
False.
@@sixstringtv1 ruclips.net/video/n02tImce3AE/видео.html
@@sixstringtv1 I have to agree on this one, I cant remember the channel name but there is a video very thoroughly demonstrating the falseness of "tonewood". I think it's called where does the tone come from in a guitar
Humbuckers never sound as good as single coils, but they don't hum. That's the only reason guitarists use them.
Esiah from Earthless can prove that people don't believe are wrong, even playing Stoner and Hard Rock riffs
I love that you use Think This for the demo, great album. Thanks for this video though cause I'm considering getting a strat with single coils, since all my other guitars have humbuckers, and I was trying to decide whether or not I should get a Strat with a humbucker in the bridge or not. Feel like I don't want that now!
one person in all youtube who know what people are mines !! so sad when is see good guitarist they play on humbucker and they say this si strat sound XDXDXD is not funny anymore is anoying
I have single coil strat, and i play metal mostly. Can't afford a humbucker pickup
If you wind back the treble to about 4 or 5 on the bridge pick up, you loose that strat “spank” add treble on the amp.
seymour duncan quarter pound singlecoil ssl-4. Is a great sounding pickup 4 metall.
💯💯
Blackmore agrees :)
Single coils sound better for me. More crisp. humbuckers are more washed out and bassy
What is the song that starts at 5:35?
Think This by Toxik
Honestly if it's a pickup (besides maybe a piezo) you can play metal with it. My first 2 years of playing was on a triple s strat, then I eventually tried humbuckers (I prefer the classic EMG 81/85 set) and they sounded great with heavy gain and distortion. While I prefer a humbucker, there is nothing wrong with singles. If they sound good, then they are good.
Having the bass in the background doesn't really help in trying to hear the tone of the guitar.
for me humbuckers sound so damped. im selling my humbucker and will buy a single coil I think
wow fuck the single coil vs humbucker bs that bass tone is what I need to know more about lol
What did the author play? Nice music, especially the first composition.
I use a Fender Squier Classic Vibe 50s with fender alnico V and its a chug machine
I think you’ve got great tone. I also think the bigger reason why you don’t see a lot of strat in metal is the C shape neck. It’s such a small thing but to me uncomfortable. I’ve always used my 86 Kramer Rhoads knock off mainly and it has had many passive pups in it. I’ve had a couple real deal Jackson’s that looked cool as fuck but the active emgs made them sound like shit. I H8 active pups. There is nothing worse than pickin up a guitar to play just to find out the 9v is dead and you don’t have any because all pedals need them too. Fuck the H8ters. There are players out here with the same opinions on things. Not on others stratwise but I can live with that if you can. Keep at it brother!
Not all Strats have C shaped necks, but I personally love that shit. I guess that's something that makes my tone a little more unique
Your recording is clipping something crazy on the guitar playing.
If you want yoru pinch harmonics to really ring out the humbucker is the way to go.
As a Finn i am extremely disappointed that you said Alexi Laiho wrong.
Hey...what single coil pickups would you suggest for metal? Thanks in advance for your advice.
Didn’t Obituary do this EXACT thing on Slowly We Rot?
What about comparing noiseless single-coil to humbuckers?
Ty Tabor of King's X has used a Strat for his whole career, and played through a Gibson LAB series L5 (SOLID STATE) amp, and has an incredibly heavy tone...I recently saw them live and his stage setup includes a couple Orange amps...
Q) can you play metal with single coils?
A) what would Uli Roth do?
While I do agree that you can play metal with single coils, because at the end of the day it's art and you should only be limited by your imagination, I also think that you overdid it massively with the bass because you're clipping all over the place in the music part xd
My bad about the bass, I just listened back to it and I heard that *slightly* in my editing software, but not nearly as much as once it was uploaded.
@@sixstringtv1 no problem, happens to all of us, it always gets amplified because of youtube compression so sometimes it's worth to mix it with even more headroom that usual. Keep up the good work with the channel, I've definitely been enjoying some of your fresh takes in this fossilised land of youtube guitar
i learned single coils could do metal when i saw ogla do a will it chug on a telecaster
Teles are absolutely monsters for metal.
Single coil sounds so much better, much more clarity
I love when Kirk Hammett played a single coil Strat for recording one
That 'recording' it's an official video, not recording sessions footage. And the guitar it's an Esp, not a stratocaster. Moreover we cannot be sure those are single coils and not noiseless pickups which basically are humbuckers.
Your riffs sounds like Vektor in this video. Riff master lol
I actually prefer passive pickups. I have several guitars with both active and passive pickups.. And yes, you can play Metal with a single coil!
Passive pickups rule
Yes you can, but you should also use a noise gate.
Case closed.
Absolutely, that's why I chose my JCM800 KK2203 for this one, got the strongest inbuilt noisegate you'll ever hear
@@sixstringtv1 10/10. I use a Zuul, also a great gate.
@@inz1 Sick gate, but overpriced, as is all Fortin gear
@@sixstringtv1 I mean, It's worth what it's worth and you get what you pay for, but agreed a Boss will do the same job if all youre after is the best gate for the least money.
Raise the bass side of the pickup for more bass response.
I thought you were Mia Khalifa when I saw the thumbnail
dude, whats with the fan every time you play?
Iommi used P90s (single coil) in the 70s.
Don't Gojira use single-coils?
Randy Rhoads didn't use active pickups
Sure you can play single coils in metal, just ask: Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Judas Priest, Iron MaidenWAIT
By all means, set the world alight with your incredible single coil metal tonesWAIT
You have such a long way to go and so very much to learn (in real guitar life, not all the interwebz youtube stupidity you spout from where you heard from somebody who knew a guy about xyz).
Maybe skiffle is more up your alley?
So because Slayer didn't do it, it's impossible?
Solution = Fender Strat HSS
Solution to what?
@@sixstringtv1 it gives naysayers a guitar with single coils, humbucker/noiseless. Now you have a strap that you can literally play any tone you're in the mood for.
it is all about the amp and pedals
I don't need my guitar to have a "spanky" sound. It's not a duck so I don't want it to "quack". Just give me some humbuckers. Coil split if you have to.
🦆