Are there any humbuckers that sound nice clean?

'Anyone here have experience with a humbucker (especially neck-position) wired in parallel instead of series?
What is that tone like?
 
Filtertrons in there many specicies are great clean , Supertron's/ Hi Lo's  Classic's  all lovely
 
Most people on the SD forum say the Slash pickups are a little more detailed, raw and have better cleans but the differences are small.

Check the El Rayos
Clean: http://youtu.be/VFDF5CTwnBg
Drive: http://youtu.be/WD0g4wwVMlY
 
I'd say the original Bill Lawrence L-500 fits OP's needs...but I have no idea whether any of the more recent Lawrence (or Wilde) L-500 variants would yield the same results.
 
In my experience, most "humbuckers" will sound clean if you just back off the volume on your guitar a bit. Having two coils in series increases the pickup's output which tends to overdrive many amp's input and causes distortion. Sometimes that's desirable, but you don't have to use that characteristic if you don't want to.

As Stubhead has mentioned more than once, you really want to dial things in with your guitar's volume/tone controls backed off a bit so you have somewhere to go. If you rack everything to 11, you're not only already at the wall, your EQ and SFX are somewhat limited as well. Turn things down from full-tilt boogie and you lose all your tone.
 
Its not that they aren't capable of playing clean, its just that 98% of humbuckers suck when played clean.  I'm absolutely in agreement with the OP on this.
 
I don't know if I'd go 98%, but the typical PAF configuration (two full-size coils next to each other wired in series w/ reversed magnets) pick up the string(s) at different points so they're always slightly out of phase with themselves, which results in a warmer slightly distorted tone. No getting around it, due to physical limitations. You can eliminate that to some degree with smaller units like Seymour Duncan's various "Rails" p'ups, but it's still there.

The better bet is stacked units if you want single coil sound without noise. Lotta choices there, with some that are outstanding. Many are not, but still sound better to some ears. Depends what you want. I've had very good luck with GFS' TrueCoils and Bill Lawrence's MicroCoils, but I understand some of the ridiculously expensive units from Lollar and Kinman work well, too. You can either buy any of 'em over-wound or feed them through a little power booster to get them to scream if that's your thing.
 
DiMarzio Ionizers are amazing clean.

But then, you probably only play with 6 strings. Sucks to be you.  :toothy12: :laughing7:
 
I'm glad the OP qualified it with the first post because just the question of the thread seemed a loaded question.  "Do I still have a drug problem?  Do I still beat my wife?  Do any humbuckers sound good clean?" Through a tube amp in a mahogany neck'd and bodied guitar, warm, yes.  Clean-ish?  Somewhat, but really bassy, especially in the neck.
 
The Benedetto PAF is delicious clean, as is the Lindy Fralin PAF  both exquisite , work well with coil taps as well
 
Cagey said:
In my experience, most "humbuckers" will sound clean if you just back off the volume on your guitar a bit. Having two coils in series increases the pickup's output which tends to overdrive many amp's input and causes distortion. Sometimes that's desirable, but you don't have to use that characteristic if you don't want to.

As Stubhead has mentioned more than once, you really want to dial things in with your guitar's volume/tone controls backed off a bit so you have somewhere to go. If you rack everything to 11, you're not only already at the wall, your EQ and SFX are somewhat limited as well. Turn things down from full-tilt boogie and you lose all your tone.
Click to expand...

Unless you have a treble-bleed circuit (easy to do), backing off the volume rolls off high-end, making it sound muddy as opposed to "clean".  Yes, there's less distortion, but the EQ is altered as well.
 
If you want my honest opinion, the best sounding clean pickup I have heard so far (I have one in my new Telecaster build matched with a SD Quarter Pounder), is the Seymour Duncan Phat Cat. This is a P90 in a humbucker case. It is absolutely gorgeous. It's output is pretty high. To get an idea, I have it set in the body fairly low whilst the Quarter Pounder is as high as it will go (without causing string pull issues). I have the perfect Telecaster Courtesy of Warmoth).
 
A few months ago when I was planning my Strat build, I emailed both Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio and asked how to get the nice watery Tele sound with a double coil bridge pickup. DiMarzio was back to me within a day and suggested their F-spaced DP-103 36th Anniversary PAF neck pickup at the bridge for that. I got one and it really is clean and bright with almost a Tele twang to it. Seymour Duncan never responded so I guess they don't have anything like that.

At the neck I put a new Bill Lawrence L-500R. I can darken them with the tone control if I want but usually switching pickups gives me enough variance.
 
I can make a duncan distortion sound clean by just fiddling with the volume controls on the git, on my volume pedal, on my boost and on the amp in the clean channel.  That said Bill Lawrence makes some nice stuff, and I really enjoy the range of a JB and a 59.  Also adjust the humbucker height.
 
Really clean humbuckers are something that is a very, VERY unexplored market.  I just built my first pickups last week and the one I'm focused on mostly right now is my neck humbucker that uses A5 rods (like a single coil) instead of a bar magnet with steel screws/rods.  I also have it winded to ~6K of 42 AWG, which is about the average for a strat neck pickup.

I also custom ordered an underwound Seymour Duncan Jazz neck pickup once, wound to about 6.4K...that thing sounds great clean!  Still not single coil clarity, but the closest I've heard out of a humbucker.  I'm really hoping to get something pretty close to a strat neck pickup sound with the pickup I'm working on.  I'm currently about to try some ways to increase the inductance to match a single coils for the same given resitance.  As long as the capacitance is close, it should produce a very similar frequency response.
 
Jumble Jumble said:
That sounds fascinating. Please do keep us posted, I'll be really interested to hear how that goes.
Click to expand...

Will do!  I'm sure once I find a nice recipe I'll try and replicate it a few times and record some comparisons :)
 
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