#173177  by Slewfoot2000
 
Hi Gang,

I tried searching, but couldn't find an exact answer on this so figured I'd ask.

It seems like on Jerry's guitars he had some where the neck pickup was always a single coil (Wolf and Tiger) and then others where the neck pickup was a humbucker where the coils could be split (Rosebud and Lightning).

Have we ever found out why? Did he initially think he wanted single coils for more rhythm on the neck pickup, but later wanted more diversity of sounds hence moving to a humbucker that could be split?

Curious if there are any more reasons than that - preferably documented by Garcia himself - but also up for speculation!

Thanks in advance!
 #173178  by Darkstar860
 
Im curious on this as well. Im on the middle pickup 100% of the time and if i need a tone with less bite, i just turn my tone knob down. I find that the single coil doesnt really play all that well with the humbuckers and I actually like the split sound of the humbuckers better than real single coils. May have to do with my terrible hearing. Maybe Jerry liked the split tone better than the standard single coil pickup like I do. ?
 #173180  by playingdead
 
I think he probably preferred the sound of the Super 2 split at the neck over the SDS-1 that was in the Tiger ... I have an SDS-1 in my Walker guitar and don't like it as well as I like the split Super 2, the SDS-1 sounds too dark for me.

I have been using the neck pickup split on occasion the past couple years, it takes me more into a early 70s tone space and I like it in tunes like the outro to Truckin' or Let It Grow.

This is a couple minutes the Truckin' outro from a year or so ago ... you can hear me switch from the middle to the neck non-split and then immediately to the split neck. This is the guitar straight into a Fractal Audio AX8 and then straight to the soundboard.