Single-coil vs humbucker: which electric guitar pickups to choose

The core difference, in plain terms

A pickup is a magnet wrapped in a coil of wire that sits under the strings and converts their vibration into the electrical signal your amplifier turns into sound. The difference between the two types is how many coils they use. A single-coil pickup, as the name says, has one coil; it was the original electric guitar pickup, and it defines the Stratocaster and Telecaster sound. A humbucker uses two coils wired together out of phase, which was invented in the 1950s specifically to cancel the background hum that single-coils suffer from, hence the name (it "bucks the hum"). That difference in construction is what gives each its distinct voice.

On our test guitars you can hear it directly. The Squier Affinity Stratocaster and the Fender Player II Stratocaster use three single-coils; the Epiphone Les Paul Standard 60s and the Ibanez GRG170DX use two humbuckers; and the Yamaha Pacifica 112V and the PRS SE Custom 24 combine both worlds, with humbuckers that can split into single-coils.

How they sound

Single-coils are bright, clear and dynamic, with a glassy, chiming top end and a quick, percussive attack. They have a strong treble response and a "scooped" character that lets individual notes ring out distinctly, which is why they are so expressive and touch-sensitive: dig in and they bite, ease off and they clean up. The trade-off is a thinner low end and that background hum.

Humbuckers are warmer, thicker and louder, with a fuller midrange and more low end. Because the two coils together produce a higher output, they drive an amplifier harder, which is why they push more easily into overdrive and distortion and why they suit heavy music. They are smoother and rounder than single-coils, with less of the glassy sparkle but far more body and sustain; the Epiphone Les Paul in our test held a fretted A for roughly 18 seconds unplugged, longer than any single-coil guitar here. Neither is better; they are different tools for different jobs.

Why single-coils hum

A single-coil pickup is, electrically, a single coil of wire, and a coil of wire acts as an antenna: it picks up stray electromagnetic interference from the mains, computers, screens, fluorescent lights and dimmer switches, and turns it into an audible 50 Hz hum. The hum is usually mild and disappears the instant you play a note, but it is the main practical downside of the single-coil sound, especially in a home full of electronics. A humbucker solves this with its two coils wired in opposite phase, so the hum each coil picks up cancels out while the string signal adds together. That is the entire reason humbuckers were invented, and it is why they are quieter as well as warmer.

Which suits your music

Match the pickup to your style. Single-coils are the classic choice for blues, funk, country, surf, pop and indie, anywhere you want bright, clean, dynamic tones and that glassy Stratocaster chime. If your heroes play clean and sparkling, single-coils are for you, and the Squier Affinity or Fender Player II are the guitars to look at. Humbuckers are the choice for rock, hard rock, metal and jazz, anywhere you want a warm, thick, powerful tone that handles high gain cleanly; the Epiphone Les Paul for warm classic rock and the Ibanez GRG170DX for tight metal are the picks. If you play across styles, or you genuinely cannot decide, a guitar with both is the answer, which brings us to coil-splitting.

Coil-splitting: the best of both

A coil-split is a switch, usually a push-pull on the volume or tone knob, that silences one of a humbucker's two coils so it works like a single-coil. It gives a humbucker-equipped guitar access to brighter, thinner single-coil tones, so one guitar covers far more ground. The split sound is not quite identical to a true single-coil guitar, because the physical pickup is different, but it is close enough to be genuinely useful, especially on a well-designed guitar. The Yamaha Pacifica 112V, the Epiphone Les Paul Standard 60s and the PRS SE Custom 24 all offer coil-splitting, and on the PRS in particular the split tones are convincing. If versatility matters to you, a coil-split guitar is the smart choice.