HSH: Choosing the middle SC

[Konfyouzd]

How do you go about choosing one?

I always see a lot of talk ab neck and bridge pickups, but what ab that little guy in the middle?

I recently chose a HSH set to replace the stock pickups in one of my guitars and I just flipped a coin on the middle but I actually really like the way this pickup sounds.

But I'm not sure I'd get so lucky doing this again...

So how do YOU select your middle pickups?

 

[tedtan]

I like single coils, so I try to find a middle pickup that will work well by itself as well as with the neck humbucker split. This typically ends up being a vintage voiced single coil, as that's what I'm usually going for, but could be something different/hotter depending on what I intend to do with that particular guitar.

 

[Strobe]

You could always go the Ibanez route and put a True Velvet in it. It's a really nice pickup.

Ideally you want something with similar winds to the coil you are going to split with in order to provide better hum cancelling. That said, in practice, you do not have to be that close on the coil winds for the hum cancelling to be very good. Basically, pick one you like and it will probably work very well.