« Humbucker that thinks its a single coil »

The Cruiser was introduced in the early 90s and was one of the first single coil sized humbucker replacement pickups. The whole idea was to have a humbucking pickup that was totally quiet in the size of a Stratocaster single coil but also still sounded like a Stratocaster single coil. This pickup has 4 conductor wiring and a ceramic magnet. The output is only 5.75k so it has a very vintage and single coil like feel to it. This pickup gets pretty close to that. Its slightly hotter than a normal single coil so you get closer to the hot rodded single coil sound. Since it is really a humbucker at heart it is slightly fatter in some frequencies than a true single coil would be. Dimarzio graphs the EQ as this; 8.0 on the treble end with a 4.5 in the mids and a 5.5 in the bass frequncies. They tried to EQ it to get more of a single coil sound but some of the fattness comes out subtly. Since this pickup is EQ'ed slightly brighter to get a more single coil like sound it goes better in guitars with a The lower strings have more beef to them than they would have with a true single coil pickups. This is a pretty nice trade off for not getting the exact single coil sound. Low end grunt is something that pretty much all single coil guitar lack and I dont know anyone who plays single coils that would not want more low end beef in their sound. With the rail pickup there is less string pull than with the normal single coil magnets. This means you will get less magnetic drag on the strings. With magnetic drag the magnets pull on the strings and lessen your sustain. If you love that single coil sound but cant stand the noise the best way to get rid of it is to install one of these single coil sized humbuckers in your guitar.