soap bars vs jazz

[Fire-Starter]

Could use some help here, what is the diff in sound produced between the two, advantages and disadvantages

 

[JMX]

It's just a housing shape, the insides can be the same or differ greatly, depending on manufacturer and/or model.

So there's no general rule here.

 

[The Golden Boy]

Didn't the initial designs and prototypes of the Jazz have soapbar pickups to compliment the soapbar style pickups of the Jazzmaster?

 

[luknfur]

For What It's Worth:

I assume you're talking about the difference between a J-shaped stacked humbucker as opposed to the typcial single coil J pup - since you're stuck with your the routing configuration - unless you plan on routing.

If you get 4 wire humbuckers you can split coils and get a broand range of sounds with a simple DPDT switch. At least I did with a pair of Bart BB4C's. They're EMG shaped soaps and not J's so I'd imagine the variation in tone would be greater since you're covering different areas of string. Never done it with a stacked J but would imagine you be stuck with more J - like tones, as opposed to the typical fatter soap humbucking sound. I personally haven't got much tonal variation using single coil J pairs, which is not to say I haven't gotten some good useful tones out of them. But I'd stay away from single coil J's unless you like a J sound. Stacked HB's wired in series will give you a J-like tone but definetly fatter/darker as a rule - depending on the pups, bass, rigging, etc.

 

[luknfur]

I was going to drop a note after running a pair of EMGs Jazz last night to the effect you can get HB-like tone out of them and realized I'd overlooked the essence of your question.

Single coil J's, as a gross generality, as compared to a stacked HB are thinner higher frequency pups, with HBs fuller/fatter lower frequency. Think in bass terms of a your typical triple single coil strat compared to a dual HB Les Paul and you got it.