How do you handle switching between a dual humbucker equipped guitar and a three single coil guitar? See my rig in my signature for specifics.

Specifically, I can dial in a great sound with either guitar, but when I switch to the other I have to tweak all my settings. The lead channel is my main concern.

Another pedal, swap bridge single coil for HB or hotrail? Your thoughts on how you handle it would be greatly appreciated.

I don't tweak much of anything when swapping between les paul /sg and a strat. If I do tweak something, it will be either just the bass knob, or the gain knob on the amp. I find that I get more authentic tones by leaving the amp set in a good every-man setup, and then utilizing the volume knob on the guitar combined with different pickup selections. But there is no right or wrong way in music I think it is great to roll off the volume on a humbucker to cut the gain.....combine this with picking dynamics (how hard/soft you pick) to learn to control your tone. That's how you pull off AC/DC.....picking dynamics! Less actual gain, but beat the strings harder.....just as an example

I find an amp setting that works with all of my guitars (2 humbuckers, 2 P-90's, 3 singlecoils) then use the volume and tone control on the guitar along with pickup selection.

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Chet Feathers

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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

Actually, I don't really do it very often. Any ensembles I've ever been a part of I chose a sound and pretty much stuck with it. By sound I mean an overall sound. I would take 2 Strats and a Tele with one outfit (OK, actually most) and in another outfit I'd take the Les Paul and the PRS. I rarely mix it up like that. I usually end up with a particular "role" to play. It's kinda the same when I'm at home noodling too. I'll be in one mood or the other. One thing I can say is that I don't seem to suffer as much as I did years ago when I do switch. I used to have problems switching. If I was on Fenders for a 9 month stretch and then got into the Gibson thing, the weight and scale length and the feel and position on my arms and the way the guitar hung on my shoulders would weird me out for a while and I'd have to look all the time at what I was doing cuz I didn't feel "at home". I hate that. Nothing makes me feel more like a novice than having to watch myself play all the time. A few months ago I was all about the buckers and the huge saturated thing but then I recently got the Dimarzios for the Strat and I recall noting to myself that the transition was smooth and seamless. Thank you, Guitar Gods! When you're a geezer who's been doing this since his teens, milestones are few and far between.

My thanks to the OP for making me think about it.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I don't gig, but at home, no problem switching between my Mustang and a guitar with humbuckers.

I may turn up the amp a bit, or tweak the tone setting on the amp, or on my distortion pedals.

If I gigged?
Maybe a volume pedal, or have multiple distortion pedals with different settings and use one for single coils if that fits the sound you want. (I do have more than one distortion pedal.)

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It wasn't Willy-Nilly, it was at crows.

Like my esteemed friend Chet,I tweak my amp to a setting that sounds acceptable on all the guitars and then rely on the guitar controls.In some cases you may have to tweak your amp a bit further,for instance if you went from electric acoustic to 2 humbucker equipped guitar but generally you needn't touch the amp.Of course there's another option and that's have an amp set up for each guitar.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

I use a Radial Engineering Big Shot A/B/Y footswitch on my pedal board to access either or both channels of a dual-channel Fender amp (blackface or silverface). I optimize each channel's volume control and tone stack for a particular instrument -- one to accommodate a Strat with single-coils and the other for a Les Paul with humbuckers. Then, when switching guitars onstage, all I need do is route the signal from my chosen guitar to the amp channel that's been set up specifically for it. Strats are relatively "sparkly" so that channel is generally tweaked for some extra mids and bass, while a Les Paul can usually use some additional treble and the bright switch for added punch. The Big Shot is a real time-saver for me.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

I've got an all tube Line 6 Spidervalve amp with integrated pedalboard. I have banks of patches set up for my strat and duplicate banks set up for my Les Paul to account for the output changes for both Guitars.

Investing in a pedal board like a Boss GT8 or GT10 may eliminate this problem for you.

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2012 Fender American Standard Stratocaster
2013 Fender Pure Vintage 65 Stratocaster
2003 Gibson ES-355
2015 Gibson Les Paul Traditional
2002 Gretsch Duo Jet
1980 Rickenbacker 360/12 Fireglo
2014 Martin 000X1AE
2014 Fender Blues Junior III

Thanks to all the posters for the sound advice.

Gigs are long, long behind me and back in those days I'd generally use the same guitar all the time (sometimes without even a backup - oops!) so the issue didn't arise.

But so far as home playing goes I find the Chet method (above) works fine. I have no worries switching between guitars - except the heel on a Les Paul always feels odd to me for a minute or two after a Strat. And on the LP I do occasionally reach for the invisible whammy, which would look very silly if anyone was there to see it!

Cheers - C

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Set your amp up to work great with your neck pickups. Roll back the tone knob of the bridge pickup of your guitars to your liking. The end.

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"If it ain't one thing, it's another."

I currently gig about 6-8 times a month and only use one guitar, no backup. If a string breaks I change it on the spot. Doesn't take me but a minute. I just make sure I have strings and a winder ready to go.

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"If it ain't one thing, it's another."

Oh man, I certainly can't change a Strat string in a minute - can take me that long just to get the ball end out the block sometimes.

After the first time I had to change a string in front of an increasingly impatient (thankfully small) audience you'd have thought I'd have learned my lesson. But carrying two guitars is so tedious, so it took me at least another couple of fumbling string change embarrassments to really get it through my thick skull...

Cheers - C

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What I used to do back in the day, I switched between 2 and sometimes 3 guitars, 1 Strat (3 SC's,) My Ibanez (2 High Output HB's,) and rarely a Les Paul clone (2 Low Output HB's.)

So since i didn't use much in the way of effects it was easy. I found different amp settings that I liked for each guitar, and I put a little different coloured dot sticker beside the knobs at the positions I liked (Blue for the Strat, Red for the Ibanez, Yellow for the LP copy.) Same for the couple pedals I used. (The dots had a pen line in the middle, to make it easy to dial in.)

So I would switch guitars, and quickly dial in to the appropriate sound. Neither of these guitars really sounded great using the others' settings, so this made it fast ad easy for me to switch. (experience taught me to have a small flashlight handy, cus you can't always see that clearly on stage.)

Oh and really the only other bit of useful advice I have to offer is... always set your beer on the bass cabinet. If in a two guitar band always encourage the other guitar player to do so as well. Usually the bass cab is higher, thus more convenient, and once you establish it as the beer table, you won't have to worry about your amp getting filthy.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

An MXR Micro Amp pedal at the end of your amp input lead.

Set it just low enough to boost up to the output level of your humbuckers and kick it on when you're playing the single coil guitar. I think Seymour Duncan do a pickup booster pedal for exactly the same job..

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!