Monolith

Product Details

The concept for our Monolith Humbucker set was to explore a higher-output pickup set intentionally designed for guitarists who play both modern and extreme styles of music. High-output humbuckers often suffer from either a boxy voicing or a harsh and brittle top end that can be fatiguing. We voiced a set of pickups with the right balance of a strong, thicker midrange and smooth top end for clarity and articulation.

The Monolith bridge position offers a midrange forward frequency response with the right amount of compression and dynamics when palm muting for a satisfying attack and tight low-end grunt. Like our other pickup sets, the neck position is open and clear, but with a prominent midrange that offers a more vocal sound for leads and clean passages.

Splitting the coils on these humbuckers provides a full-bodied single-coil sound. When under gain, the split coils provide the percussive and aggressive tone for lower tunings and extended scale length instruments that progressive and djent players seek.

The Monolith Humbucker set is available as a two-piece set for both 6 and 7-string guitars. For 6-string sets, we also offer an F-spaced bridge position pickup (53 mm) to match a wider string spacing required for guitars with tremolos.

Avg. DC: Neck 12.6K, Bridge 18.9K, F-Spaced Bridge 19k (Read about DC resistance)
Recommended Capacitor: 0.022μF
Recommended Potentiometers: 500k

 

Covers

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a sound difference between pickups with covers and without?
Metal covers can have some effect on tone, though it is often subtle. The metal parts can attenuate some of the highs, meaning that covered pickups will be a touch darker and warmer. Uncovered pickups are a bit more bright or focused.

Note that we do not recommend removing your covers to compare the difference. Breaking the solder joint that attaches the cover will void your warranty.

What’s the deal with single versus four-conductor pickups?
Single conductor leads have a hot lead inside a braided metal exterior, which functions as ground. Single conductor wiring is appropriate for traditional Les Paul-style wiring with a three-way switch and separate volume & tone controls for each pickup.

Four-conductor wiring gives each of the humbucker’s two coils their own leads. This enables you to take advantage of more complex switching like in/out of phase, series/parallel, or coil splitting. If your guitar has extra mini-switches or push/pull pots for these options, you’re likely going to want four conductor.

What values of potentiometers and capacitors do you recommend for humbucking pickups?
The most common/traditional choices are 500k pots (both volume and tone) and .022μF caps—and these are the values we typically recommend. That said, there are no hard and fast rules. You can read more about how different pot and cap values affect tone in this two-part blog post: Part I - Pots, Part II - Caps.

How far from my strings should I set my Monolith pickups?
Generally, as close to the strings as possible while avoiding picking hand interference or magnetic pull. However, our Monolith pickups use very powerful magnets with a higher wind count. You may notice that the pickups sound and work best when slightly further away from the strings than our other humbucker sets. Trust your ears as to what sounds best.

My guitar has Humbuckers that are directly mounted into the body. Do you have baseplates with or without raised mounting legs?
Yes, we do have baseplates available for our 6-string humbuckers that are flat with triangular mounting legs for installation into guitars with direct mount pickups and more modern pickup routes for uncovered pickups. Please contact our customer service team to order our 6-string humbuckers with this baseplate option. 7-string versions are not currently available. Additional fees may apply.

Do I need F-spaced pickups?
F-spacing means that the pole pieces are slightly further apart so that they’ll line up better with the pole pieces on guitars with Strat or Tele-style bridges. The best thing you can do to be sure is to measure your string spacing at the bridge – approximately 53mm between the 1st and 6th strings is typical for F-Spacing. Regular humbucker spacing is closer to 50mm. If you have F-spacing, we offer an F-Spaced Imperial, and several of our other humbucker models also offer F-spaced versions.

F-spacing is really only important at the bridge, where the strings are further apart. As they taper toward the nut, your neck pickup should be fine with regular pole piece spacing.

Our F-spaced pickups use four-conductor leads by default, which can be wired like a single conductor by insulating the red to white leads and green lead to ground.

Which way do I orient my humbuckers during installation?
The conventional orientation is with the screw sides of each pickup on the outside (closest to the bridge and fingerboard).

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