Best SINGLE COIL rigs?

  • Hi guys,


    Before anyone asks, I did try to search around before I posted this as I didn't want to duplicate other posts if the information was already in here :)


    I gig with a pair of Fender American Strats. One has Lindy Fralin pickups in it, and the other has Kinman noiseless single coil pickups in it.


    The former is a more traditional sounding single coil strat sound, while the latter is more bright and jingley sounding (is that actually a word?).


    I have need of a few different sounds as I go through covers in my band. I have some really good sounding cleans that work for me, and one Recto patch that covers the really high gain stuff nicely.


    Where I seem to have problems is in the catagories of:

    • Slightly pushed light breakup
    • Mid pushed with more breakup
    • Classic rock Marshallesque AC DC tone


    I have found that the stock patches don't give me what I want/need in these areas and would like some suggestions for some commercial rigs I might give a try for these purposes.


    I have noticed that the classic rock tone specifically seems to be the domain of humbuckers. I suppose I could just break down and buy a new guitar, but I thought I would try this first.


    Any suggestions?

  • The Amp Factory Trainwreck profile does all/most of that really well. I have a Trainwreck, and it excells with single coils, and is extremely touch sensitive. Andy's profile is on of my "go to" rigs.


    Among the free rigs, try the Morgan AC20...it works very well for these sounds also.

  • The Amp Factory Trainwreck profile does all/most of that really well. I have a Trainwreck, and it excells with single coils, and is extremely touch sensitive. Andy's profile is on of my "go to" rigs.


    Among the free rigs, try the Morgan AC20...it works very well for these sounds also.



    Exzellent advice on both rigs!

  • +1 on the Trainwreck! My favorite by far for single coil.

    Duesenberg CC Fullerton, Heritage H535, Guild Starfire 4 ST, Fender American Standard Strat and Tele, Taylor 816CE, Fender Precision bass, Suhr Badger 35 Amp Head, 1x12 cab w/Scumback M75, 1x12 cab w/Celestion G12m-65 Creamback, Fractal Audio Systems AX8, 2 DXR10's, Kemper Profling Amp, Presonus Studio One 3 Pro, Focusrite Clarett 8Pre, Vox AC15, Vox NT G2 and more pedals than I should own.

  • I've had good luck with my American Deluxe Strat and my Dirty Shirley profiles. Just search for Dirty Shirley in the Rig Exchange, maybe they'll work for you too. I mostly use the Dirty Shirley Low-2 for clean/edge of breakup and the Dirty Shirley High-7 for overdrive, I might kick in a stomp for a little extra push during leads.

  • Thank you guys so much! You are great. I'll have my rig back home early next week and will definitely give all these a try as well as tweaking the definition and clarity parameters as specified!

  • I agree on the Trainwreck by TAF. I am also a Strat/Single Coil fan, and I have also really been finding some good tones that you are describing using the TAF Divided by 13 RSA and FTR profiles. Great profiles!

  • I too gig a lot with strats and have found it can be hard to find profiles that really work well with them.


    There is a TAF - JCM 800 that works really well for the AC/DC type stuff you were mentioning, and it is a factory profile.


    I know a lot of guys dig the trainwreck... not my thing at all. But I do love the TAF Two-Rock stuff and I own a Two Rock in real life so that's clearly more my angle.


    I've also lately had a lot of luck for getting just on the edge of breakup sounds by increasing gain on otherwise clean rigs. I tried with one of my Egnater profiles and really like it a lot.

  • If you aren't using the rig manager software... Do! Turn on auto-preview and just arrow up and down. Its so convenient. The other suggestion is twist on the knobs and experiment. Try to take a bad profile and make it useful or interesting.

    "Tone is in the fingers" is not a necessary response to anything that I might type on any internet forum threads. Thank you.

  • Oh GOD you guys are killin me.


    Just spent HOURS and HOURS playing. Pure bliss.


    Ok, here is what I got so far.....


    Didn't care much for the trainwreck rigs I found on rig manager, but absolutely loved loved loved the following:


    1) TAF ManRock 800 (JCM800 hot modded) free and included in the Kemper standard rig list. I think I can do lots with this rig to get that AC DC tone.


    2) Morgan AC20 (rig exchange). Just WOW.


    3) JMJ Princeton Clean


    I do have a TwoRock rig manager rig that I really like alot, so I may give the TAF commercial TwoRock rigs a try next.


    This is exactly what I wanted. Thanks again guys!!!


  • Yeah man that Morgan AC20 is really something special. I played that profile all day today. Sounds GREAT with my Strat.
    I even put a Plus DS in stomp slot 2 and it sounds great as a smooth and kind of dark lead sound.


    I have played more in the 1.5 weeks that I've had my Kemper than in the 5 months prior. Loving this amp!

  • Check out the two rock classic reverb from TAF pack 6... I saw a band at saddlebags in savannah GA the other night using a real two rock classic reverb through an alnico gold loaded 2x12 and I absolutely loved the tone. Naturally I pulled up pack 6, and tried out the classic reverb and it was dead on the same tone I was hearing from the night before. Absolutely loving this profile with my American deluxe tele and 87 G&L ASAT special. The clean and broken up tones are exaxtly what I'm looking for. Put a compressor upfront on the cleans and a mild reverb and you should be loving what you are hearing no doubt. Try out the push profiles of that as well, absolutely love it.

  • I was about to check out some nice Two Rock profile from TAF. I already put my eye on the Two Rock 35 Pro from amp pack 2, but now that you mentioned that Two Rock Classic Reverb in the pack 6, I started to somewhat hesitate. :)


    Has anyone checked both of these profiles (or amps in the real life)? Are they sounding rather similar or is there some uniqueness to the tone(s)/character(s) they have?