Need new pickup in American Standard Bridge position

[RayBarbeeMusic]

Re: Need new pickup in American Standard Bridge position

I haven't heard a humbucker match better with singles than a Lollar Imperial (normal wind), but it's not a metal pickup. Yeah I know some folks use PAFs for metal........but most don't.

I think if I wanted heavier, I'd go with an AT-1 there.

[TheHyper27]

Re: Need new pickup in American Standard Bridge position

Would it be a better idea to go for the Hot Rails, Vintage Rails, Cool rails? Would I still be able to get a good treble sound from the Hot Rails in the bridge, or at least a good overdriven tone? Would I be able to get a nice trebly single coil tone from the Vintage Rails? Would I be able to do nice warm solos on the cool rails and still be able to have it clean up nicely?

[Luke Duke]

Re: Need new pickup in American Standard Bridge position

Would it be a better idea to go for the Hot Rails, Vintage Rails, Cool rails? Would I still be able to get a good treble sound from the Hot Rails in the bridge, or at least a good overdriven tone? Would I be able to get a nice trebly single coil tone from the Vintage Rails? Would I be able to do nice warm solos on the cool rails and still be able to have it clean up nicely?

Wow, that's a lot of questions....I'll do my best here.

Would it be a better idea to go for the Hot Rails, Vintage Rails, Cool rails?

It depends on your goal. There is no right or wrong, some things just work better than others.

Would I still be able to get a good treble sound from the Hot Rails in the bridge, or at least a good overdriven tone?

Overdriven sound, yes....trebly yes if you used the pickup split or in parallel. To wrap your mind around a hot rails tone think Dave Murray of Iron Maiden

Would I be able to get a nice trebly single coil tone from the Vintage Rails?

It will be closer than either of the other rails, but it's still not quite the same as a normal single coil. I would say it IS a passable tone though.

Would I be able to do nice warm solos on the cool rails and still be able to have it clean up nicely?

They are very warm, but their clean tone is very nominal to me. Definitely not a single coil sound.

At the end of the day you're going to have to decide EXACTLY what you want from this guitar. Do you want harder sounds or do you want classic sounds, or an axe that does all things okay but no one thing sounds GREAT.

Luke

[CustomCustom]

Re: Need new pickup in American Standard Bridge position

I haven't heard a humbucker match better with singles than a Lollar Imperial (normal wind), but it's not a metal pickup. Yeah I know some folks use PAFs for metal........but most don't.

I think if I wanted heavier, I'd go with an AT-1 there.

isnt the at-1 like a jb?

[CKay]

Re: Need new pickup in American Standard Bridge position

You know you're going to get a lot of different opinions... I personally added a Hot Rails to the bridge of my strat (alder body, maple on maple neck) and wired in for auto split. It lost some of the strat snap, but what do you expect from a HB? P2 sounds decent as the Hot Rails is hot enough when split to work with the middle p/u. I will probably replace it, because frankly, I want my strat to sound like a strat. I'll use my other guitars for other purposes.

Besides, what IS metal these days? EVH, YJM, Hammet, Dime, Mustaine, or the multitude of other new artists (who don't seem to have very unique tones, at least to me)?

I've used HB's with outputs from a '59 to the Hot Rails with high gain amps (currently a Peavey 6505), and haven't had an issue with getting a Metal tone from any of them. Of course, the amp makes all the difference.

I guess this all depends on your personal taste. Do you like the sizzle of a ceramic magnet or the harmonics and thickness of that various alnico mags? Will you actually use position 2? Is this for rhythm chunk or thick harmonic leads?

The best advice I can give is to put a medium output model in the bridge and go from there. I like med output full size HB's the best, but that's just me.