What bridge pick-up should I get in my soon to be 'New gutar'?

[Grindspine]

Re: What bridge pick-up should I get in my soon to be 'New gutar'?

Being a very general statement, active pickups are low impedence, so act as a buffer in the signal chain. This can help with long cable runs or multiple effects pedal situations where a passive pickup would be loaded down. If you're adding pedals to your chain with a passive pickup, make sure you have a decent buffer, or at least a high quality buffered pedal to prevent signal loss.

I don't think the Distortion would be too bright, but I use mine with a maple neck through guitar with a rosewood fingerboard and a 550k potentiometer to keep the highs intact. If it's too bright, you could always use a lower value volume pot, but I doubt that will be necessary.

But, as the previous posts state, get the guitar and try it for a few weeks before doing a pickup swap. You may find that you're happy with the stock pickups!

[Mad-Max]

Re: What bridge pick-up should I get in my soon to be 'New gutar'?

Being a very general statement, active pickups are low impedence, so act as a buffer in the signal chain. This can help with long cable runs or multiple effects pedal situations where a passive pickup would be loaded down. If you're adding pedals to your chain with a passive pickup, make sure you have a decent buffer, or at least a high quality buffered pedal to prevent signal loss.

I don't think the Distortion would be too bright, but I use mine with a maple neck through guitar with a rosewood fingerboard and a 550k potentiometer to keep the highs intact. If it's too bright, you could always use a lower value volume pot, but I doubt that will be necessary.

But, as the previous posts state, get the guitar and try it for a few weeks before doing a pickup swap. You may find that you're happy with the stock pickups!

Well, it'll be a little but after I get the guitar, but if it does come to the point that I'm not satisfied with the stock pups, I can refer back here. Like I said, this is just to throw ideas around. But I do plan to swap pickups though, because I'm a Seymour Duncan fan more than I am an EMG fan. But that's just me.

[jtougas]

Re: What bridge pick-up should I get in my soon to be 'New gutar'?

I agree that it'd be a good idea to get a pair of what you know (the 59n/JB combo) to put in, and see what you want to change. Alder will be brighter than the basswood to begin with, but even that's a broad generalization.

The fun of working with biologicals.

[Mad-Max]

Re: What bridge pick-up should I get in my soon to be 'New gutar'?

I agree that it'd be a good idea to get a pair of what you know (the 59n/JB combo) to put in, and see what you want to change. Alder will be brighter than the basswood to begin with, but even that's a broad generalization.

The fun of working with biologicals.

Well, I thought about doing that, but I wanted to do something a little different this time. While I love the JB/59 combo, I thought maybe I could get a new range of sounds with different pick-ups, while still being able to achieve the tones that I know and love.

It may sound confusing and scatter brained, but that's what's been going in my head ever since I started this process.

[jtougas]

Re: What bridge pick-up should I get in my soon to be 'New gutar'?

Right. But until you hear how *that guitar* reacts to those pickups, you don't know what *that guitar* needs different than the one you already have. And the easiest way to do that is to put in known values - the pickups you're already used to. Then, you can listen to, see what needs to be changed to make it sound like what you want.

"Hmm, I'm happy with the neck, but the bridge could cut a little more" or "Wow, the bridge sounds fantastic, but the neck is a little muddy."

[Lucy Diamond]

Re: What bridge pick-up should I get in my soon to be 'New gutar'?

Holmes, try a Black Winter.

Every time you say "chimey clean" I just hear you say Black Winter.

Also...You will have no problems getting cleans from the distortions. In fact the odd thing about The Distortions is that they are really clean sounding pickups and if you are sloppy and maybe don't really know it yet, The Distortions will let you know. The SD Distortion bridge through my Mesa Mark IV actually taught me to play much better than I thought I was. Totally crazy pickups.


Black Winter Feedback Thread

[Mad-Max]

Re: What bridge pick-up should I get in my soon to be 'New gutar'?

Holmes, try a Black Winter.

Every time you say "chimey clean" I just hear you say Black Winter.

Also...You will have no problems getting cleans from the distortions. In fact the odd thing about The Distortions is that they are really clean sounding pickups and if you are sloppy and maybe don't really know it yet, The Distortions will let you know. The SD Distortion bridge through my Mesa Mark IV actually taught me to play much better than I thought I was. Totally crazy pickups.


Black Winter Feedback Thread

You know, I've actually been interested in the Black Winters, but I wasn't sure about them yet. Whether if they would be too over the top for me, or whatever. I heard at first that it's basically a Distortion on steroids. Which in a sense is good, but I wasn't sure about cleans, and I didn't know if it was gonna be too saturated, or what have you. The truth of the matter is, I didn't have enough knowledge at the time to truly figure out what they were all about.

I'm glad you said that about the Distortion because I've gotten so many mixed things about the Distortion, it's ridiculous. I can't seem to find the truth about them, and so far, that has seemed to make the most sense to me. I know, I know, "Try them out and make your own opinion on them!" yadda yadda yadda, but I've been trying to get a general idea and jotting some notes down and such, and I just haven't gotten consistent info. I hear they'll be too bright, I hear they'll be perfect, I hear that it can do cleans, then I hear it can't, etc.

[Grindspine]

Re: What bridge pick-up should I get in my soon to be 'New gutar'?

Holmes, try a Black Winter.

Every time you say "chimey clean" I just hear you say Black Winter.

Also...You will have no problems getting cleans from the distortions. In fact the odd thing about The Distortions is that they are really clean sounding pickups and if you are sloppy and maybe don't really know it yet, The Distortions will let you know. The SD Distortion bridge through my Mesa Mark IV actually taught me to play much better than I thought I was. Totally crazy pickups.


Black Winter Feedback Thread

Agreed, the Distortions through a Mark IV (or a Mark IV circuit in a Triaxis) have great definition. That combo will definitely uncover any flaws in picking or fretting technique.

If you're still worrying about the cleans on the Distortion, just watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXIVKfIuoBA

The guy covers the clean range of the pickups at about a minute into the clip.

[Mad-Max]

Re: What bridge pick-up should I get in my soon to be 'New gutar'?

Agreed, the Distortions through a Mark IV (or a Mark IV circuit in a Triaxis) have great definition. That combo will definitely uncover any flaws in picking or fretting technique.

If you're still worrying about the cleans on the Distortion, just watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXIVKfIuoBA

The guy covers the clean range of the pickups at about a minute into the clip.

Those are actually really good cleans when he backs off the volume knob. Wow. Very cool.

I'm really leaning towards the Distortion now. Although Lucy mentioning the Black Winters, that may be something to look into. They've kinda caught my eye ever since they came out. Plus the font they used for 'Seymour Duncan' on the pickup is on all levels of badass.

[jumble jumble]

Re: What bridge pick-up should I get in my soon to be 'New gutar'?

Nope you can do it. My Warlock says so. EMG81 and a Dimarzio SuperD happily together. There are some trade offs but it can be done.

How is it wired?

[Edgecrusher]

Re: What bridge pick-up should I get in my soon to be 'New gutar'?

How is it wired?

Just uses a normal switch and a 500k volume pot. The downside to it is the 500k pot acts like a on off with the EMG... You turn it from 10 to 2 with little effect then it quickly shuts it off. The Dimarzio works fine on its own but combined the EMG over rides the Super D. Like i said trade offs. But for this guitar I would never show up with it to play blues or jazz so the fact that its a balls out on 10 smash your face with only 2 pickup positions suits me just fine