HSS pickup selection for Hendrix and Blackmore through Mustaine and Dimebag?

[Falloffthebonetone]

The guitarist in my band and I along with my old guitar teacher are building a guitar for him. We want the thing to cover as much ground as possible basically from vintage (hopefully noiseless) chime and crunch to modern thrash and groove metal.

For bridge pickups we've considered the JB, the Distortion and the Dimebucker. But we have our nitpicks with each of them. Too loose, too bright and compressed, too hot and not enough mids respectively. The Full Shred also seems cool but he hasn't had a chance to try it.

Depending on the bridge pickup we choose, we can assess which single coils to use in the neck and middle. The guy loves harmonics of all kinds (pinch, open, fretted and tapping etc.) and prefers articulation. We also want something that will split well and retain output and warmth for stratty bridge stuff, and balance with the neck and middle pickups. We down tune to Eb an D standard almost always but never more than that, so if it could stay clear under the looser strings that'd be great too.

The guitar it's going in likely will have a mahogany body, maple neck and ebony fretboard, shooting for stainless steel frets, and a graphtech floyd rose with a thick brass bridge block. And he plays through a Peavy 6505+.

Any suggestions?

[CTN]

Re: HSS pickup selection for Hendrix and Blackmore through Mustaine and Dimebag?

Custom (TB-5)

[Inder_Cine_Mann]

Re: HSS pickup selection for Hendrix and Blackmore through Mustaine and Dimebag?

Custom, C8, Distortion or Super D

[Chickenwings]

Re: HSS pickup selection for Hendrix and Blackmore through Mustaine and Dimebag?

jb bridge with a coil tap, ssl-1 middle and either another ssl-1 in the neck, or a jazz with a coil tap. USe 250k pots all round.
edit : i didint read the last part about your guitar's woods very well. I assumed this was all going in a strat.

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: HSS pickup selection for Hendrix and Blackmore through Mustaine and Dimebag?

jb bridge with a coil tap, ssl-1 middle and either another ssl-1 in the neck, or a jazz with a coil tap. USe 250k pots all round.
edit : i didint read the last part about your guitar's woods very well. I assumed this was all going in a strat.

Might as well be. Shape probably won't be strat like but everything else yeah.

[Inder_Cine_Mann]

Re: HSS pickup selection for Hendrix and Blackmore through Mustaine and Dimebag?

Ive actually never Played a JB in Mahogany but man i really want to

I have played the other PUs i suggested

Not gonna lie, on paper, with a tight amp like a 6505 ( speakers?) a JB in MahOgony could rule. Gojira does at least

I feel its up to technique aswell.

What say the guitar player? Surely he has an opinion!

[AlexR]

Re: HSS pickup selection for Hendrix and Blackmore through Mustaine and Dimebag?

The JB in an Ash strat is really good....lets face it the pickup was designed for an ash guitar. The ash will keep things tight too....not too many mids. I've got an ash tele with an ebony f/b on maple - sound very tele like but without the very top-end spike. I'd go for two singles in the n & m myself if you want hendrix more, but a humbucker if you want heavy stuff more. The JB also sounds great in parallel.

[speed2dirt]

Re: HSS pickup selection for Hendrix and Blackmore through Mustaine and Dimebag?

I'd go with a Dimebucker in the bridge. Yes, it can be bright in a bright guitar, but it does sound like a true singlecoil when split. It'd offer the SSS feel and yet still be bone-crushing when in full humbucker mode. Truthfully, I wouldn't worry about balancing the singlecoils to the humbucker; I'd get vintage singlecoils that balance to the Dimebucker split. That way you can get more of the Hendrix tone without it being too hot until you want it to be.

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: HSS pickup selection for Hendrix and Blackmore through Mustaine and Dimebag?

To be fair to my guitarist he basically has no comprehensible idea what he wants and is not technically versed in different pickups. He is one of those people who has a very narrow and accurate idea of what he wants but has a hard time explaining it and hitting the nail on the head. I just told him to pick some people he wanted to sound like and he said, "Doug Aldrich, Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee, Dave Mustaine, Dimebag Darrell, Eddie Van Halen"

Swamp ash is another thing we are really considering, but we guess it will depend what pickups we actually decide to throw in as well, and pick a wood choice that complements them. We would really love a lighter piece of that ash. Yeah floor is still open for the dimebucker and jb but per suggestions we've been looking at the custom too, though the custom 8 doesn't necessarily leap out at us. We've also considered taking a jb and replacing the fillisters in the screw coil with hex poles because we heard that shifts the tone up a bit, focusing the bass giving more airy highs while preserving most of the that vocal midrange people get the jb for in the first place, so he can downtune without the jb getting to spongey in the low end, potentially bring out the harmonics a bit more, and the split tone will be unaffected.

Of the pickups mentioned he believes the JB to be the closest to the sound he wants. Distortion second, Custom, and Dimebucker tied for a third and Full Shred last.

I already showed him the Keith Merrow demo by the way, and he has had first hand experience with the JB, Dimebucker and Full Shred.

Also for neck and middle we'd prefer hum canceling singles cause we want this thing to be as quiet as possible. We were considering the Stk 4 7 and 10.