Help me choose a humbucker.

[leakyfaucet]

Hi, I bought a mexican strat from my brother who had it outfitted with seymour duncan pickups. Two large single coils in the neck and middle position and a humbucker in the bridge position with a coil tap in the tone knob. He couldn't tell me anything about the pickups except that they were all pretty high output. My humbucker has a sticker on the back that says "JBL". Through a little research I've found this means I have the JB model humbuckers wound by "L".

He has an early peavey wolfgang and the humbuckers on that thing sound great. Great tone as well as incredible output. Assuming some of the good tone is coming from the type of wood on the guitar, I can still say that those pickups had way higher output than my JBs. I was wondering if Seymour duncan made any active humbuckers with that kind of output? Looking at the charts, my JBs are about as high output as the active humbuckers get, although they are nothing compared to the wolfgang's. Any advice?

[rocker_71]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

First of all: welcome to the forum!

I thought SD doesn't make active pickups.
But there are more heavy (output) humbuckers then the JB.
Check out the Invader and the Distortion.

[The JEM Ghost]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

First of all: welcome to the forum!

I thought SD doesn't make active pickups.
But there are more heavy (output) humbuckers then the JB.
Check out the Invader and the Distortion.

WRONG! SD does make active pups!!
Check out the livewire-gamma! And they WILL have higher output then a JB as well! Check em out!!

[rocker_71]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

WRONG! SD does make active pups!!
Check out the livewire-gamma! And they WILL have higher output then a JB as well! Check em out!!

I am sorry, I' m learning every day....

Anyway: I looked for the live wire heavy metal in the tonechart.
Woooow, that' s one hot thing man!
The output is ' out of scale'.

[The JEM Ghost]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

I am sorry, I' m learning every day....

Anyway: I looked for the live wire heavy metal in the tonechart.
Woooow, that' s one hot thing man!
The output is ' out of scale'.

No problem at all Rocker, that's what the forum is for right?
And indeed they really are hot as hell... Leakyfaucet should try them out when given the chance!

[leakyfaucet]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

Oh wait, sorry. I said I was interested in active pickups but I meant passive. When I looked at the chart, the JBs were about as high output as passive pickups go. The only passive pickups I see that have more output is the "Invader" but it doesn't really seem to be all that much more. Those wolfgang pickups had a ton more output!

Can anyone suggest me a REALLY high output passive humbucker?

[The JEM Ghost]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

Well i must say the DiMarzio X2N is the loudest passive pup i have ever heard... That one is waaaaayyy louder than a JB (wich is not that high-output in my opinion, has enough power but if you are after pure power there are louder passive pups out there).
Don't know if you ll like it tonewise, but if you are after the highest output passive humbucker, the X2N is my advice.

[leakyfaucet]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

That sounds interesting. How exactly does the X2N sound? I know that's kind of a hard question, but I've never played a guitar with solid bar polepieces, and have know idea how they sound.

Thanks!

[The JEM Ghost]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

The X2N's EQ is rather balanced, but i bet a lot of people just hate the X2N. One of the better things about the X2N is that it has a good split-mode.
Not for use on the clean channel, since it has so much output that it breaks up any clean channel.
It s surelly not a muddy pickup as well.
Hard to discribe a pups tone but for the X2N i d say:
Tight bass, slightly boosted mids and highs, articulate and surely LOUD.
If you want to push your amp to the limit in his dirty channel, the X2N will do the work like no other.
(just to mention:you can hear the X2N on Steve Vaï's real early work, when he was still playing in bands, in that period he was using the X2N in the bridge position)

[Luke Duke]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

I myself am not a JB fan but can tell you from experience that it is a finicky humbucker that you will have to tweak before it will really shine. For instance the closer it is to the strings the better it sounds. So you might want to work with the height a bit before you throw in the towel on it. The wolfgangs I've dealt with haven't had overly powerful pups I thought.

As far as higher output and Duncans go...the tonechart isn't as accurate as it could be otherwise it would show the invader having a significantly higher output. The invader has 3 ceramic bar magnets instead of one alnico bar magnet like the JB. it also has large polepieces to add to the mix. I'm considering it and the Distortion for a pawnshop piece I'm working on.

The distortion has an oversized ceramic bar magnet so it will also so higher output than the JB. Ceramics are the most powerful standard pup magnets used so a pup with the same coil configuration but a A5 instead of an A2 will have more output, whereas the ceramic magnet will have more still than an A5. The stronger the magnetic field the more power generated by flux in the magnetic field.

The dimebucker (although lower resistance than the JB) is also a high output pup. I'd ask some of the guys about it as well if I were you.

Luke

[leakyfaucet]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

So what exactly does the resistance mean? An estimate on how long the actual coil is?

I've actually got the humbucker sitting very close to the strings. Less than 1/4" away from them. Any closer and I would probably scrape the thing with my picks.

[The JEM Ghost]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

I myself am not a JB fan but can tell you from experience that it is a finicky humbucker that you will have to tweak before it will really shine. For instance the closer it is to the strings the better it sounds. So you might want to work with the height a bit before you throw in the towel on it. The wolfgangs I've dealt with haven't had overly powerful pups I thought.

As far as higher output and Duncans go...the tonechart isn't as accurate as it could be otherwise it would show the invader having a significantly higher output. The invader has 3 ceramic bar magnets instead of one alnico bar magnet like the JB. it also has large polepieces to add to the mix. I'm considering it and the Distortion for a pawnshop piece I'm working on.

The distortion has an oversized ceramic bar magnet so it will also so higher output than the JB. Ceramics are the most powerful standard pup magnets used so a pup with the same coil configuration but a A5 instead of an A2 will have more output, whereas the ceramic magnet will have more still than an A5. The stronger the magnetic field the more power generated by flux in the magnetic field.

The dimebucker (although lower resistance than the JB) is also a high output pup. I'd ask some of the guys about it as well if I were you.

Luke

I agree on the dimebucker being a real good high-output pup as well, i use it myself and i really love it.
But it is not as high-output as some people think or expect, surelly the X2N is higher in output, and i suggested that one because i figured output was the main issue here, but overall i like the Dime better.

[Luke Duke]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

Hey Jem, thanks for giving the A/B comparison on the X2N and Dimebucker I've never used either so I can't really compare or speak with authority about them.

Leaky: A quarter of an inch is still very far from the pup. I would lower all my polepieces till they were as low as possible and then raise the entire pup. Then I would raise my polepieces if appropriate. You have to remember that a pup is a microgenerator and needs to be close to the strings to get all possible energy. One of the guys here did a experiment and said that a magnet's potency rises eponentially as the pup gets closer to the strings. Figuring out a pups height is like a balancing act, you want the most output but you don't want to inhibit sting movement or pull the strings flat.

DC Resistance is like you said an indication of how much wire is wound on the bobbins. It is one of a few indicators of output general indicators are: DC resistance, mV, and resonant peak.

Luke

[leakyfaucet]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

Alright, I took your advice. This is the bridge position after all, I don't really pick there, now that I think about it. I raised the humbucker and poles until they were about 1/15" away from the vibrating strings. Sounds much better, a ton more output.

This is getting addicting though, now I want even more output. Do you think the X2N is the same size as the JB? The pickguard in my strat is cut to accept that size humbucker and had holes drilled for the mounting screws. I don't want to mess this thing up though.

Thanks for the help guys!

[Luke Duke]

Re: Help me choose a humbucker.

Hey man I'm glad it worked out! To my knowledge the X2N should fit with no problem. I know the dimebucker has a special mounting ring so I don't know if it would fit into the hole, however the dimebucker is supposedly made like an X2N so you might just need to start a thread about it.

Luke