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It's been approximately forever since I last tinkered with my Les Paul's neck pickup, as I thought I was satisfied with the 59n RCA3 that had undergone so many mag swaps. After I basically fell in love with the Whole Lotta Humbucker in the bridge after being almost perfectly satisfied with the stock Custom for years, I decided to give the neck WLH a shot. (Big thanks to ErikH for following through on his offer to make me a deal on one!)
The first thing I notice about it is its clarity. Compared to the 59, I hear more mids, and a little more upper-mid focus than the abundant treble of the 59. The top end sounds sweeter to me, and this was one of my hopes. It also reduces but does not eliminate the boominess that was the primary reason for me to start looking around. It's still there a bit, which makes me believe my technique may be partially to blame as well. However, it doesn't overwhelm the rest of the notes being played, which was the problem the 59 had.
Under gain, it has a little less of the vowel-like tone that I usually hear and don't always love in neck pickups, and that's really good, because now I may actually start to use the neck pickup. It also retains clarity.
I think my primary purpose in writing a short review is to convince someone like me who is on the fence about paying the extra money for this pickup, which doesn't seem to get a lot of buzz around here. I saw the passing reference to it, but it never really seemed to drive a discussion. Knowing what I know now, I would gladly pay new prices for the set, although I was able to grab each one used for a bit of a discount.
The first thing I notice about it is its clarity. Compared to the 59, I hear more mids, and a little more upper-mid focus than the abundant treble of the 59. The top end sounds sweeter to me, and this was one of my hopes. It also reduces but does not eliminate the boominess that was the primary reason for me to start looking around. It's still there a bit, which makes me believe my technique may be partially to blame as well. However, it doesn't overwhelm the rest of the notes being played, which was the problem the 59 had.
Under gain, it has a little less of the vowel-like tone that I usually hear and don't always love in neck pickups, and that's really good, because now I may actually start to use the neck pickup. It also retains clarity.
I think my primary purpose in writing a short review is to convince someone like me who is on the fence about paying the extra money for this pickup, which doesn't seem to get a lot of buzz around here. I saw the passing reference to it, but it never really seemed to drive a discussion. Knowing what I know now, I would gladly pay new prices for the set, although I was able to grab each one used for a bit of a discount.
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