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Bridge: Duncan Distortion or JB? / Middle: single, noiseless of single size hum?

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  • Bridge: Duncan Distortion or JB? / Middle: single, noiseless of single size hum?

    Dear Friends at SD Forum:

    I would appreciate some advice to help me choose new pickups.

    1. My current equipment:

    Fernandes superstrato type guitar, HSS configuration, locking trem. Not sure about materials but I think the body is basswood, the neck is maple and the fingerboard is rosewood. Year 2000.
    Marshall tube combo JCM 600, 60 W, 4x ECC83 pre-amp valves, 2xEL34 power valves

    2. MUSIC I PLAY: a mix of heavy metal and hard rock: Iron Maiden, Van Halen, Satriani, Great White, Metallica, Anthrax, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, Kiss, AC/DC, Rammstein, System of a Down, Santana, The Police, The Cult, Manowar,….

    3. PROBLEM: taking in account that my amp is a little bit old style and probably does not fit totally to play the heaviest staff, with the bridge pickup I need another step of distortion, sustain and harmonics, it is ok for rock but not enough for heavy metal. With the neck and middle single coils the lack of power is noticeable with an excess of bass and mids, I actually use them only for playing softer staff with the clean channel of the amp and I never select only the middle pick up, I basically use it to complement bridge and neck pickups in position 2 and 4 of the 5-way selector. I also use an Ibanez Tube Screamer pedal which works very well for soloing but I find it too noisy for rhythm and chords.

    Solution: upgrade the guitar pickups and I have following doubts:

    BRIDGE PICKUP: ¿Duncan Distortion TB6 or JB TB4? As my main concern is distortion, should I choose straight forward the TB6? will the TB6 fit with softer rock or the distortion will be excesive? Will I miss other valuable characteristics due to an excess of output?

    By the other hand, the JB is a reference pickup in the rock / heavy guitar world, should I install the JB in order to get benefit of the characteristics that all their users love? will the JB have enough power to push my tube amp to provide distortion? At the end of the day, my main current problem is that I miss distortion.

    NECK PICKUP: The option is a single coil size humbucker with high output: Hot Rails Strat or JB Jr? I am not able to understand the difference between them in terms of output and performance.

    MIDDLE PICKUP: I do not have a clear idea. Main question is: true single coil (e.g. Quarter Pond Strat) or noiseless (e.g. Hot Stack Strat, Custom Stack Plus Strat, Parallel Axis Stack Strat)? Or maybe I should also consider a single coil size humbucker (Hot Rails, JB Jr, Cool Rails)?

    As this is the only guitar I have, the selection of the 3 pickups must be considered as a whole rather than individually and they should be complimentary in order to get a versatile all terrain instrument to play with, but keeping the focus on PLAYING HEAVY METAL!


    Sorry about the extension.
    Thanks a lot!

  • #2
    Re: Bridge: Duncan Distortion or JB? / Middle: single, noiseless of single size hum?

    I love the distortion, I dont like the JB. I also play some of the sams genre of music but a bit too much upper mid punch for my taste. Distortin has some of that upper mid punch but not as much as the JB. I can cover a lot of space with the Distortion. The oy two that may not work with the Distortion, is The Police and Santana, both may be a bit much for those.
    1994 Ibanez IC500 Iceman reissue
    Jackson Soloist 7 string
    ESP LTD M-400
    Original Marshall Silver Jubilee 2553

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    • #3
      Re: Bridge: Duncan Distortion or JB? / Middle: single, noiseless of single size hum?

      Welcome to the forum!

      I'd pick the Distortion over the JB for you. Neither is particularly versatile, but what they do, they do well. The JB is a great 80s pickup: a boosted plexi, and you have the ultimate hair metal pickup. The Distortion does more kinds of distortion better, to me. You can get more into metal with it. For the neck, look at either the Hot Rails neck (sort of an Iron Maiden, buttery neck solo tone), and for the middle, look at the STK-S4 for some real deal Strat tones, but noiseless.
      Administrator of the SDUGF

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      • #4
        Re: Bridge: Duncan Distortion or JB? / Middle: single, noiseless of single size hum?

        Alt8 is a versatile pickup for rock and metal without having to choose which spectrum. For The Police and Santana, throw STK-S4 in the middle and Cool Rails in the neck.

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