Best bridge p/u for someone who hates bridge p/u's

[RichardG]

This may sound dumb but the fact is I nearly always use the neck pickups in my strats/teles. I would like to use bridge ones too (would be handy when a bit more bite is needed) but I just find them a bit too trebly and dead sounding - the neck HB's I use seem to have more of an acoustic tone to them, as well as the full and smooth sound I like.

So I'd really welcome suggestions on the following (on a budget - can't afford boutique ones!):

* Bridge p/u for my parts-o-caster to go with the neck HB. Can be any size - H/B, P90 etc. (No middle p/u on this guiatar.)

* Bridge p/u for my tele, again to go with a neck H/B. Ideally s/c size. (There is also a middle s/c on this one.) The current Seymour Duncan bridge pickup (had it for years, not sure what model it is but basically a vintage style one) is so trebly and weak that I have never been happy with it, but that could be partly due to the fact that it's a solid mahogany tele I built which has little natural sustain - the pickup really needs to to all the work!

What I am looking for is lots of low end, full and rich sound, something where I don't feel I have to roll lots of treble off each time I use it. I play lots of styles - often a blues/country kind of twang, mostly a clean or slighlty overdriven sound.

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Best bridge p/u for someone who hates bridge p/u's

I wonder if a Custom Custom would be good in the Strat, beefy and definately more output than stock singles. It should match up well with alomst any neck HB. What neck HB are you currently using?

For the Tele, maybe:
STL-2 Hot
STL-3 Quarter Pounder
ST59-1b lil '59

 

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: Best bridge p/u for someone who hates bridge p/u's

Custom Custom with the bridge pickup wired for tone control to roll off the highs....

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Best bridge p/u for someone who hates bridge p/u's

Custo. Custom in the strat and a Lil 59 for the tele's lead slot.

 

[hacker]

Re: Best bridge p/u for someone who hates bridge p/u's

What you need is the Rio Grande BBQ. You will never feel you have to roll off highs with that pickup. It's tone is as fat as they get.

 

[hamerfan]

Re: Best bridge p/u for someone who hates bridge p/u's

A overwound p90 would be great too.
Another hint: If you rotate the HB in the brigde slot so the screw side points to neck. Then you have to lower the pup height and compensate that with adjusting the pole screws a lot higher, the humbucker will warm up a lot. Works great with bridge HB, but not in the neck slot!

 

[More-Gear-Than-Skill]

Re: Best bridge p/u for someone who hates bridge p/u's

I am with you here. I mostly use neck too. I also found the brite-bite too much. I put a Quarter-Pounder in the bridge of HYW1 strat. That thing is great. Nice, fat and no ice-pick. Height adjust to fine tune. Biased (as it were) to the bass side. Now i use bridge alot!

 

[OlinMusic]

Re: Best bridge p/u for someone who hates bridge p/u's

Try the CC, but I will add to this a NORDSTRAND works really well and smooth! Also consider the Air Norton, others have agreed it has "neck tendencies" in the bridge. I love the Alnico 2 Pro's and Virtual PAF's but they will sound more like smooth and sweet classic humbuckers.