Best OVERALL Single Coil Bridge Bucker. HR vs. JB jr. vs. Lil 59

[alex1fly]

Re: Best OVERALL Single Coil Bridge Bucker. HR vs. JB jr. vs. Lil 59

The Hot Rails sounds baddddddass through my Mesa DR. It does overdrive the amp and responds very well to EQ settings. I don't think it would be as versatile as the other choices though, but it sounds great for rock/metal/punk stuff.

Alex

 

[flinch]

Re: Best OVERALL Single Coil Bridge Bucker. HR vs. JB jr. vs. Lil 59

Yes, it does the job just fine under distortion. It's not high output but if your amp has plenty of gain on tap, it'll sound really nice. I'd post links to clips I made some time ago but I did some cleanup on my webspace and removed them.

FYI..you asked about its distortion vs. the Hot Rail. Pickups don't have distortion in them. They'll cause distortion in the amp based on if one is hot enough to do so. Between the two, to cover a lot of ground, I'd pick the Lil' 59 every time.

Ok great. So i guess a lil 59 it is! thanks so much everyone for the input! This thread was a great help!

 

[flinch]

Re: Best OVERALL Single Coil Bridge Bucker. HR vs. JB jr. vs. Lil 59

Your thread was about to go to the second page. I "bumped" it back to the top to increase visibility in hopes of getting more responses.

Oh ok. Thanks for that.

 

[King Bugsy]

Re: Best OVERALL Single Coil Bridge Bucker. HR vs. JB jr. vs. Lil 59

I recently picked up a copy of the stratocaster humbucker cd from SD. They have audio clips of ALL the pickups... witht he same amp and guitar.... great for comparing the tones of pickups. You may want to check that cd out for A-B tests.

I play a hot rails in the bridge, vintage rails in the middle, and cool rails in the neck... I can also split the bridge and middle with a switch. This set up IMO, will offer you a wide array of tones to cover many styles.

On the SD cd, I did really like the sound of the Lil' 59 in the bridge, although the HR is probably still my favorite.

Lastly, for jazz and blues leads, 99% of the time you're going to want to be pulling those tones out of the NECK pickup. So in theory, you could go with a "high output" bridge pickup, so when you need massive crunch, it's there.

Lastly, at the moment, my favorite pick up is the Cool Rails in the neck position. It really sings on high gain leads... and sounds sweet for clean jazz/blues tones... and can even get the SRV tone when split...