Beyond what it's built for

[44thminute]

Who uses a pickup made for a particular genre for something totally different? A coupleexzamples I'm a blues guitarist bust I use the Dave mustaine live wires to get my sound. I also dabble with a dime bucker. And just met an indie rock player that uses the black winter set.

 

[Artie]

Re: Beyond what it's built for

I like to use an Invader, in parallel, to get a sweet Strat bridge tone. Single-ish, but with more complexity.

 

[LtKojak]

Re: Beyond what it's built for

"It's not the hammer, it's how you use it"

HTH,

 

[Gibson 1964]

Re: Beyond what it's built for

I use a black winter to get some beautiful cleans for celtic folk. I have played megadeth on a lollar BS (Charlie Christian) Sounds much better than you might anticipate. I use Thorn Staple gt90s for anything.

 

[Lucy Diamond]

Re: Beyond what it's built for

I pride myself at being able to get the sound I need out of all my gear.

I do Jazz and blues with winters and distortions. I can play Holy Wars on my Lace Sensor golds.

The right tool for the right job helps but you should always be familiar with uncomfortable or out of the norm situations.

 

[SFW]

Re: Beyond what it's built for

While I generally try to tailor my guitars for their intended use, I can take a set of good PAFs and play just about anything. With the advent of high gain amps, people sometimes forget that you can dig in to get other tones.

 

[stratguy23]

Re: Beyond what it's built for

This is one of my favorite topics, unintended uses for tools.

I was trying out random items at GC and was surprised to get monstrously thick sludge/doom tones out of the A2 Pro Strat set. Granted, the Orange OR15H amp was doing most of the heavy lifting, but it was still a revelation.

Pearly Gates set is also surprisingly viable for downtuned sludge/doom. The top end spike in the bridge really cuts through. The sound kind of falls apart under high gain, but in a way very usable/pleasing to my ears. High output pickups are usually marketed as holding together well under high gain, but sometimes tightness isn't the desired outcome.

Gibson 490R is a marvelous sludge/doom pickup in neck position and not so good for its original intended application, blues/classic rock.

I may be one of the few P-Rails users who actually prefers the humbucker sound to the single coil sounds. It's not my #1 preferred tone, but the response is very interesting to me, sort of like if the Ibanez V7/V8 pickups were actually good.

I agree that a good set of low output PAFs is a potential springboard to many different sounds in the hands of the right player with the right amp.

 

[vinta9e]

Re: Beyond what it's built for

Challenge the clichés. But don't be pushy looking for square eggs.

The EMG 85 does jazz mighty well.