Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

[Diminished Triad]

Looking for the polar opposite of "fuzz" and instead hoping for a very heavy and broad tone/sound.
Of the three (Black Winter, Duncan Distortion and Invader), which do you believe hits heaviest?
Thanks!

 

[VHTJay]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

They can all hit really heavy bro. What kind of amp are you playing? What kind of guitar would you put the pickup in?

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

Yeah, the invader has a darker tone all around with huge low end and mids, the distortion is more top end focused and has a tighter tone that cuts better and the black winter has a higher resonance frequency and output than the distortion but is otherwise pretty similar. I believe the invader would be the hottest but I haven't heard it back to back with the black winter yet. So in addition to what guitar and amp, what are you planning to do with it? Leads, rhythm, both, fast that requires articulation, slow that requires sustain and compression? The HEAVIEST sounding will likely be the invader, but the others will have more of a crunch and attack.

 

[Diminished Triad]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

Scorpions, Deep Purple, Van Halen, Iron Maiden, and many in between!
The pickups would be in a strat. Sounds like an Invader project....

 

[crguti]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

^ for those bands, I would go with the DM super distortion.

 

[Dark Order Lord]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

^ for those bands, I would go with the DM super distortion.

I 100% agree. DMZ Super Distortion. Then next in line would be DMZ Super 3 me thinks. The invader is right for a bright guitar like your strat but a very angry sound better for hardcore punk and Thrash Metal.

 

[Diminished Triad]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

I think that's what Tom Scholz is using on his Les Paul for the Boston sound.....(his bridge pickup). He uses a P90 for his neck pickup I think....
Thanks for recommendations!

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

Scorpions, Deep Purple, Van Halen, Iron Maiden, and many in between!
The pickups would be in a strat. Sounds like an Invader project....

For those bands, and for a Strat, I'd go with a JB.




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[King IzzO)))]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

Super D, or I'd even recommend a Dirty Fingers.

 

[Grindspine]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

Looking for the polar opposite of "fuzz" and instead hoping for a very heavy and broad tone/sound.
Of the three (Black Winter, Duncan Distortion and Invader), which do you believe hits heaviest?
Thanks!

Unfortunately, all three can get kinda fuzzy sounding. It also depends on your definition of heavy. I use a Duncan Distortion TB-6 in my main guitar through a Mesa Triaxis rig. My overall tone is fairly similar to Sepultura on the Arise and Chaos AD albums. If my gain, presence, mids, and treble are cranked, the sound can get fuzzy though.

The Invader is darker and can definitely get fuzzy if treble or presence are turned up to compensate...

If you're looking for heavy without fuzz, I would actually suggest the Custom. It is a slightly lower output ceramic based pickup, but that gives it a little more room for percussive attack without getting fuzzy

 

[youngthrasher9]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

TBH I'd recommend a '59/custom hybrid for those bands. With the right amp settings, it would sound crazy close to the Scorpions tone. What amp do you use?

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

I second the 59/c hybrid for THOSE bands' sound. But if you want something heavier and broader than that like you're saying then a jb also sounds right too. The 3 you mentioned are geared for much harder and heavier music.

 

[PearlyHellhound]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

I would describe the following pickups as......

Duncan Distortion = Emg 81 without the extra compression. Tight rhythm. Liquid leads. Bright.

Black Winter = Tighter and louder version of Duncan Distortion. Has P90ish quality.

Invader = Dark, loud and compressed. Thunderous rhythm pickup. I suppose it can do leads, but I wouldn't depend on it.

 

[Gibson 1964]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

Black winter is somewhat flat.
Invader is dark and very low focused.
DD has a somewhat bigger bottom than the BW, but less than the invader and more high highs.

Invader is most compressed to my ears, BW is the least.

For those bands, I would go with a JB or DD myself.

 

[Chazzy]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

Lol dude, these are not very heavy bands, you should go with something like a 59 custom hybrid or Jb, the 3 pickups you mentioned are good for thrash and death metal and black metal

 

[Gibson 1964]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

To be honest, the black winter is very versatile.


The distortion was used by a lot of bands in 80's metal, chazzy. I would say the invader strikes me as a specialty pickup, the others are quite good in many environments.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

Midget Koala posted this 2 years ago... guitars already built pickups already bought. Its a moot issue

 

[Chazzy]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

yes but so is the emg 81, generally those pups are geared for heavier stuff, you are better off with more paf on steroids type pups

 

[Ratchet]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

Midget Koala posted this 2 years ago... guitars already built pickups already bought. Its a moot issue

I find this thread useful and relative, as I have the same questions. I am thankful this thread is still alive and well. People who point out ages of older threads contribute nothing but grief to those of us trying to communicate, being self-appointed time-police on forums.

How long have these three pickups been around? Are they old designs? I only just recently found out about the invader. Luckily, there isn't any time limit on forums dictating whether or not I may talk about them, otherwise moderators would have closed this thread.

I had a Distortion SH-6 in my bridge position and it sounded perfectly how I wanted it to. Then, I noticed I should have used the wider-spaced version, because the strings were wider than the pole-piece-spread (I'm new at installing pups). They let me exchange it for the TB-6 Trembucker version and it looks much better, but it sounds completely different, and I don't like it as much.

How much variance/consistency are in these pickup's different models? If they mixed up a few at the factory, how would anyone ever know? The two same Distortions, in the same guitar, wired the same way (only volume), with the only difference being the pole-piece spacing, the differences in tone are massive (to me).

I also have two guitars with Invaders. A set of (white) Invaders in a Les Paul (type of) guitar, and they also sound very different than the black and chrome Invader in the Tele, but they're in different types of guitars, so I tell myself it must be all the other factors, like scale-length, "tone-woods", wiring, pole-piece material/finish/coating, (color of the pickup bobbins, ha ha,) etc. Surely each differently named pickup has consistency in number of winds, magnet types, and wire gauge, but there seems to be some intangible variations inherent in their design. It's like there's 1% "Magick" built into 'em.

Same with speakers, I'd guess, or any transducer with a bunch of coiled copper wire.

If pickups are so simple, and people can hand-make them at home, why do Epiphone pickups sound so terrible (at least the cheaper ones)? They must engineer "bad" tone into them to encourage upgrades. They must.

Here are my Teles with an Invader and (white) Distortion in their bridge positions.

Seymour Duncan's site says I should have put the (white) Distortion SH-6 in the J5, because its body is Alder. It's currently in a basswood body, which according to Seymour Duncan's recommendations, might be why I'm not digging the tone . . . Yet the regular spaced version sounded so good. Well, at least the strings align directly over the pole-pieces now - too bad guitars are about SOUND, and looks should be secondary. I did it wrong.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Black Winter, Duncan Distortion, or Invader?

I find this thread useful and relative, as I have the same questions. I am thankful this thread is still alive and well. People who point out ages of older threads contribute nothing but grief to those of us trying to communicate, being self-appointed time-police on forums.

I dont care if people want to discuss the pickups the reason i made the remark was that people were still trying to help the OP when its a dead issue. People are commenting how the bands he wants to play are not heavy when it doesnt matter now.

You would have been better off starting a new thread focused on your questions as many will see a bumped older thread and pass it over.

TB's and SH's never sound exactly the same. TB's always have a bit more wire and the coils being wider change the sound of the pickup. Even within with the tolerances your average TB will be louder and darker than a SH

SD's consistancy is actually pretty good these days. But like anything else there are always anomalies.

Making a pickup is simple...

Making a good sounding pickup is not so simple and doing it with any consistency is much harder.

Most low cost pickups suffer in sound because they use cheaper materials to cut cost. Not all magnets are created equal. You would be amazed at the differences you can find even between A5 mags from the same sources.