Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

[JimmyO]

Looking for a bridge humbucker for an alder partscaster with maple fretboard and Floyd rose. When I originally put it together I used a Dimarzio Super Distortion and a PAF36th. The SD was great with distortion but felt it was a bit of a one trick pony and didn't like it's cleans or mildly overdriven tones. I play classic rock & blues and this guitar I use for my more rocking tones but all my guitars need to have a good blues tone, it's the basis for my sound. I don't play stuff any heavier than early Van Halen and Kiss and play a lot of Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Hendrix, SRV, ZZTop and blues music. My other guitars are Strats and Les Paul's and this is my only Floyd Rose guitar. After the Dimarzios came out I put a spare JB and 59 in. I much prefer the 59 to the PAF 36th, it is less sterile, and the JB clean tone is much better. It does have that nasally aww tone though that I'm not sure if I like. I feel I'm about 80% there.

I'm looking for a crunchy bridge pickup that is not too overwound and has a good clean tone. It has to respond well to going from overdriven to clean using your volume pot and picking dynamics. After trying a couple I find I do not like overwound pickups as the tone gets too saturated and compressed and you lose the dynamics. I'm looking for something open, crunchy and warm toned that has a sweet lead tone. I don't play metal or down tune or anything that goes chugga chugga. On paper the parallel axis stuff looks good, but I do not like the way they look. I would like a traditional PAF looking humbucker in black or zebra. I know it's not sexy on this forum but I'm wondering about getting a 59 trembucker seeing as I like the neck 59 tone. Not looking to swap magnets etc, looking for something stock. Open to all manufacturers but have had good experiences with Seymour Duncan pearly gates and WLHs in my Les Paul's.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

Based on what you're saying, maybe some old MJ-made 59 humbuckers from the 80s....59BJ and 59NJ. You can come close by getting a new set and putting some RCA5 mags in there.

Personally, I'd get some Seths.

My only other ideas would come from MJ's Custom Shop at a premium cost.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

The Screamin Demon is my pick lately... Very clear and dynamic, not compressed, better clean than the JB with more crunch/less fizz, without the mid scream thing... Clearer than the 59 in that it's more focused (low-end in particular...) Very brassy leads, woody/natural chords.

 

[JimmyO]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

Based on what you're saying, maybe some old MJ-made 59 humbuckers from the 80s....59BJ and 59NJ. You can come close by getting a new set and putting some RCA5 mags in there.

Personally, I'd get some Seths.

My only other ideas would come from MJ's Custom Shop at a premium cost.

How different are the MJ and RCA5 versions from the stock version? At garage rehearsal/small bar conditions. I thought I remember you posting that Viv Campbell was using 59s, though I am guessing in a Les Paul.

 

[JimmyO]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

The Screamin Demon is my pick lately... Very clear and dynamic, not compressed, better clean than the JB with more crunch/less fizz, without the mid scream thing... Clearer than the 59 in that it's more focused (low-end in particular...) Very brassy leads, woody/natural chords.

This sounds good based on the description. Are there any decent Seymour Duncan demo videos that demonstrate what this guy can do? Would it pair well with a 59 in the neck? Thanks!

 

[SJ318]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

Hi -
Gotta go with darthphineous on this. Mags are dirt cheap and so easy to change. A 59 with a RC A5 is a great idea.
I use Seth Lovers with a RC A5 for most of my bridge pickups. I have tried all the mags out there except the A3 and like them all except the A2, A8 was good, but a little too strong. A4 is still a good choice, loved that, but RC A5 is best for me, for a long time actually.
I do use a 59/Custum hybrid for stage. But I don't play much on stage. Good luck. Oh, by the way, my Seth Lover is reverse Zebra, depending on company, but in my bridge position I like the slugs to be cream, the poles to be black. On my Strats I have them made with White coils, as they match the single coils I use.
Steve Buffington

 

[LtKojak]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

My volte goes to:
1. A8 '59TB
2. '59/Custom Hybrid

HTH,

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

I'm a blues player. My favorite guitarists are guys like BB King, Albert King, Freddie King, Eric Clapton, Peter Green...

59's or Seth Lovers or Pearly Gates are what I use for humbuckers.

New 59's sound good but now use polished A5 magnets and lack mids and have a sharper edge to the treble than old 59's from the 90's and before. Seymour originally designed the '59 around a Roughcast A5 magnet to sound like a 59 Gibson A5 PAF. ,

So get some Roughcast A5 magnets from Addiction FX and make a new 59 sound great again and more like a 55 year old A5 Gibson PAF from 1959 or the very early 1960's.

I even put RCA5 magnets in my Seth Lovers.

Pearly Gates are another great choice and get great pinch harmonics and fat soloing tones from the bridge PG and nice chordal tones and soloing tones from the neck PG. They're Alnico 2.

You don't have to spend a bundle or search for old 59's.

 

[audiocheck]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

The Screamin Demon is my pick lately... Very clear and dynamic, not compressed, better clean than the JB with more crunch/less fizz, without the mid scream thing... Clearer than the 59 in that it's more focused (low-end in particular...) Very brassy leads, woody/natural chords.

Although I love the Screaming' Demon for all the things you mention, it is not what I would call a Blues Pickup. It is has a modern voice, that when clean is not really identifiable as a iconic tone.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

This sounds good based on the description. Are there any decent Seymour Duncan demo videos that demonstrate what this guy can do? Would it pair well with a 59 in the neck? Thanks!

I don't favor any of the clips I've heard on YouTube as far as capturing the character of the pickup; I've been meaning to record some demos with it.

The '59 would work I'm sure... Good call-outs, audiocheck. On the other side I had my 59 only for a brief period, left it stock, found it to be more honky and a bit less crystalline than I wanted so I traded it... Then again, I am/was primarily a single coil guy, and the Demon to me is more toward that idiom.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

I was going to suggest the WLH, but haven't seen them in Trembuckers. I might go with something slightly hotter than a 59 for 'a more rocking tone'. In this case, the 59/Custom Hybrid would be my choice. It isn't compressed and is great for classic as well as modern tones. I have a few of them in the bridge of a few guitars, and I use them for all styles of music.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

How different are the MJ and RCA5 versions from the stock version? At garage rehearsal/small bar conditions. I thought I remember you posting that Viv Campbell was using 59s, though I am guessing in a Les Paul.

The older ones used the RCA5. MJ prefers to use roughcast magnets in her Custom Shop. Yes, Vivian is using some MJ-made 59 Model pickups in that black 70s Les Paul. I think him playing straight into his ENGL is the best tone he's had in a long time.

To my ears it takes off any shrill in the highs and some of the boom in the lows. You can probably search around to get an idea of the different opinions from the different ears and the magnet options out there.

 

[JimmyO]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

Thanks for all the suggestions, looks like the rough cast Alnico V into a 59 trembucker could be a good place to start. Was hoping that something off the shelf would work, but I could perform a magnetectomy myself. My 59 neck pickup is from the late 90s, I wonder when Seymour Duncan made the switch to regular A5s, and why they would do it if it doesn't sound as good. Maybe you would know what magnet is likely in the neck pickup, it's from about 1998-1999. I already have a couple of A4 magnets. Maybe I could use a RCA5 for a bridge trembucker and put one of the A4s in the existing 59 neck humbucker.

I was also thinking WLH as the ones I have sound like a 59+, though I haven't seen them in trembucker configuration. Perhaps Seymour Duncan could make me either a Trembucker WLH or RCA5 59 without going full custom shop.

 

[JimmyO]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

Also I tried to check out the Scremin Demon demos on you tube but they seem to go chugga chugga shred shred with a few second rate Dokken riffs thrown in. I like Dokken but for that tone I would use a SD Distortion and that's not the tone I am going for. Still interested in this one as some folks describe it as having a single coil character, and my other guitars are Les Paul's and single coils Strats so this could potentially fall in the middle. If it could do the blues as well as the rock.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

Thanks for all the suggestions, looks like the rough cast Alnico V into a 59 trembucker could be a good place to start. Was hoping that something off the shelf would work, but I could perform a magnetectomy myself. My 59 neck pickup is from the late 90s, I wonder when Seymour Duncan made the switch to regular A5s, and why they would do it if it doesn't sound as good. Maybe you would know what magnet is likely in the neck pickup, it's from about 1998-1999. I already have a couple of A4 magnets. Maybe I could use a RCA5 for a bridge trembucker and put one of the A4s in the existing 59 neck humbucker.

I was also thinking WLH as the ones I have sound like a 59+, though I haven't seen them in trembucker configuration. Perhaps Seymour Duncan could make me either a Trembucker WLH or RCA5 59 without going full custom shop.

They made the switch from roughcast to polished sometime before 2000. Some people say they have 59's from the 90's with polished but all of mine are roughcast. You can see the surface of the magnet in an uncovered 59 so take a look. If it's roughcast it'll look like this:

The WLH uses roughcast but it's one of the few non-Custom Shop pickups that do.

It seems that sometime before 2000, most of the production pickups went polished while most of the Custom Shop pickups continued with roughcast.

I think of the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop and Seymour Duncan Pickups as being two different and separate entities.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

+1 for the A4 59n and the RCA5 59b.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

 

[JimmyO]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

They made the switch from roughcast to polished sometime before 2000. Some people say they have 59's from the 90's with polished but all of mine are roughcast. You can see the surface of the magnet in an uncovered 59 so take a look. If it's roughcast it'll look like this: View attachment 77433

The WLH uses roughcast but it's one of the few non-Custom Shop pickups that do.


It seems that sometime before 2000, most of the production pickups went polished while most of the Custom Shop pickups continued with roughcast.

I think of the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop and Seymour Duncan Pickups as being two different and separate entities.

Thanks for the photo. The magnet does look pretty rough. Seeing as the standard production WLH uses roughcast A5 I wonder if SD could help get one into a 59 Trembucker for me? I remember hearing about something called a shop floor custom, wonder if they still have this option.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

Thanks for the photo. The magnet does look pretty rough. Seeing as the standard production WLH uses roughcast A5 I wonder if SD could help get one into a 59 Trembucker for me? I remember hearing about something called a shop floor custom, wonder if they still have this option.

I wouldn't do that.

I'd just buy a 59 Trembucker and put a RCA5 magnet in it.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

Thanks for all the suggestions, looks like the rough cast Alnico V into a 59 trembucker could be a good place to start. Was hoping that something off the shelf would work, but I could perform a magnetectomy myself. My 59 neck pickup is from the late 90s, I wonder when Seymour Duncan made the switch to regular A5s, and why they would do it if it doesn't sound as good. Maybe you would know what magnet is likely in the neck pickup, it's from about 1998-1999. I already have a couple of A4 magnets. Maybe I could use a RCA5 for a bridge trembucker and put one of the A4s in the existing 59 neck humbucker.

You can generally look at the side edge of the pickup. Depending on if there is any coil tape there, and how much, you should be able to see the end of the magnet and maybe peek down the inside a wee bit. Polished is smooth and perhaps slick. Rough cast is not, but it will be rough.

You should be able to go to the Mojotone site (where I get my magnets) and search to see if hey have photos of magnets that reflect the difference. Or hit up google for some photos of polished and rough albino mags.

 

[JimmyO]

Re: Bridge humbucker for blues rock - not too compressed

Is there a way to get the WLH in a trembucker? It's my favorite bridge humbucker from Seymour Duncan, but I only see it in standard Les Paul size.