Bridge humbucker with balance of gain and note clarity?

[Rottenriffer69]

Is there a bridge humbucker pickup that has the most amount of saturation and crunch but still retains note clarity with complex chords? I’ve been recommended the Pegasus and omega but am worried they might not be able to saturate as well as hotter pups will under high gain. I am using the black winter with a tubescreamer now which is plenty hot and great for chugs and simple chords, but the chords with a lot of notes get completely lost in a din, which leaves me preferring much lower output pups for that type of playing. Is there a pickup that strikes just the right middle ground? Is alnico V better for this sort of thing? Is it better to go medium output ceramic like with the custom or higher output alnico V in this situation? The BW does have ceramic magnets and a high wind like the omega though, and them biggest difference seems to be EQ. So could this tonal result just be achieved with lowering gain and adjusting EQ? Thanks

 

[Mincer]

The Pegasus and Omega are great suggestions, and there are no worries- they can handle as much gain as you got. Both are very modern sounding, too, especially if you like the 'gain with clarity' thing.

 

[xxxplorer]

Dime said it best back in the day. Some pickups sound like you're throwing a bunch of gain on top of an ultra clear clean sound... and some pickups do the 'squishy' or saturation thing and smash it together.

For me, getting clarity AND saturation is what I want. Bill Lawrence L500XL, Dime bucker, Jupiter Rails... Do this exceptionally well. Wagner Ironman does it even better for how I play.

I'm testing a Motor City Afwayu today. More for fun.

In the Duncan line I liked The Custom, El Diablo, Pearly Gates (Surprised me), Dime Bucker, Jupiter. Never touched a Pegasus or the other one as the bands that play them never have a sound I like lol.

 

[xxxplorer]

Oh BLACK WINTER

 

[Seashore]

It depends on the guitar, but I wouldn't use a Pegasus for this. I tried it with both A5 and ceramic; it didn't have enough bite and it lost note definition with high gain sounds. Nice sound, good for cleans and leads, not what I want for riffs.

The Distortion neck model is pretty cool as a dry, crunchy bridge pickup, and I like the Invader in one particularly bright guitar, especially using an EQ pedal in front with a little hi-mid spike dialed in. For all around clarity and crunch, I'm a Bare Knuckle fan. My favorite pickup for this kind of sound is a BKP Cold Sweat bridge model. I also have two guitars with Rebel Yells and I use a ceramic Warpig in the bridge of my #1 player.

 

[littlemachine]

FWIW I don't play high-gain/metal any more, but when I did I loved the Full Shred set for this exact purpose. The output is much higher than the SD site implies (I remember they drowned out my EMG 81 and 60A I had in a similar guitar, and a JB I had in another) but because all the power is in the higher end, you get clarity.
I used to use them in a Les Paul Studio (no maple top, very warm) for drop C#, D standard, drop C, and at one time DADDAD, with only up to a .052 for the lowest string, into a Marshall JVM with two T75s. I typically ran my B/M/T at 6/7/5 and 0 presence; if I turned up the treble or presence at all, the Full Shreds could get quite harsh. I never needed the amp's final distortion channel because the medium one with the gain on 6 was enough, with the Full Shreds, for death metal. That's partly because the JVM is a little higher-gain than most Marshalls and partly because the Full Shreds were just that hot. Unless you have a pretty mild amp (pre-mid-80s design) then the Full Shred will hit an amp hard enough for any purpose.

Maybe there's a more appropriate pickup that has come out since those days, but if I was going to get back into metal today, I'd go right back to the Full Shreds myself.

 

[Hiwatts and Gibsons]

I have nowhere near the amount of experience with HB's as many here do being a single coil lover at heart.

That said I also play a lot of heavy music with higher hard rock and metal type levels of gain while being used to great clarity.

Out of my experience with HB's the ones that immediately come to mind are...

Modern Hot HB's...

Gibson Adam Jones Bridge pickup
Gibson 498T

Vintage output HB's...

Vintage Gibson Tarback
​​​TV Jones Supertron
TV Jones Powertron
Gibson Burst Bucker

 

[htrd]

I find Pegasus a bit mushy under the heavy gain, maybe Custom or Custom 5 would be better. I like Pearly Gates Trembucker for this, but I use it on the heavily downtuned guitar (B standard, Drop A) with a lot of low end. It could be a bit thin for the standard tune, depending on your style and preferences.

 

[Securb]

I am using the black winter with a tubescreamer now which is plenty hot and great for chugs and simple chords, but the chords with a lot of notes get completely lost in a din, which leaves me preferring much lower output pups for that type of playing.

I play Black Winters in a Les Paul and an Ibanez Roadstar. I play some fairly complex chords with lots of gain and have no problems with note separation or clarity. Before investing in new pickups, I would try a couple of other overdrive/gain boxes. Also, bringing back your volume just a hair might help.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

I don't find any problem with clarity with the Black Winter. Like... whatsoever. There is a video of Keith Merrow playing Black Metal on it with pretty complex chords that kind of agrees with my experience.

I have the Custom as well on one of my guitars right now, and while I love it, and I find it pretty clear, I don't find it any clearer than a Black Winter *when set right*.

Personally, I feel that if you're finding more clarity with lower output pickups, I think it's just a matter of lowering the gain for the 'Winter to match the clarity of those lower output pickups. I bet that if you use those same lower output pickups with the same settings that you use for the Black Winter, you get more clarity on the chords, but also much weaker chuggs. So, like Securb mentions, I think it's best if you play around with settings.

 

[weepingminotaur]

I'm all about that chugga-chugg life, but when I need to hear chords under gain, Black Winters never give me trouble.

 

[Rottenriffer69]

Thanks a ton guys! I think I’ll try the EQ adjustments and also do a comparison with lower output pups to see what I prefer and if I can get them to sound similar or specialize settings for specific tone purposes. Have a good one everyone

 

[Securb]

Thanks a ton guys! I think I’ll try the EQ adjustments and also do a comparison with lower output pups to see what I prefer and if I can get them to sound similar or specialize settings for specific tone purposes. Have a good one everyone

Here is a song I recorded with the Black Winter in my Les Paul. In the verse, I moved from a b5 to a 5th in the chord structure, and you can hear the movement inside the chord well.

 

[AdrianSD]

Try to lower the pickup first. Then swap the wound strings piece poles with short hex poles. If, after these changes, BW is still not rite, the problem is probably not the pickup.

 

[ICTGoober]

Bill Lawrence XL-500.

 

[Hot Octopus]

Get Fryette amp and don’t worry as much about the pickup.

 

[Bowtomecha]

The Pegasus takes distortion like a sponge, in that you need to throw a lot at it. It shines with a kind of pleasant beating, combing sound with complex chords. I only got along with one in a six string mahogany ESP though. But it is not a good pickup to match in a mixed guitar setting if it doesn’t have its own exclusive channel or settings. I kept having to use boosts or more gain to get it to compare to my other guitar. You’ll notice that there’s almost no examples of it in a lead guitar situation. It’s always prog/djent rhythm reviews. It’s kind of dinky sounding when playing lead. It doesn’t have much character to me in the end. You know how you drink cranberry juice and it leaves that dry taste on your tongue? Imagine licking a paf style pickup right afterwards and that’s the tone you get lol. There aren’t any guitarists that I can think of that use it exclusively as their flag ship sound. I’ve never heard one track that screamed Pegasus is Tone. Scale the Summit dabbled with it and it’s just a thin sounding personality.

A pickup that did everything I asked of the Pegasus with personality and whatever aggression or politeness I threw at it? The Pearly Gates. If they tweaked it just a tiny bit for a slight modern hifi sound with some bass, I think it would nail any rock/metal tone out of the box.