Several months ago, dissatisfied with the output levels from the JazzN pickup I've been running in my main axe, I managed to pick up an old SH12 Screamin' Demon on eBay. It was an older version of the pickup, with no logo on the baseplate or bobbins, long baseplate legs, and a sticker on it that said "12BJ" In the beginning of July I got around to installing it in my main guitar and making recording to compare the sounds of the two pickups. The thread with the recording themselves is here. These are my impressions based on those recordings and the past month of playing.
The JazzN has plenty of bass, and bright sparkly, I almost daresay jangly highs. In the right axe with the right amp and right EQ, it can make some beautiful clean sounds, and stays fairly tight under gain as well. However, in my cheap basswood Ibanez, there were times when the lows felt just a little too much. Also, mids aren't very strong. While this makes for nice clear clean sounds, it also makes it easy vanish from the mix, especially when any of the other instruments are heavy in the mids. My final complaint was that it wasn't quite hot enough. I could move the pickup closer to the strings for more output, but the bass would become worse.
The Demon has less highs, more mids, and slightly less lows than the Jazz. It isn't as sparkly and jangly and sounds warmer to me. While I do miss some of the sparkle and jangle the Jazz had, the tighter sounding bass of the demon makes up for it. The demon is definately hotter. The fact that some find the Demon lacking in the bass in the bridge position helps it work just fine in the neck position. It can be brought rather close to the strings without becoming muddy. I actually had to back the pickup away from the strings because initially it was hot enough to out-loud the JB8 I'm running in the bridge, and the JB8 is by no means a quiet pickup. Anything that can out-loud a JB8 should do just fine for leads work in the neck position, IMO.
The JazzN has plenty of bass, and bright sparkly, I almost daresay jangly highs. In the right axe with the right amp and right EQ, it can make some beautiful clean sounds, and stays fairly tight under gain as well. However, in my cheap basswood Ibanez, there were times when the lows felt just a little too much. Also, mids aren't very strong. While this makes for nice clear clean sounds, it also makes it easy vanish from the mix, especially when any of the other instruments are heavy in the mids. My final complaint was that it wasn't quite hot enough. I could move the pickup closer to the strings for more output, but the bass would become worse.
The Demon has less highs, more mids, and slightly less lows than the Jazz. It isn't as sparkly and jangly and sounds warmer to me. While I do miss some of the sparkle and jangle the Jazz had, the tighter sounding bass of the demon makes up for it. The demon is definately hotter. The fact that some find the Demon lacking in the bass in the bridge position helps it work just fine in the neck position. It can be brought rather close to the strings without becoming muddy. I actually had to back the pickup away from the strings because initially it was hot enough to out-loud the JB8 I'm running in the bridge, and the JB8 is by no means a quiet pickup. Anything that can out-loud a JB8 should do just fine for leads work in the neck position, IMO.
