First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

jmh151 said:
The Slash AII pickups, in my opinion, sound alot thinner. Hotter, but thinner
Click to expand...

x2.

I prefer the sound of the A2P / PG combo.

Anyhow, awesome clips, awesome playing, thanks to SD folks for sending them to Moose for us to get some "independent" reviewage, and big props to Moose for conducting the comparison in such a well-controlled way.

Cheers to all!
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

Seraphial said:
+1, same impression here.

The PG wasn't as...tubby...I suppose the word is. Maybe it's the playing, but you can definitely hear a difference on that last note. There's more spank on the PG.
Click to expand...

+1 on that. PGn/Slash bridge would be a killer combo methinks...
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

dr. ad said:
try different speakers or headphones, guys

nice chops moose
what amp was that, btw?
Click to expand...

Thanks all for the compliments!

Amp rig was the Orange Tiny Terror into an old Rivera 2x12 cab with some V30's that are well broken in... mic was a Shure VP88 (stereo) about a foot back from the cab right into a Fostex FR2 field recorder at 24-bit 44.1kHz. So no fancy preamps or any studio trickery.

To be honest the differences in the clips ARE indeed very slight and once they were dumbed down to 320kbps MP3... well... the differences became even more minuscule.

Frankly I'm not surprised to see some of you say that you can't hear a difference in the clips because it IS ever so slight. The differences here are smaller then say, comparing the '59 to a Seth Lover & Pearly.

The bridge pickup IS ever so slightly hotter with a bit more midrange slice. Is that thinner? I dunno... maybe a hair but it's not lacking bottom. Probably just more upper mid 'grunt' on the Slash, or at least that's how it comes across here, instrument in hand.

But like I said earlier the AII that I pulled out is overwound to begin with (8.30 or thereabouts, spec is 7.9) which makes the differences between the Slash & the removed AII smaller then they would 'normally' be if the old pickup was closer to spec.

The differences between the regular AII & the Slash neck are more pronounced... more top & definition overall.


Seraphial said:
The PG wasn't as...tubby...I suppose the word is. Maybe it's the playing, but you can definitely hear a difference on that last note. There's more spank on the PG.
Click to expand...

'Round' I think is the word. Pearly has more 'spank' for sure... that "scooped" thing that keeps the guitar from becoming too "large" and smeary. The Slash neck is somewhere between the PG & a regular AII.

Its funny though... when I made the clips after the swap I wasn't entirely sure what I played for that end lick on the neck pickup. Had to "learn" it and even then it wasn't the same... but I put it down at least 4-5 times & picked the one that was closest to the original.

The one I almost went with had this CRAZY harmonic that peeled out of somewhere... really killer! I almost put that one out just for the squeely but decided to go with the other because it was more like the original lick.

One thing that seems to be there and doesn't ever translate to clips (holds true for lots of things) is how a piece of gear responds when you play it... and this seems to be with the Slashers, is just how "responsive" they are.

Everything seems a bit more 'alive' and things like pinch harmonics are just a little more accessible. They might not sound all that different... not night & day, but they sure do FEEL different.



JeffB said:
and yeah sounds like you've got a original Gary Moore sig from your description- what color is it?
Click to expand...

Its an amber sorta thing... not a burst though like the Gary Moore, and its got Grovers which the GM never had.

I've got a few pictures that'll probably get posted later of the swap.. been hella busy around here...
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

dr. ad said:
that was a tiny terror..?
Click to expand...


YES!!!


You expected something else?


P1010074.jpg
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

J Moose said:
Thanks all for the compliments!

Amp rig was the Orange Tiny Terror into an old Rivera 2x12 cab with some V30's that are well broken in... mic was a Shure VP88 (stereo) about a foot back from the cab right into a Fostex FR2 field recorder at 24-bit 44.1kHz. So no fancy preamps or any studio trickery.

To be honest the differences in the clips ARE indeed very slight and once they were dumbed down to 320kbps MP3... well... the differences became even more minuscule.

Frankly I'm not surprised to see some of you say that you can't hear a difference in the clips because it IS ever so slight. The differences here are smaller then say, comparing the '59 to a Seth Lover & Pearly.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the info !
Now i feel better too.

I knew i am not going deaf and nor am i tone deaf ;)
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

J Moose said:
One thing that seems to be there and doesn't ever translate to clips (holds true for lots of things) is how a piece of gear responds when you play it... and this seems to be with the Slashers, is just how "responsive" they are.

Everything seems a bit more 'alive' and things like pinch harmonics are just a little more accessible. They might not sound all that different... not night & day, but they sure do FEEL different.
Click to expand...
Funny, herein lies basically what I've been trying to communicate about the Derrig Appetite Les Paul. It has a liveliness to it, and these pickups bring that character to a denser guitar made with modern techniques and today's available selection of lumber. Perhaps a less sophisticated way to put it is that it makes your guitar sound like a more broken it, "better" version of itself. :dunno: There is really an "eleven" factor to these that is not rooted in output or frequency curve.
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

Thanks for the clips!
I've got the Alnico II Pro Slash and I'm gonna install them in a Gibson Les Paul Traditional. Do I need to change the volume pots from 300k to 500k? (tone pots are 500k) What pots are in your Les Paul? Thanks for the info!
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

frankfalbo said:
Funny, herein lies basically what I've been trying to communicate about the Derrig Appetite Les Paul. It has a liveliness to it, and these pickups bring that character to a denser guitar made with modern techniques and today's available selection of lumber. Perhaps a less sophisticated way to put it is that it makes your guitar sound like a more broken it, "better" version of itself. :dunno: There is really an "eleven" factor to these that is not rooted in output or frequency curve.
Click to expand...


That's it . . . i am deff geting a set now !

I love my stock A2P's, and these sound, well, just that lil bit "better".
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

LucianoM said:
Thanks for the clips!
I've got the Alnico II Pro Slash and I'm gonna install them in a Gibson Les Paul Traditional. Do I need to change the volume pots from 300k to 500k? (tone pots are 500k) What pots are in your Les Paul? Thanks for the info!
Click to expand...

Great question that I dont see answered. Should one go with 500K pots??
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

I like 500k on almost every humbucker in almost every situation. Gibson puts 300k volumes and 500k tones in the Appetite guitar. That sounds like a good idea but I'd still default to 500k in all four spots because that's just what I like personally.
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

frankfalbo said:
I like 500k on almost every humbucker in almost every situation. Gibson puts 300k volumes and 500k tones in the Appetite guitar. That sounds like a good idea but I'd still default to 500k in all four spots because that's just what I like personally.
Click to expand...

Thats what I figured. I think Im gonna do it right and order a kit from RS and change pots, caps and pickumups.
Thanks Frank!
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

Nice sound on these clips..

Based on these clips, I like the PG neck a little bit better than the Slash, but I like the Slash bridge, has just a bit more kick as well as clarity than the older model.
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

Over the last year several people have emailed or PM'd the pot value question to me. I never even thought about it originally when making the initial post.

The Lester I installed the pickups in, which has also been my main guitar for the last bajillion years has bone stock Gibson 300k pots.

Truth be told I do actually have a set of 500k long shaft CTS pots in the parts box and was going to swap them at one point but never got around it... always have better things to do. If its not broken right?

I dunno, I also never realized how much the 300k pots "suck" until I started reading all the interknot hype and BS.

Its funny, but a few months ago forum member 'RockStarNick' dropped by with one of his Lesters that has 500k pots and a Brobucker/59. We played both guitars into his Bogner and my Rivera among other amps. At one point he asked what pots were in that Lester because he "really loved" the taper...

Go figure.

Anyway, as a follow up on the initial review... after playing the Slashers for several months and tweaking pickup heights, polepieces etc I ended up putting the old AII & PG back in. Was shortly after he came by actually.

Wasn't so much about the quality or sound but its entirely about sound.

Huh?

Well to be honest the difference in the bridge pickups is very slight, given that the AII I had was overwound to begin with. The make it break it deal was the neck pickup and middle position specifically. I still like the Slash neck a whole lot more then the regular AII, it was more "vocal" and "open" on the top end which I dig a lot but really it boiled down to one BIG thing...

Familiarity.

For as great as the Slash AII's are they made my main guitar a bit of a stranger... basically, I fukked with my blankie and ended up regretting it.

Call me a creature of habit, I'll take that but I depended on that guitar to deliver certain tones and while the Slash AII's were very very close in character, there was a slightly different shading to it.

The largest factor in that overall were the middle position sounds, both pickups on. Again the tones were great, more 'pop & cluck' then the regular AII's but I had rigged the 4-conductor wiring for an alternate middle position sound that I flat out can't get with 2-conductor pickups.

I have plenty of other guitars with "straight" middle position sounds... not having my secret trick wiring took a huge palette of sounds off the playing field... couldn't really live with that.

If I ever get another Lester someday I wouldn't hesitate for a moment about dropping the Slashes in, but for now they're back in the parts box awaiting a home. Anyone want to send me a 9-10 pound LP standard with a fat neck???
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

I have Gibson LP with regular APH-1 alnico pro's pickups. I find my bridge pickup sometimes to trebly, a bit sizzling.
Would like to try a hotter Slash model but..
Many people compared new SLASH Alnico's as brighter pickup then regular Alnico. Reading SD chart, Slash Alnico has lower Resonant peak - 6khz compared to 6.7khz of regular alnico - so actually it has less treble (?):werd:
I'm aware that new Slash pups have more midrange push/bark, so maybe that might sound like more treble..(?)

I wonder if someone could tell me are the new Slash pickups warmer and with less treble then regular alnico? :33:

THNX for any input :)
 
Re: First impressions of the new Slash AII pickups

J Moose said:
Well, before they arrived I knew I'd be somewhat scientific about it and to that end made some audio clips which are in the hands of Frank Falbo. I don't have a way to host public audio... sorry... He said he'll post 'em at some point. I hung a mic, plugged in... rocked... then flipped the amp to standby, slacked the strings and dropped the Slashers in place... took the amp off standby, played the same riffs and that's what 'ya get.

The one thing (two?) I didn't do was measure the pickup heights before I removed the AII & PG... nor did I tweak the polepieces of the Slashers which were pretty well flat compared to the tweaked out AII & PG combo. Other then that its exactly the same rig. The amp wasn't switched off... mic wasn't moved... nothing was touched! Pickup heights were eyeballed into place and that was that.

For anyone who was hoping that the new pickups would be up around the "elusive 10k PAF" wind... sorry kid. Keep dreaming. We all know (or do we?) that DC is only one small guage of a pickups sound and DC can vary from day to day, even hour to hour as you hold it in your hand and it gets warmer or colder. But for the sake of science, here's the DC off all pickups as I did the swap;

AII – 8.29
PG – 7.35
SLB – 8.50
SLN – 7.91

So... man... the sound??? What do they sound like???

In a word?

Rockin!

Working the bridge, the difference was NOT night and day. In fact, while its indeed noticable under hands and live in the room, it IS indeed a fairly subtle difference but a difference nonetheless. The tone was pretty much the same, just turned up to "11" as we often say. There's a hair more midrange & bark there... a little more "push" and a bit livelier. Not that I've ever really wished for an 'improvment' over the AII but if I had it would likely be this pickup! Everything I like, just more of it.

For the record its likely worth noting that the AII pro I removed seems to be slightly overwound and above, but not out of spec with its 8.29 DC resistence. At various points I've measured the DC on that pickup between 8.2 and 8.35 if my memory isn't failing though it has been many years. Its a 4-conductor, short leg pickup as is the Pearly.

The real suprise was the neck Slasher. To be honest I was expecting the same sort of thing I got from the stock AII which is smooth & round for single note "lead" work & boomy for chords & low string riffage. Not the case! There's quite a bit more hair & articulation there... pick attack & note definition is really there which is something I was missing with the original AII that was installed. Its also VERY well matched with the bridge pickup and while it doesn't have the 'snap' that Pearly has... it doesn't seem to be boomy, nor is it overlly round but it IS smooth and round! Pearly was a little more "scooped" sounding?! This was fatter and thicker, but not as murky as I remember the original AII neck in this guitar, which by the way is still here & installed in another guitar where I like it a lot!

Once posted the clips will speak for themselves... and again, this is all based on the very first impressions as played through one amp for about an hour. But I've also had the same pickups in this Lester for many years and sorta know what to expect as it would move from one amp to another. Both of these pickups sound great, they aren't super-hot... its not like a booster was kicked on, and in fact they don't even "seem" to have a higher output, but just "more tone" if that makes any sort of sense.
Click to expand...


enjoyed your "first impression but i have some questions for you.

1. could you explain to me if the pups are so great why everyone i have talked to that has tried these pups dont care for them and replace them shortly after getting them?

2. how much did you pay for them? ( sorry but all of the favorable reviews i see on these pups come from people that got them dirt cheap or free)

3. could the reason people dont like them be because the strings arent properly set centered over the pole pieces on the bridge making them not have optimal position in the pickups magnetic field? ( from my understanding the pups were designed around what slash used for appetite which was a VINTAGE les paul which had the same bridge pole spacing as neck whereas all MODERN les pauls have a wider pole spacing).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top