H
heymcz
Guest
I just got my guitar back this morning with the Full Shred bridge installed. Here are my initial thoughts: :33: :bigeyes: 
:headbang: :headbang:. To translate from emoticon speak: I plugged it in, and thought, oh crud, this thing sounds thin, well it sustains decent for chords, though. I started to adjust a few things: first I re-E.Q.'d my amp to Bass:8, Mids:10, Treble:4, then I hopped up the gain quite a bit. Finally, I rolled back my treble knob some. It came to life like an insane buzzsaw, a sadistic wall of mids.
The Full Shred is a perfect match for the Duncan '59 that I have in the neck. See, I had a Duncan Custom in there for about a year, and i was pretty happy with it, though I'd doubted it some when I started seriously recording, because it was too blurry. But with the Custom, I couldn't turn the gain up very high, or I'd lose definition. That made the '59 sound a tad flat, because it wanted more gain than I could give it. The Full Shred needs gain to live, though, and the setting that I thought sounded good for the FS sounded awesome for the '59. Ditto for rolling back the tone knob.
During the session, I relearned how precise this pickup is, every flub and flaw reproduced much more faithfully than with the Custom. The '59 still gives me some slack if I want it. But the solo voice of the 'Shred has once again taken root in my soul: not a lot of sustain, but a lot of character, something almost vocal to it, but not brutally vocal like a wah. It was my main bridge pickup for almost a decade, so I've come full circle, and it feels very satisfying. There's practically no bass in the 'Shred, BUT, here was the big surprise:
I flipped the pickup selector to the mid position. Holy crap! Usually I know that it's going to be some lame halfhearted thing, but man, oh, man, the middle position sounds better than each of the pickups individually! It takes the bass from the '59, adds in a bunch of mids from the 'Shred, and well, the highs are about the same, so it's a wash there. But a very balanced and usable tone.
I love the Alnico V hitting the amp hard. I really feel it's so much cleaner than the Custom, smoother, rounder, more warm, alive and natural. It has a bunch of lowermids and middy mids, but not muddy middy mids! The Custom had more uppermids, this has more lowermids, but like I said, almost no true bass. (Makes it easier to mix!) The treble, of course, is huge, but not piercing, and now that I've managed it, sounds fine. It really does that buzzsaw rhythm thing well, and it's pretty darn hot. When cranked into high gain, it sustains chords almost like a keyboard! It just never stops unless you make it.... Cleans are kinda thin, but there again, the middle position shines, and well I'll probably stick chorus on it anyway. It's the first time I've ever thought of the middle position as being equal to or better than either of the pickups.
Guitar is Ibanez SZ520, shown in avatar. Mahogany body with thick maple cap, a very bright sounding instrument. Other pickups tried in this axe: Custom, EVH, PGn, Custom Custom, Distortion, Custom 8. Amp is Crate VFX5112 1x12 combo (it's all tube, BTW, Class A/B...it's so good that they didn't even put the word "Crate" on the front of it....) Anyways, that's my review of the Full Shred: a pickup with a unique voice that happens to be right for me and the style of music I want to play with the gear I have. Your results may vary.
:headbang: :headbang:. To translate from emoticon speak: I plugged it in, and thought, oh crud, this thing sounds thin, well it sustains decent for chords, though. I started to adjust a few things: first I re-E.Q.'d my amp to Bass:8, Mids:10, Treble:4, then I hopped up the gain quite a bit. Finally, I rolled back my treble knob some. It came to life like an insane buzzsaw, a sadistic wall of mids. The Full Shred is a perfect match for the Duncan '59 that I have in the neck. See, I had a Duncan Custom in there for about a year, and i was pretty happy with it, though I'd doubted it some when I started seriously recording, because it was too blurry. But with the Custom, I couldn't turn the gain up very high, or I'd lose definition. That made the '59 sound a tad flat, because it wanted more gain than I could give it. The Full Shred needs gain to live, though, and the setting that I thought sounded good for the FS sounded awesome for the '59. Ditto for rolling back the tone knob.
During the session, I relearned how precise this pickup is, every flub and flaw reproduced much more faithfully than with the Custom. The '59 still gives me some slack if I want it. But the solo voice of the 'Shred has once again taken root in my soul: not a lot of sustain, but a lot of character, something almost vocal to it, but not brutally vocal like a wah. It was my main bridge pickup for almost a decade, so I've come full circle, and it feels very satisfying. There's practically no bass in the 'Shred, BUT, here was the big surprise:
I flipped the pickup selector to the mid position. Holy crap! Usually I know that it's going to be some lame halfhearted thing, but man, oh, man, the middle position sounds better than each of the pickups individually! It takes the bass from the '59, adds in a bunch of mids from the 'Shred, and well, the highs are about the same, so it's a wash there. But a very balanced and usable tone.
I love the Alnico V hitting the amp hard. I really feel it's so much cleaner than the Custom, smoother, rounder, more warm, alive and natural. It has a bunch of lowermids and middy mids, but not muddy middy mids! The Custom had more uppermids, this has more lowermids, but like I said, almost no true bass. (Makes it easier to mix!) The treble, of course, is huge, but not piercing, and now that I've managed it, sounds fine. It really does that buzzsaw rhythm thing well, and it's pretty darn hot. When cranked into high gain, it sustains chords almost like a keyboard! It just never stops unless you make it.... Cleans are kinda thin, but there again, the middle position shines, and well I'll probably stick chorus on it anyway. It's the first time I've ever thought of the middle position as being equal to or better than either of the pickups.
Guitar is Ibanez SZ520, shown in avatar. Mahogany body with thick maple cap, a very bright sounding instrument. Other pickups tried in this axe: Custom, EVH, PGn, Custom Custom, Distortion, Custom 8. Amp is Crate VFX5112 1x12 combo (it's all tube, BTW, Class A/B...it's so good that they didn't even put the word "Crate" on the front of it....) Anyways, that's my review of the Full Shred: a pickup with a unique voice that happens to be right for me and the style of music I want to play with the gear I have. Your results may vary.
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