Re: Has anyone ever tried Joe Barden pickups? (Sorry SD!)
Funny how this tread came back to life as I enjoyed it first time around.
I'm a barden nut, but as Jeremy said, they have a very specific focus- it's one of the best pups for modern country and a great pup for the articulate side of classic rock.
I have s specials in a swamp ash Zion strat and it can get everything from single like snappy but full with clean amp settings to a thicker sound when crunched that sounds a lot like the standard gibson mini hum-
2 and 4 are very quacky while 1 3 5 are thicker.
Just to be clear, they do not sound exactly like tele or strat pups and they definitely don't sound like traditional hums. They are thicker than singles and thinner than standard hums, but they have a very fast attack with practically no 'bloom', but they sustain nicely with overdrive.
So the zion remains my prefered performance guitar for anything from Costellos Peace Love and Understanding to the tighter brighter southern rock timbres.
In SD comparision I modded a parker Nitefly as my do everything cover guitar and it has far more flexibility but can get into barden territory at times- splitting the jb in the bridge with the dmarzio cruiser in the middle gets pretty clean barden like with some spin a split.
The 4 position between the cruiser and a neck cool rails gets very close to the barden warm thick singing tone when spin a split is added with pups in series.
And speaking of spin a splits, the bardens spin very well in all positions and remain hum resistant thru about 75% of the coil roll off.
So bardens aren't for everybody, but one of the best players in our neck of the woods has 3 barden guitars that he plays almost all of the time.
Funny how this tread came back to life as I enjoyed it first time around.
I'm a barden nut, but as Jeremy said, they have a very specific focus- it's one of the best pups for modern country and a great pup for the articulate side of classic rock.
I have s specials in a swamp ash Zion strat and it can get everything from single like snappy but full with clean amp settings to a thicker sound when crunched that sounds a lot like the standard gibson mini hum-
2 and 4 are very quacky while 1 3 5 are thicker.
Just to be clear, they do not sound exactly like tele or strat pups and they definitely don't sound like traditional hums. They are thicker than singles and thinner than standard hums, but they have a very fast attack with practically no 'bloom', but they sustain nicely with overdrive.
So the zion remains my prefered performance guitar for anything from Costellos Peace Love and Understanding to the tighter brighter southern rock timbres.
In SD comparision I modded a parker Nitefly as my do everything cover guitar and it has far more flexibility but can get into barden territory at times- splitting the jb in the bridge with the dmarzio cruiser in the middle gets pretty clean barden like with some spin a split.
The 4 position between the cruiser and a neck cool rails gets very close to the barden warm thick singing tone when spin a split is added with pups in series.
And speaking of spin a splits, the bardens spin very well in all positions and remain hum resistant thru about 75% of the coil roll off.
So bardens aren't for everybody, but one of the best players in our neck of the woods has 3 barden guitars that he plays almost all of the time.
