I tried a DiMartino super distortion and found it to be wayyy too harsh and not what I was looking for, but I did play it out of a fender 4x12 cab and a solid state Ibanez tone blaster head, so maybe the headroom wasn’t good enough or gain was too high? I aim to be playing out of a mesa dual rec stack eventually, and want a pickup that’s thick and powerful and saturated but still with decent clarity. I have my eyes on the distortion, black winter, and maybe something lower output for clarity? But can you still make up for the differences in pickup to pickup by adjusting gain, EQ, and having an overdrive in front? Like if the black winter for some reason sounds too bright in this guitar, couldn’t I just EQ it? Or achieve toughness and clarity with an overdrive? I’d like to play music with awesome thick distortion sections but also clean sections, so I plan to put a jazz in the neck for that, with intention to go total bridge switch or total neck switch when going from clean to dist. I’m aiming to play 90s emo core with quiet loud dynamics but with distortion that is super crushing, kind of like Hum. I dig the modern feel of the black winter the most tbh, but worried it might be too hot and the notes might smear too much for chords and strumming and sustained chords, but I think that could be helped with the aforementioned edits to the settings? I mostly play in a whole step down and drop C, and don’t play too much fast right single note trem stuff, more chords and chugs. Sorry for the unorganized writing, and thanks for all the help, you guys make chasing the tone dragon way more smooth.
