I fell out of love with the SH-6

Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

Sun King said:
@Chuck Norris: First, hey Chuck Happy New Year to you too! So, sounds like you've been at it quite a long time and obviously know what you're doing, but had you given any thought to (or actually tried) mag swapping in that SH-6?


Right now i'm using the Distortion bridge, and 59(w/A-4)neck, in a MIJ Jackson Soloist, all mahogany w/mahogany neck and ebony fretboard. It seemed to be able to handle a variety of music pretty well- 80's rock to modern metal- but i got the itch to experiment, and have an Alnico-8 in the Distortion right now. THAT is not a combo i'll stick with.
Click to expand...

Really? I was thinking of trying an a8 in my distortion as I had read good reviews of it. Why didn't it work out? I really like my stock distortion but I thought a bit more organicness would be nice..
 
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

Double thick A5 sounds as good as the Distortion is gonna get. Makes it more juicy and organic like you said while reducing fizz and maintaining detail.
 
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

Clint, where did you get the double-thick A5? I checked Addiction-FX but they're all only .125 inch. (Oh and any preference whether polished, rough-cast, etc?)
 
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

Cermag ltd. I can't navigate to the buy magnets page for some reason. Hopefully you can. I prefer polished over roughcast.
 
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

Out of curiosity, OP, what kind of amp are you running?

To me at least, the JB and Distortion are pickups that had a niche at a particular point in time based on the amps that were in common usage, and it's a niche that's vanishing. If you need to tighten up a JCM800 for high gain usage, what do you do? You put a TS-type pedal in front of it, right? Well, the JB and Distortion are basically like putting that TS pedal in your pickup; the JB models the mid-hump a bit more closely, while the Disto will give you the gain-boost and compression.

In the 21st Century, this is a lot less relevant, since most of the newer "metal" amps are tight enough without needing a mid-humped signal for tightness, and most thrash, death, or black metal bands want more tightness than you can get from just a pickup's mid-hump in front of a Marshall or Dual Recto. In both situations, there's no reason not to use something a bit more toneful (like a Custom, Pegasus, SuperD, M22SD, or whatever else that's not so knife-edge focused) in the first place.
 
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

Cynical, I would say I have not heard any modern music that has rhythm guitar as heavy in tone as Metallica's was on AJFA (emgs - high output) or Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss. All these bands now with lower output pickups are playing pretty girly music to my ears, and downtuning it and screaming just sounds juvenile to my old ears. I wonder if they played as tight riffs as Metallica or Slayer whether it would cut as hard.
 
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

Cynical said:
Out of curiosity, OP, what kind of amp are you running?

To me at least, the JB and Distortion are pickups that had a niche at a particular point in time based on the amps that were in common usage, and it's a niche that's vanishing. If you need to tighten up a JCM800 for high gain usage, what do you do? You put a TS-type pedal in front of it, right? Well, the JB and Distortion are basically like putting that TS pedal in your pickup; the JB models the mid-hump a bit more closely, while the Disto will give you the gain-boost and compression.

In the 21st Century, this is a lot less relevant, since most of the newer "metal" amps are tight enough without needing a mid-humped signal for tightness, and most thrash, death, or black metal bands want more tightness than you can get from just a pickup's mid-hump in front of a Marshall or Dual Recto. In both situations, there's no reason not to use something a bit more toneful (like a Custom, Pegasus, SuperD, M22SD, or whatever else that's not so knife-edge focused) in the first place.
Click to expand...

«a lot less relevant in the 21st century» is a relative term. Someone also claimed Les Pauls were less relevant with all the awesome features in modern guitars in a thread here recently.

Low output humbuckers into a boost pedal is internet smug points. Especially when arguing against high output humbuckers. High gain amp is also moot. When did high gain amps arrive? With the 5150? That’s what? 25 years ago? :)

Modern means diddly squat for guitarists. It’s all about feel, mojo, tone, inspiration and end results only. And nostalgia. And hero worship. ;)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

@Nagisa, both of those bands sounded better before they switched to EMGs (although, in Metallica's case, the switch to Mesa amps didn't help). Even though most of my post was about EQ, not output, the EMGs are a great example of more output making something sound weaker -- the resulting overcompression made their chugs lose all of the impact on their attack.

@Dahla -- read again, my post was mostly about EQ, not output. SuperDs, Customs, and M22SDs are all pretty hot pickups. Hot pickups still have a use if you're trying to use the input tube as an extra clipping stage, yes. Mid-humped... not so much, unless you're shooting for a tone from that brief period where people were changing their pups but not putting TS-808s in front of already distorted amps, and you're using a JCM800 or Dual Recto (most of the competitors to both of those are tighter than the originals, so you don't need a mid-humped signal as badly there), or unless you're trying for a silly-tight djent sound (in which case the Disto or JB won't be mid-humped enough for you, and you're looking for a Nazgul or an Aftermath). (Also, the SLO has been around longer than the 5150, so it's more like 30 years than 25.)
 
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

@Sun King: I'm not a big fan of mag swapping to be honest. Gave it a try a couple of times, wasn't impressed with the results. Sure, a Full Shred sounds cool with an A8, but there are so many great sounding pickups out there that it just doesn't make sense for me to try and "improve" pickups.

@Cynical: I'm playing an ENGL Powerball V2. Recently, I was able to get even more crushing tones out of it using a Full-Drive 2 MOSFET in Vintage mode in front of it.

What kind of tonewoods do you guys prefer with the Distrotion? The guitar I had it in had a maple neck-though design with mahogany wings and an ebony fret board. Plus the body also had an ebony top.
 
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

I kinda figured as much on the amp choice. Amps in the 5150II/6505+/5150III/Engl/Diezel school of high gain nearly always have circuits to cut the lows and a bit of highs on the input stage, leading to a mid-heavy signal before you hit the gain stages. JBs, Distortions, and the like were designed in an era before those kinds of amps existed; the British amps that were popular at the time didn't have that kind of circuitry. Mid-humping the signal on an amp that's going to cut your bass and treble is just overkill.

That said... apparently the Vintage mode of the pedal you were using is also mid-humped? So maybe you're just looking for something to boost the signal so the input tube clips and acts as an additional gain stage? Or, alternatively, you're just looking for a more saturated amp like a Dual Recto or Uberschall? Or maybe even just turn up the gain knob or channel volume?
 
Last edited:
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

Chuck, I'm no expert, just a guy who plays for fun, but to me the Distortion wasn't the right fit for the LTD, which was mahogany body w/maple cap, maple neck w/rosewood fretboard. The Custom w/A8 mag absolutely rocked it though. You're right, mag-swapping doesn't always work out, but the Custom w/Alnico-8 was clearly a winner.

I also didn't care for the Distortion in an Ibanez RGA 121 that I had for a while, but that was before I ever owned a tube amp- hard to even tell the difference sometimes, between pickups, with a solid-state modelling amp, ya know?

The Distortion does sound pretty good in this mahogany Jackson w/mahogany neck and ebony fretboard. It'll stay with the Distortion in one form or another. But in a perfect world I wouldn't worry about swapping magnets or even pickups, I'd go out and pick up another LTD to replace the one I sold, (hopefully with a Custom bridge), and call it done. "You don't know what you got till it's gone"! 🤔
 
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

Well it's been over three weeks now since I ordered the double-thickness Alnico-5 from Cermag, and it finally arrived today! Pretty amusing that I had to sign for something that had only about a $5 value. (International shipping, customs, etc.)

So I just put this magnet into the Distortion bridge in my Jackson Soloist (all-mahogany body, mahogany neck w/ebony fretboard). My initial impression is that this combo is very, very good! Despite its double thickness, the new A5 mag does not seem as strong as the Alnico-8 that I just had in there, so pickup height had to be adjusted to match the 59-A4 neck. The tone was an immediate improvement. I normally use 10-52's tuned a half-step down, occasionally drop-C; I haven't tried it with a LOT of down-tuning yet, but the bottom still seems about as tight as the stock Distortion and didn't sound flubby. The whole tone was definitely very aggressive, but with a little rounder top and none of the ice-pick like you might hear from the ceramic. Notes seem to have not quite as sharp of an attack, but with a little more bloom. The word "organic" gets used a lot lately, so I hesitate to use that terminology but I'd say it is definitely more "organic" with the double-thick Alnico-5. Chords have a nice cohesiveness while at the same time individual note structure and harmonics still seem to come through. A little more of a "fuller" sound.

I think this 59-A4/DD-A5 combo is as good as it gets for this guitar. Clint I believe you're the one who recommended this mag swap, so, many thanks to you! If anybody else is looking for a change in the sound of their Duncan Distortion, the double-thickness Alnico 5 is definitely worth a try.
 
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

That drop in output from the A8 could also do with an A5 (even double thick) having less mids than an A8.
 
Re: I fell out of love with the SH-6

Let it settle in a bit. Love the idea. Wonder what a double A5 would sound like in a Custom?

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top