I want your opinion! What kind of pickup for what wood?

[Haud]

I have a few guitars I want to fix up and want your help to decide what kind of pickups. (1) Washburn G-5V is HSS strat style, think it is Mohogany and has a pull vol. and washburn 600T by Floyd Rose. (2) Johnson JS800 is SSS strat, alder body. So far have a duncan preformer Scorcher HR 101 B in the bridge but stock EMG's in the middle and neck and I want to change the tremolo too. (3) Squire 20th
Bullet just one humbucker and pot fixed bridge, light weight guitar dont know what kind of wood it is, neck bends out of tune easy.

I like Dimarzio and Seymour Duncan. Am thinking of a Dimarzio X2N or Evo in the bridge of the Washburn or should I go Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates or Gibson? Not sure what to put in the other's Fast Track I or II ? Hot Rails ? Cool Rails ? Vintage Rails ? Choppers ? Pro Tracks ? Cruisers ? Velvets ?

The Johnson sounds good with the Scorcher in it, is there much diff. between it and a real Hot Rail. If not I might put two more in it or are Fast Track II better. Are there other Fulcrum tremolos that are much better or should I router it for A Rose?

No plans on the Squire maybe an Evo?


I like Clasic Rock,Clasic Metal. Mostly Heavy HENDRIX WAS THE BEST.

 

[CenterStaqeSilver]

Re: I want your opinion! What kind of pickup for what wood?

That's a whack of questions. You have to narrow things down. I've built a guitar from scratch and have read through and listened through all the pickups you've mentioned, where available, on this and the Dimarzio website, as you must, to know what you're dealing with.

To match things up correctly, first know what kind of wood you have. Some have said that the way the guitar sounds unplugged will give you a good hint as to how the natural EQ of the guitar will try to affect the tone.

Then decide what you want as a final output in terms of general limitations and options for EQ, style (ranging from simple, clean and detailed to heavy distortion, country, jazz, rock, grunge, blues, etc), tonal balance options (are humbuckers OK or will you need single coils?, scooped mids, highs, lows, etc.)

Then you have to find pickups that match for volume output.

Then learn about how the tone and volume pot qualities can affect treble, and choose either the 250, 500 or 1meg options, and learn about the cap and resistor options for treble bleed and other issues. Essentially you want the pickups to be unimpeded by the pots or other electronics, or you might find that you can fine-tune your pickup tone by changing the pot type. I've seen many people comment on that for Gibsons and other humbuckers and obviously single coils would be hell with a 1meg or even 500 on a bright guitar wood.

Then learn all you can about the EQ, power output and tonal characteristics of all the pickups you can, and match up carefully. Search on this website for others who have chosen as you think you want to, and see what their results were.

For sound samples, SD has most pickups posted with sound samples, but I find the Dimarzio samples often useless because the sound recorded is too often on high distortion from songs off of albums (highly processed and who knows how?), so on a cheap MP3, how are we supposed to find the reference difference when the setup for the pickups is not at all based on a neutral playing situation like this website did. Stupid thing to do, by Dimarzio.

Then, go to guitar stores and play various guitars even if you can't get what is exactly like your guitar. Play the Gibsons and Fenders as they are, on the same amp tonal setup in the store's amp, and at least know how the tonal variations sound.

One last thing to remember is that metal covers on humbuckers and the distance to the strings of each post on a humbucker can affect volume and tone, so you must do a custom setup for each pickup on a guitar to give it a chance to sound it's best.

There are dozens of other things that affect tone, but the wood, what you want and the careful selection of pickups and matching of pickups is something that's available to you, at least here, and to a faulty degree at Dimarzio. You might want to go to Lace's website to hear their sound samples. Probably far more reliable than Dimarzio. I've also learned a fair deal at the websites of Lindy Fralin, Bill Lawrence, Kinman and Rio Grande pickups.

I built a custom guitar from scratch that is a hybrid of an SG and a Telecaster, did the process I described above and ended up with a SD Jazz neck and a Lace HOly Grail 1500 in the bridge. I wanted something less tinny than a Tele, but not as dark as an SG, with clarity and musicality. I know that the pickups are a good choice, but I am probably going to have to fine-tune things with careful reselections of the right pot type to deal with the treble since the woods are oak body, maple neck, ebony fingerboard and steel reinforcements. It also got a 27 inch scale by accident but it sustains until next week!