Jeff_H
Dean Hardtail Fanologist
......in my Spalted Maple Dean Hardtail. I had a Slash Set in it that I had been testing out, and they sounded fantastic. But I have several other sets of pickups coming soon and I wanted to try out the Custom for longer than the 10 minutes I'd tried it before.
So, this is a double cream large SD logo with no MIA stamp, which was used from 83-88. The label is DCJ. Holy cow! It took me a bit to dial the height in right. It's pretty sensitive to height adjustments, at least in this guitar, but once I had it in the right height range it became this glorious driven rock and roll destroyer. I should say at this point that back in 02-03 I bought a C5 that I hated in an Epi LP and my new at the time Dean Hardtail. I tried it as a CC and as a Custom in several guitars and ultimately left it as a CC in a strat.
Back to this Custom. I don't know if it's because this is an old Custom or if this guitar just responds to it well, but again..... Holy Cow! With volume and tone on 10, it is bright (in a good way) and crunchy. You can hear every single note in chords ring out and the way it crunches is magical. The easiest way for me to describe it is late 70's to mid 80's Scorpions rhythm sound. All of those great riffs like Blackout, The Zoo and of course Rock You Like A Hurricane. If I roll the tone control back just a bit, like 8.5 or 9 it takes off just enough of the brightness and it sounds more like a PAF style humbucker. Not as aggressive vs. full tilt, but still nice and crunchy rock and roll tone. I don't find it harsh or over the top ceramic sounding like some other high output SD pickups I've tried, such as the Distortion, the PATB-2 or even the PATB-1, if I get it too close to the strings. It also really does have a good clean tone when I roll volume to 8, tone to 7 or so and switch to the clean channel with some reverb and chorus. I could use it on any rock song that I can think of where there are warm clean tones and then a switch to a hard driving rhythm.
The Custom really added a nice little kick or extra gear to my DSL40c, on both the Green Classic Crunch channel and the Red channel #1. On the Green Classic it's like the gain knob went to 11 or 12 and on Red 1 I could get the same crunch with the gain knob at noon as compared to needing it at 2-3 o'clock with a 59' or even a Slash bridge. It also just makes my amp sound better. Just better.
I have a set of WLH's, Low Output set from James at ReWind and a set from a guy named Mark Norwine (his "Vic Set) that will be here this week. The plan was to try them all in this Spalted Maple Dean, as it's been finicky about what pickups sound good in it. The Slash Set has been the best so far and I could have been perfectly happy with them, but I have a chance to try these other sets so I don't want to miss the opportunity. I might even have to displace my favorite PAF Greenie set in my other Hardtail to try some of these sets.
At any rate, this Custom rocks and I don't want to take it out of this guitar. It's that good. I don't know if it's because it's an 80's version or what. I do have a few older pickups from that era now that sound really good and I do think some of these pickups made with the different 80's materials sound better than current production models. That's my personal experience anyhow.
Give the Custom a try if you want a pickup that can do classic rock to metal. I think the Custom would get as heavy as you want with the right amp. If you can find an old 80's 3 letter sticker version..... even better. I was genuinely blown away.
So, this is a double cream large SD logo with no MIA stamp, which was used from 83-88. The label is DCJ. Holy cow! It took me a bit to dial the height in right. It's pretty sensitive to height adjustments, at least in this guitar, but once I had it in the right height range it became this glorious driven rock and roll destroyer. I should say at this point that back in 02-03 I bought a C5 that I hated in an Epi LP and my new at the time Dean Hardtail. I tried it as a CC and as a Custom in several guitars and ultimately left it as a CC in a strat.
Back to this Custom. I don't know if it's because this is an old Custom or if this guitar just responds to it well, but again..... Holy Cow! With volume and tone on 10, it is bright (in a good way) and crunchy. You can hear every single note in chords ring out and the way it crunches is magical. The easiest way for me to describe it is late 70's to mid 80's Scorpions rhythm sound. All of those great riffs like Blackout, The Zoo and of course Rock You Like A Hurricane. If I roll the tone control back just a bit, like 8.5 or 9 it takes off just enough of the brightness and it sounds more like a PAF style humbucker. Not as aggressive vs. full tilt, but still nice and crunchy rock and roll tone. I don't find it harsh or over the top ceramic sounding like some other high output SD pickups I've tried, such as the Distortion, the PATB-2 or even the PATB-1, if I get it too close to the strings. It also really does have a good clean tone when I roll volume to 8, tone to 7 or so and switch to the clean channel with some reverb and chorus. I could use it on any rock song that I can think of where there are warm clean tones and then a switch to a hard driving rhythm.
The Custom really added a nice little kick or extra gear to my DSL40c, on both the Green Classic Crunch channel and the Red channel #1. On the Green Classic it's like the gain knob went to 11 or 12 and on Red 1 I could get the same crunch with the gain knob at noon as compared to needing it at 2-3 o'clock with a 59' or even a Slash bridge. It also just makes my amp sound better. Just better.
I have a set of WLH's, Low Output set from James at ReWind and a set from a guy named Mark Norwine (his "Vic Set) that will be here this week. The plan was to try them all in this Spalted Maple Dean, as it's been finicky about what pickups sound good in it. The Slash Set has been the best so far and I could have been perfectly happy with them, but I have a chance to try these other sets so I don't want to miss the opportunity. I might even have to displace my favorite PAF Greenie set in my other Hardtail to try some of these sets.
At any rate, this Custom rocks and I don't want to take it out of this guitar. It's that good. I don't know if it's because it's an 80's version or what. I do have a few older pickups from that era now that sound really good and I do think some of these pickups made with the different 80's materials sound better than current production models. That's my personal experience anyhow.
Give the Custom a try if you want a pickup that can do classic rock to metal. I think the Custom would get as heavy as you want with the right amp. If you can find an old 80's 3 letter sticker version..... even better. I was genuinely blown away.
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