Invader Love

Re: Invader Love

I love the Invader bridge pickup. I've got one in a couple of different guitars....a VF401 and a project Strat. Both guitars are about as different as can be and the pickup works great for me in both, I never experienced the "muddy" aspect some have mentioned. The VF401 I use mainly for metal and hard rock stuff, sometimes detuned to C standard. The Strat I use more for classic rock/hard-edged blues stuff tuned to standard pitch. The Invader works great in both contexts. Glad to see it getting some positive remarks!
 
Re: Invader Love

I saw one going cheap a few months ago, and its a Duncan I had never tried, so I grabbed it. I was super surprised. I always had this idea in my head that it was going to be some super-hot, massive output, sludge monster, but I could not have been more wrong. If you took a Screaming Demon and dialed back some treble, added a touch of mids, and got rid of the hard/stiff feel, and added a tiny bit of output, it would be close to the Invader. Does well for chuggy rhythm as well as shred type leads. It has moved WAY up my list, past many that are fan favorites like the JB, Demon, and Custom. I could see how it could be a little dark in an already dark sounding guitar, but I think its a fairly balanced pickup overall.
 
Re: Invader Love

I have never been a fan of the Invader personally. Just not what my ears or guitars needed for what I'm into. That said, I have a friend with a Tom Delonge. I was really impressed with the sound. Just heavy, thick biting loudness in the best way. Serious rock beast.
 
Re: Invader Love

I used to own a set. If you want the Master of Puppets tone, look no further than the bridge Invader. It's insanely good for that brutal tone.
It's also very good for leads. Like, EXTREMELY good. Notes have a searing, raspy quality to them that's very unique.

That set was way too hot for my amp, but through 50/100 watt amps they sounded insane.
And the neck Invader is surprisingly good clean. Way less compressed than I thought it would be, so a bit weird for leads, but it sounded great anyway.
 
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Re: Invader Love

by the time people adjust the pole pieces a little it opens it up and you can do more than say fear factory style stuff to my ears anyways. I mean it's got a stupidly high inductance like just under 10H (9.6H roughly) as we all know how high the DC resistance is. You're the second person who I've seen call it bright. I thought the first person was nuts I mean this in a good way the guys played all over Canada so I have respect for him. He was playing it on a mexican strat.Single volume and tone sort of setup with a typical 47nf capacitor. I forget if i did 50s wiring on it as I've known this guy for 5-8 years.

For anyone who isn't a fan of the invader some things to try
to adjust the pole pieces use a floyd rose allen key , the closer they get to the strings the more the string responds (extra volume / brightness)
1m pots can help - extra volume and brightness
a no load tone pot if you want to replace just one pot (500k)
a smaller tone capacitor like a 10nf or 22nf if people find it too muddy, dark or compressed.
stainless steel strings to brighten it up. I find it's one of those pickups

if its too bright one 250k pot, stay away from no load tone pots , larger tone capacitors, half wound or pure nickel strings. Pure nickel strings are more for people with fixed bridge guitars. A larger tone capacitor would be like 68nf or so as even at 10 it'll cut some frequencies but like going from a 8 to a 9 high E some people will notice it more than others.

What I like about really loud pickups is parallel and coilsplits/coiltaps can be more useful too

for pole piece adjustments even though this isn't an invader the same principal applies
 
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Re: Invader Love

I have my tb-8 wired 500k volume-only in my maple neck-thru mahagony warbeast tuned to Eb with a 10-50 EB slinky set. Not the least bit muddy, just beefy and crisp with full mids.
 
Re: Invader Love

I go through phases of loving it. What I've come to find is it's the best bar magnet humbucker for splitting—it does a helluva good Tele impression—and it's my favourite rhythm pickup for mid-gain tones when one coil is turned down a touch. I now pretty much only ever use Invaders with a variable split or some form of resistor switch on one coil. With the south coil hushed down to about 80-85%, but the north coil still full, the sound is fantastic. Not having a tone control also helps a lot; you don't want to ever be bleeding off any treble.

That said, it's always too muddy for high-gain and the only time I get anything approaching a nice clean out of it is when it's split. (And even then, my appreciation for clean single coil tones is also something that comes and goes.)

I'd really like SD to officially produce some kind of 'Invader mkII' that had more unbalanced coils as standard, because it'd be nice to just have that sound automatically without having to muck about wiring it up special.

I keep meaning to make an Invader-Custom hybrid, too. Maybe offset the oversized pole pieces in a reverse-slant so they're on the north coil for the plain strings and south coil for the wound ones.
 
Re: Invader Love

I have no idea why some people call it a muddy pickup.

Sure, compared to a super dry, ultra-modern pickup it sounds a bit overdone and bloated, but tighten your right hand, adjust the EQ wisely, and get a high headroom, high gain loud and open. it will tighten up and cut like crazy, with a very unique texture.

Here's Ola Englund using a very adequate Boogie head with a V and Invaders trying to nail the MOP tone. No modeling/IR crap.
He does a great job I think.


I tried my Invader set with a Peavey 6505+ and it sounded amazing. Through my Tweaker it didn't exactly work, they were too much for a low gain head with a tiny preamp section.
 
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