Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

Masta' C

Masta' C

Well-known member
I recently discovered that the SD Custom Shop makes a proper JB/59 hybrid bridge pickup for certain ESP "Exhibition" series guitars, which are beautiful, but terribly expensive.

Has anyone here ever made or tried a JB/59 hybrid? I tried searching, but there wasn't really anything about it.

Videos of the ESP guitars sound pretty awesome! The JB/59 hybrid seems to have a tight response with plenty of sparkle up top and the right amount of sizzle/rudeness/attitude (whatever you want to call it, ha ha!) :)

I'm especially curious how the JB/59 compares to the 59/Custom hybrid. I know asking about such an uncommon pickup like this is a total shot in the dark.

Several other hybrid discussion threads suggested that the JB and 59 were simply "too far apart" to make a decent hybrid, but, after hearing these clips, I'm thinking peeps be crazy...



 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

This is why I don't post clips. :notworthy
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

Wasn’t there a guy here recently that had that pickup? Iirc, he didn’t like it.
He contacted me about buying it from him (I had previously told him I might be interested) but the shipping from Europe was too much.
That said, I’m not 100% sure it was a JB/59.....it was a JB something though....maybe a JB/Custom?
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

It was a JB/Custom.

I'm sure a JB/59 would be terrif. Also cermag has A2,3,4,5,8 double thick mags for sale on their site now. They're 2.5 pounds and shipping is 13.5 pounds. So I spent $25 for 2 mags. Not exactly an arm and a leg.
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

Clint 55 said:
It was a JB/Custom.

I'm sure a JB/59 would be terrif. Also cermag has A2,3,4,5,8 double thick mags for sale on their site now. They're 2.5 pounds and shipping is 13.5 pounds. So I spent $25 for 2 mags. Not exactly an arm and a leg.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I thought so. Couldn’t remember 100% though.
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

Call it an educated guess, but I'm betting the JB/59 is a totally different beast than the JB/Custom. I haven't played a JB/Custom, but the JB/59 in those videos seems like a more open sounding JB or a slightly more compressed '59, which are both good directions in my opinion.

The JB/59 sounds like it would be right at home in my chambered swamp ash, maple neck, Floyded super-Strat.

On a side note, I'm still waiting for someone to make a JB/Demon hybrid like I inquired about a few months ago. :)
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

I have a JB/Super D which is similar. The Super D has the hex poles and a kind of scooped wind. I think it's great. I think you're right about the comparison.
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

Masta' C said:
Call it an educated guess, but I'm betting the JB/59 is a totally different beast than the JB/Custom. I haven't played a JB/Custom, but the JB/59 in those videos seems like a more open sounding JB or a slightly more compressed '59, which are both good directions in my opinion.
Click to expand...

That evaluation sounds about right. There could also be a bit more hum from a 59/JB due to the mismatched outputs of the coils. But, that would never bother me. I've made many different hybrids, not the 59/JB however, but the hum in any of them was not much. Heck, I play P-90s, any hybrid is going to have less hum that THAT!
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

I posted previously about a pickup I wound as an experiment, with one coil as:
44AWG, 11.5K

and one as:
42AWG, 5.15K

Now, I'm a hobbyist, and *not* Seymour Duncan, so I don't know how or even if this would apply to SD coils, and those are hotter than the JB and '59 coils (which should be about 8.3K and 4.1K, respectively), but that was the pickup with the weird 'comb filtering' going on; almost as if it had two audible resonant peaks.

Again, not equating my crappy, hand-wound stuff to SD stuff, but I'm curious if the JB/'59 would show that same duality to its tone, because of the large mismatch between coils?

Larry
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

THIS IS INTERESTING!! In particular seeing Duncan has absolutely ignored and stonewalled us here on the Forum about a neck Hybrid but built the 59/Jazz Hybrid for ESP in this one so??
PICKUPS:(Neck)Seymour Duncan 59/JAZZ Hybrid, (Middle)Seymour Duncan SSL52-1RW, (Bridge)Seymour Duncan 59/JB Hybrid TB
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

SD already did that with the Fuglybucker which didn't go very far. I thought it sounded great, however.
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

I think the forum has been asking for a more "normal" looking pickup, ha ha! :)

I wish I had hung onto my Fuglies...
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

I'm pretty sure you can order whatever Hybrid you want from the Custom Shop.
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

The 59 jazz hybrid is a known classic and that works very well. The 59 JB is a horrible, horrible mismatched pickup that picks the 'bad' parts of each and makes one worse pickup. I did it, Never again. I see zero applications for such a tone. What LarryGuitar said, of the seeming two resonant peaks, I heard that too.



I once wrote a lengthy blog post about hybrid pickup recipes.

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/my-recipe-for-a-great-hybrid-pickup

In short:

* you don't want to 'skip' a wire gauge. i.e.: 42+43, 43+44. Don't try 42+44. Well, you can, but I wouldn't recommend it. Also, you have to take into consideration what I call the sweet spot of each wire gauge, per coil/bobbin. For 42, that's (around) 4K (oddly enough, 42 can be as low as 3.2 and as high as 4.5 and that really makes a difference!). 43's sweet spot is around 7K and 44 is around 8K.

Now, when you match your coils when using two different wire gaugesyou either want to have coils with both having approximately similar amounts of copper. If you have an underwound 42, you can use for example an overwound 42, but if you use 42+43, I'd recommend either both underwound or overwound or 'sweet spot'. That's why the Seth+Screaming Demon works so well (42+43) but also why the 59/custom (42+43) works really well too.

I don't know why and I lack the instrumentation to make accurate measurements, but jumping gauges or going for the extremes doesn't work. It makes for a honky pickup, sounding nasal and weird and you don't get the best of both worlds.

The SuperDistortion I saw being mentioned here, has 43awg, that's why that pickup sounds so good with a JB coil.

I'm not sure what amp ESP was using in that clip, amps can make a huge difference. But I always try out my guitars and pickup experiments on one little, custom-made amp, that's the most pure sounding amp I've ever heard, to get an honest review of the pickups. Sure, you can try whatever you want, but from my experience, what I heard in real life, the JB/59 hybrid simply sounds 'off'.
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

On the other hand, one of my favorite mods to standard Duncan pups, is to install an Alnico IV to a JB. it gives the notes bloom, it makes the leads howl and tightens up the lower mids, removes the upper mid spike. It works even better in an Alternative 8, by the way ;)
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

GrilledChickenSalad said:
Yes.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your deeply insightful post, as always.

Again, if it sounds like a "horrible, horrible mismatched pickup" and only "picks up the bad parts of each" to make a "worse pickup", then why the **** is ESP using them in their most prestigious guitars?

Orpheo, I have a TON of respect for you and I always value your input, so I'm inclined to trust you on this, but are you sure both coils were working when you made the hybrid? :18:
 
Re: Long Shot...Has anyone played a JB/59 hybrid?

Masta' C said:
Thank you for your deeply insightful post, as always.

Again, if it sounds like a "horrible, horrible mismatched pickup" and only "picks up the bad parts of each" to make a "worse pickup", then why the **** is ESP using them in their most prestigious guitars?

Orpheo, I have a TON of respect for you and I always value your input, so I'm inclined to trust you on this, but are you sure both coils were working when you made the hybrid? :18:
Click to expand...

haha, yes my man. I really tried to like this pickup. I never test such a pickup in just 1 guitar but in more; strats, LP's, SG/V/Xplorer, so I understand its characteristics best. It just sounded honky, very nasal.

The logic? I bet there is a quantifiable reason behind it but I don't have the tools to test. What my guess is, is that the capacitance and inductance per coil are too different, too far apart from one another, so you get weird harmonics and weird cancelations across the spectrum

As to why ESP would choose to opt for that pickup? Man, no idea. I wouldn't ever choose that and I haven't ever since. I know that once I decided that a 42+44 awg hybrid wasn't for me, I never tried it again.

I have to admit, though, that I am in doubt as to the validity of that listing. That listing seems an exact copy from the description of that clip you posted (or vice versa) and I'm simply ascribing this to an error in the listing ;) I see no other way to make sense of it, haha. But I have listened to the clip and despite the heavy gain and substantial processing in production, I can hear the honky, woody, slightly nasal tone I didn't like. But lots of gain and a clip can mask a lot.

But don't take my word for it of course. I wouldn't mind to hear you say, hey man good talking but you were wrong on this one, I for one love this pickup.
 
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