Hi there!
I'm thinking about changing the neck pickup in my ESP LTD EC-401VF (old model). It came with a SH-4 in the bridge and a SH-1 in the neck.
I replaced the bridge pickup for a SH-5 and certainly like the new sound. But regardless of the fact that the SH-5 and SH-1 are often distributed as a set it doesn't work for me too well.
Maybe it's worth mentioning that the new pickup doesn't have a cover whereas the other one does.. However that's just a hypothesis.
So, what is it that I don't like about the SH-1?
My impression is that it is capable to produce really fat sound - and the sound is a bit too fat for my likings.
Playing with the pickup height and the height of the individual screws doesn't really do the trick. When I set them lower I'll get a less fat sound, but it loses definition too.
And I'd like to have nice clean tone, so that's not really satisfying.
When using a lot of distortion the sound tends to be muddy. I think that's a general problem with neck pickups - and some people might even want that exact tone - but I could use a bit less mud in there.
Another important point is the middle position sound. I'd like to use the middle position as my general clean tone, so it should be well balanced.
From my experience the SH-5 dominates there, causing more of a thin sound, which isn't really what I want.
It's not entirely impossible to get a good sound when adjusting both pickups - but then again their individual sound is affected too.
So, what am I looking for? I don't really know. I don't know a lot about pickups and likely had luck with the SH-4 to SH-5 replacement.
When I was looking for information on the SH-5 I also found information on the SH-2. What I read about it sounded good to me, so I consider it an option.
But then again there might be other pickups which would do the trick too - or better.
If you can make any sense out of the information I provided and have any pickup suggestions or feedback on the SH-2, please share it with me.
Thanks in advance.
I'm thinking about changing the neck pickup in my ESP LTD EC-401VF (old model). It came with a SH-4 in the bridge and a SH-1 in the neck.
I replaced the bridge pickup for a SH-5 and certainly like the new sound. But regardless of the fact that the SH-5 and SH-1 are often distributed as a set it doesn't work for me too well.
Maybe it's worth mentioning that the new pickup doesn't have a cover whereas the other one does.. However that's just a hypothesis.
So, what is it that I don't like about the SH-1?
My impression is that it is capable to produce really fat sound - and the sound is a bit too fat for my likings.
Playing with the pickup height and the height of the individual screws doesn't really do the trick. When I set them lower I'll get a less fat sound, but it loses definition too.
And I'd like to have nice clean tone, so that's not really satisfying.
When using a lot of distortion the sound tends to be muddy. I think that's a general problem with neck pickups - and some people might even want that exact tone - but I could use a bit less mud in there.
Another important point is the middle position sound. I'd like to use the middle position as my general clean tone, so it should be well balanced.
From my experience the SH-5 dominates there, causing more of a thin sound, which isn't really what I want.
It's not entirely impossible to get a good sound when adjusting both pickups - but then again their individual sound is affected too.
So, what am I looking for? I don't really know. I don't know a lot about pickups and likely had luck with the SH-4 to SH-5 replacement.
When I was looking for information on the SH-5 I also found information on the SH-2. What I read about it sounded good to me, so I consider it an option.
But then again there might be other pickups which would do the trick too - or better.
If you can make any sense out of the information I provided and have any pickup suggestions or feedback on the SH-2, please share it with me.
Thanks in advance.
