Neck pickup for metal. Attention all metal heads

[marty_the_westie]

What does everyone think is a better choice for metal; a full size humbucker, or a stacked humucker such as a hot rails or cool rails. Better yet, how much realisticly would you even use the neck pickup? EVH used single humucker guitars for a long time. Please help me out.

 

[Nightburst]

Re: Neck pickup for metal. Attention all metal heads

IMHO for any kind of music it is good to have a lot of tonal options.

I prefer a lower output neck humbucker that is PAF like, with that deep, hollow sound. Good cleans and a nice fat, howling lead tone.
For rythem I need the output, bite and tighness of a bridge humbucker.

Realisticly, with my current band (hardcore, not really metal but loads of distortion most of the time) I rarely use the neck humbucker at all, BUT at home or in other jam situations I love to noodle around with the neck humbucker.

 

[bloodswords]

Re: Neck pickup for metal. Attention all metal heads

i use the neck for solos more than riffs, i play metal of course...

i have several neck units here:
*Full Shred- easily my fav, lots of clarity under high gain
*Distortion- a close fav, less polished midrange than the FS
*Lil '59- suitable for high gain settings, less obtrusive than the above siblings...

 

[mrid]

Re: Neck pickup for metal. Attention all metal heads

I really, really, really like the JB in the neck for metal. It's ultra-hot, so it saturates the preamp nicely, and it's not at all dull or dark like you might expect. I also like the Jazz neck. It has a certain clarity about it, as if you were simultaneously running the signal into a clean and a dirty amp.

 

[strat_master]

Re: Neck pickup for metal. Attention all metal heads

i dont play metal, but i would assume having a neck pick up will help you get a warmer tone when needed. Most metal guitarists who can actually play guiatr, with eddie being the exception use the neck humbucker once in a while. Although i dont have any experience with neck humbuckers in general.

 

[rocksoldier]

Re: Neck pickup for metal. Attention all metal heads

I really, really, really like the JB in the neck for metal. It's ultra-hot, so it saturates the preamp nicely, and it's not at all dull or dark like you might expect. I also like the Jazz neck. It has a certain clarity about it, as if you were simultaneously running the signal into a clean and a dirty amp.

+1

The jb is great in the neck, sounds super fat but not muddy.
And the great thing about it is that it´s have plenty of output, so it balances great with a high ouput bridge humbucker.

I doesn´t really like to have a low output neck pickup when using something hot in the bridge, because i like to have about the same volume in the neck as the bridge, but that´s a personal thing of course.

And the neck pickup is great for metal, i use it alot, mostly on solos.

 

[milkbone]

Re: Neck pickup for metal. Attention all metal heads

Check out a FRED, I have one in my NX6 and it sounds great! Back it of and it's like hot blusey, crank it and it has a nice round singing voice.

 

[Thurisarz]

Re: Neck pickup for metal. Attention all metal heads

Check out the Seymour Duncan Jazz model, listen to Dave Mustaine, he uses the Jazz in the neck and a JB in the bridge. I had a Jazz in the neck for awhile in my gibson SG (i needed the money so i had to sell it)

 

[B2D]

Re: Neck pickup for metal. Attention all metal heads

I prefer Seymour Duncan JB's, Hot Rails Bridge, and Dimarzio EVOs in ther bridge for hard rock/metal sounds.

For the neck slots i like Dimarzio PAF Pros, Evos, and SD Jazz pickups.

All of these pickups are bright, tight, and focussed with a nice harmonic spread of tones and still retain excellent definition with distortion.

 

[theodie]

Re: Neck pickup for metal. Attention all metal heads

Here is what will work great in the neck for metal that I would recomend,
JB
Jazz
Full shred

 

[Davey]

Re: Neck pickup for metal. Attention all metal heads

a full shred set
JB/59 or JB/jazz combos
for more balls to the wall a DD/whatever you like in the neck

i use the neck quite a lot. paired with the JB bridge for awesome clean sounds and for pretty much all leads