Im in process of rebuilding/refretting/refinishing a custom guitar I built back around 2005, looking for some help choosing a neck pickup.
For a little background on the guitar itself. The body is made of a Honduras mahogany, Rock maple, and Walnut laminated together. The neck is Rock Maple with an Indian rosewood fretboard. Back when I built this guitar I was really into Van Halen and as such its step with a Floyd Rose.
When I originally built this guitar I had installed two Carvin hum buckers and had a few small setup issues. I was never satisfied with the tone or the playability so it sat around on a stand. Needless to say all of the hardware corroded and the finish was banged up pretty bad. So I decided it was time to strip it down and fix all of the problems and get this guitar back to playing order and to what it should have been in the first place.
Here are some pictures of it in its current state, stripped of finish and currently being refretted.
So Back to my pickup issue. When I built this guitar I was very much looking for a Van Halen kind of tone, but these days I find myself moving more towards a more bluesy rock tone, kinda in the realms of Joe Bonamassas tone. I just recently ordered a 78' model trem spaced nickel covered bridge pickup, but I'm having trouble narrowing down the neck pickup. Currently I'm looking at the Whole Lotta Humbucker, Pearly Gates, and the Phat Cat. I am always open to suggestions outside of these as well. So with my preferred tone in mind, am I even in the ballpark? One of my main concerns is getting something that would be too bright sounding, there's allot of maple in this guitar and it tends to be on the bright side of things. So what's the best neck pickup to pair with a 78' and get me in the warm rock bluesy realm?
For a little background on the guitar itself. The body is made of a Honduras mahogany, Rock maple, and Walnut laminated together. The neck is Rock Maple with an Indian rosewood fretboard. Back when I built this guitar I was really into Van Halen and as such its step with a Floyd Rose.
When I originally built this guitar I had installed two Carvin hum buckers and had a few small setup issues. I was never satisfied with the tone or the playability so it sat around on a stand. Needless to say all of the hardware corroded and the finish was banged up pretty bad. So I decided it was time to strip it down and fix all of the problems and get this guitar back to playing order and to what it should have been in the first place.
Here are some pictures of it in its current state, stripped of finish and currently being refretted.
So Back to my pickup issue. When I built this guitar I was very much looking for a Van Halen kind of tone, but these days I find myself moving more towards a more bluesy rock tone, kinda in the realms of Joe Bonamassas tone. I just recently ordered a 78' model trem spaced nickel covered bridge pickup, but I'm having trouble narrowing down the neck pickup. Currently I'm looking at the Whole Lotta Humbucker, Pearly Gates, and the Phat Cat. I am always open to suggestions outside of these as well. So with my preferred tone in mind, am I even in the ballpark? One of my main concerns is getting something that would be too bright sounding, there's allot of maple in this guitar and it tends to be on the bright side of things. So what's the best neck pickup to pair with a 78' and get me in the warm rock bluesy realm?
