Need a pickup advise for 1H guitar (non-modern metal sound)

[GuitarDoc]

Custom, or Custom5, are always great choices.
Distortion would be good.
Alt 8 is good especially if your guitar has a naturally bright tone.
JB is a horrible choice.

 

[BleedingFingertips]

Ok guys, it took longer than I thought. No time for anything with three kids and everyone getting sick…

Thanks for your contributions. I‘ve made my choice and I‘ll try as hard as I can to bring my guitar to a luthier this Saturday. I‘ll report back when the PU swap is done and share my impressions.

 

[Mincer]

What did you get?

 

[BleedingFingertips]

It‘s a JB. I picked up my guitar just yesterday. Based on my experiences with other SD pickups and my tube amp, I figured that JB would do the job. Unfortunately, I can neither prove or disprove it cause my amp seems dead. It worked as recent as two weeks ago so I need to look inside or drive back to Thomann.

I was able to play through my Line6 prosessor but I find that the frequency response of Line6 ampsims is not very organic. They sound roughly the same with every humbucker I have.

 

[MikeS]

The JB is a fine choice. It's all over so many classic metal recordings.

The Custom is a good choice. I will even recommend the DiMarzio Super Distortion. It can cover a lot of bases too. Work the volume/tone controls and you'll be amazed at the different tones that can be had with it. It works really well in Basswood. The Custom behaves much the same way.

These were the first two that came to mind for me, maybe because they are two of my favorites. My Custom-loaded axe is presently tuned to C# standard. I run a Super Distortion in E Standard in my Dean Soltero and it's my go-to for the types of sounds the OP was looking for. If the JB doesn't work out, either of those would be where I would go next.

 

[MikeS]

Forum software won't let me edit the above... mean to clarify when I said classic I meant classic 80s and 90s metal. The pickup was a mainstay of that era.