Pickup recomendations

T

tman694

New member
Hello everyone, first post.

I am looking for recommendations for pickups to look at.


I had a LP style guitar come my way, IYV the price was good, free. New nut, level and crown the frets and she play's decent. I wasn't overly impressed with the original pickups and put in a jazz/JB set. I usually use this guitar for rock to metal, don't spend too much time clean.


I find I really like the JB, though the high's are a bit flat, but all round a great improvement. The highs on the jazz just sing though, but I find the low end overly bassy and flubby so i really avoid using it. So I basically use the JB most of the time and switch to the jazz for some solo's.


Are there any pup's with the low/mid response of the JB with the high's of the jazz?


I'm thinking of replacing the jazz, or moving the JB to the neck and picking up a BW or DIST. Not sure how the JB responds at the neck position and what a good match for a hotter bridge position would be.


I appreciate any response or advice.


Mahalo
 
1) Welcome to forum. :)

2) Free guitars are the best guitars. :D

3) I also had trouble with the stock Jazz. I found it to be too scooped for my taste. It was very bassy with brittle highs. If you're comfortable with magnet swaps, I would try that. Very inexpensive way to change a pickup's tone. A2 is a good place to start. They are easy to get. And they will cut the bass and accentuate the mids. They will tame the highs a bit but not too much I don't think. There are other options too. I'm sure other more experienced members will have more suggestions. Good luck!
 
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It's not clear to me if you was wanting to change the bridge or the neck.

For the bridge, Custom 5 is like a loud Jazz bridge and would match a Jazz neck. A regular Custom would have the brightness without scooping out the mids. Perpetual Burn might be another option for the bridge.

I've never heard a Jazz neck be overly bassy on the low end. That makes me think it's not adjusted correctly, if that's what you are saying. It's not clear if you are complaining about the JB or the Jazz. A JB in the neck could be overly thick. Depends on the guitar. A Pearly Gates neck would retain the high end and not have any loose, bassy low end. For a high output neck, a '78 Model is bright with tamed low end and more output than typical neck pickups. A Full Shred neck would also keep the highs and tame the low end. I believe the Full Shred is the same coils as the Jazz with different pole pieces to alter the frequency response? (Someone can correct me on that.)

Probably the easiest mod is to just cut the pole piece screws on the back of the baseplate. That would make it brighter and tame the low end a bit.
 
I've got a lot of Jazz pups and haven't found any of them to be overly bassy.
I agree with Beau that a C5 might be a better match for the Jazz neck. The EQ could then be tweaked on the Amp to get rid of the extra bass. (But then this is coming from someone who just doesn't like the JB...I've never been able to mod it in anyway with mag swaps or polepiece swaps to make it sound good to me).
 
There isn't a lot of bass in the Jazz, so make sure it isn't super close to the strings. If you want something with even less bass, though, that would be the Full Shred.
 
Maybe it’s the individual guitar then. In fact, now that I think about it, I only had the overbearing bass problem in my Tele when I tried to put the Jazz in there. I used to have it in an SG and I don’t remember having the same issue. So maybe that has something to do with it.
 
If you love the Jazz all except for the lows, just put a 0.1μF cap in line on the hot lead.
Or maybe use ArtieToo's famous De-Mud Mod in line on it instead.
Leaves the overall one intact, but tightens flubby lows by cutting only the boominess.

There isn't anything else that has highs just like the Jazz neck.
I'm told the Sentient falls somewhere in between the 59 and JazzN, with nice contained lows...

Still, if you have a T-top sitting around you might try that. They do well at the neck in a dark-voiced LP.
 
If you have an LP style guitar with friggin 4 knobs then use one of them as a bass cut control. Don't move the JB to the neck. The hotter the pickup, the more bass it has. If you think the Jazz is bassy, the JB will be a slop fest.
 
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Some clarity please...
You find the Jazz overly bassy in the new Iyv guitar or in a Tele?
Or are you saying that the new Iyv IS a Tele type (I didn't know that Iyv made a Tele type)?
Or did you take the Jazz out of a Tele where it sounded too bassy and put it into the new Iyv guitar?
What style/model of guitar is the new Iyv?

Still, I can't imagine that a Jazz neck would sound too bassy unless you've got it too high, almost touching the strings. (I've done that before when I WANTED to get more body, bass and mids, out of a Jazz neck...it STILL didn't get too bassy, however).
 
Thank you all for the responses.

The guitar, is an LP style. Thinking it's the guitar, had this pup combo in a different guitar before and didn't notice the same response with the jazz. I've played with height prior to posting, but didn't get to where I liked it.

I wasn't sure which way I wanted to go regarding pups. Just tossing out idea's. Never tried a jb in the neck position so wasn't sure how it would respond. From the response I don't think it's one I would prefer.

I think I'll try a high pass off the jazz or convert one of the tone controls to a bass cut.

Still tempted to buy a BW set to see how they sound.

Too many pups to try.
 
marcello252 said:
I searched for it but haven't find it so far, what kind of stuff is it?
Click to expand...
It's a very simple (and very subtle) bass-cut mod that trims only the lowest frequencies.
Just a cap and resistor in parallel.

The original suggestion was to wire it in the split link between two coils of a humbucker.
But it's subtle enough that you can use it on a whole pickup, in line between the hot lead and whatever lug (pot or switch) it connects to.



Here's a comment from someone who tried it on a 59N:
Artie was kind enough to send me his de-mud mod. I installed it and tried it for a few practice sessions. Initial results were good, but I really got to hear this set up at this weekend's gig.
The treble and mids are left untouched with this mod, but the low end seems to be rolled off quite a bit. This doesn't make the 59 sound smaller or thin by any means. It's almost like using the low cut button on a quality mixer. the bass is still there, but it seems that the frequencies that cross the line from "chunk" to "boom" are all gone.
I really recommend this mod to anyone who owns a 59 but is not happy with the low end.​


If you really wanted to cut a lot of bass, you could use just a .047μF cap as discussed in this SD blog entry.
However, that mod is less subtle - it may thin the tone more than you want.

When used inline like this, the effect is opposite from when a cap is used for a tone control.
In this arrangement, the larger the cap, the less bass it cuts.

I've been told (by someone who'd played the actual guitar) that Roy Buchanan's famously great-sounding old Tele had a 0.1μF cap in line.
A cap that large can trim the thump without killing the punch and fullness, or altering the voicing of the mids & treble at all.
 
I can't imagine doing a Demud mod on a Jazz. It has no "mud." It's the most "hi-fi" pickup I've heard. Must be the wood.

Psyclones are a close 2nd.
 
ArtieToo said:
I can't imagine doing a Demud mod on a Jazz. It has no "mud." It's the most "hi-fi" pickup I've heard. Must be the wood.

Psyclones are a close 2nd.
Click to expand...
​
If a Jazz neck is muddy (and the highs of a JB sound flat), I agree this particular guitar's got to be dark and boomy.
They can vary an awful lot and IMO this one likely is a genuine outlier, far from average voicing.
 
Didn't someone on here do a JB/jazz hybrid at some point?

If so any comments on how it sounded?...if you're still around.
 
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