Ok guys, I recieved the A2 JB proto from Stevo a while back, and while I was waiting for a chance to take my axe down a guitar shop to put it in, I did a search on what Stevo had said about the A2 JB... and stumbled across a clip of the A2 JB in a poplar tele. I seriously liked that tone, and well, subsequently the pup ended up in my poplar gordon smith strat, which wasn't the original plan :/
So I ended up taking the Custom (which was in my unuseable condition RG 570) and putting it in my RS 530 (which cost as much as a squier!!) along with a Fred pup I had wanted for a while bought off Sly_D (great price-fast shipping
) to go in the neck.
And well, all I can say is I can't be happier with my tones!
I'll start with the A2 JB -
Ok the original pup was the stock Ceramic bucker, really agressive sounding, sounded great for heavier music and leads, but the pup had a lot of high end, and I usually ended up running my tone pot almost halfway down a lot of the time while playing distorted rhythms.
The A2 JB is hot, middly - almost boxy sounding... but in a good way. Gone are the high highs, replaced by a much smoother top end. I have no problem getting enough highs out of this pup, but do take into account I have a no load tone pot on my guitar and do run it on 10 for leads.
It has more than enough output for heavier music, and handles it really well, which I didn't expect from an A2 pup (I'll do some clips of it later on). It isn't very bassy, but that I think is a good thing since I'm not the kind of player who boost their bass anyway.
The cleans sound a lot warmer to me than the stock pickup which was kinda bright and not so full sounding clean.
The RS Ibie I own I love to death; the neck shape is just "right" but the tone was far from it... God knows what the stock pups were - "not good" or "akin to excrement" are the only words suitable to use on this forum.
The Custom bridge has a load of bass, or at least considerably more than I'm used to. Previously it was in a floating floyd RG, and it had a load of bass there, but my RS trem is flush to the body with the springs tight so it doesn't move (making it more like a hardtail) - equating to yet more bass :laugh2:
For metal rhythm this pup is great, and surprisingly also great for rock rhythms across the board, you can get great medium gain tones out of it also.
The lead tone is quite chunky, and really excells at high gain shreddy kinda stuff imo.
Clean the pup doesn't do that much for me as a humbucker though it isn't all that bad split.
The Fred neck was completely different to what I expected and what I'm used to. I usually lean towards a brightish neck bucker but the Fred isn't bright at all in the neck.
But that's not to say it's bad!
It sounds big, fat and greasey... Well thats the best I could come up with!
Clean - it sounds great! Nice, plummy and full. Split it gets kinda strat-ish, great for funky rhythms. Distorted it's quite smooth and fat sounding. I think it's a great tone for leads, kinda obesse sounding :smoker:
It has got me gassing to put a no load tone pot on this guitar also though, I don't see it costing too much.
Thus ends my first full pickup review thread :burnout:
So I ended up taking the Custom (which was in my unuseable condition RG 570) and putting it in my RS 530 (which cost as much as a squier!!) along with a Fred pup I had wanted for a while bought off Sly_D (great price-fast shipping
) to go in the neck.And well, all I can say is I can't be happier with my tones!
I'll start with the A2 JB -
Ok the original pup was the stock Ceramic bucker, really agressive sounding, sounded great for heavier music and leads, but the pup had a lot of high end, and I usually ended up running my tone pot almost halfway down a lot of the time while playing distorted rhythms.
The A2 JB is hot, middly - almost boxy sounding... but in a good way. Gone are the high highs, replaced by a much smoother top end. I have no problem getting enough highs out of this pup, but do take into account I have a no load tone pot on my guitar and do run it on 10 for leads.
It has more than enough output for heavier music, and handles it really well, which I didn't expect from an A2 pup (I'll do some clips of it later on). It isn't very bassy, but that I think is a good thing since I'm not the kind of player who boost their bass anyway.
The cleans sound a lot warmer to me than the stock pickup which was kinda bright and not so full sounding clean.
The RS Ibie I own I love to death; the neck shape is just "right" but the tone was far from it... God knows what the stock pups were - "not good" or "akin to excrement" are the only words suitable to use on this forum.
The Custom bridge has a load of bass, or at least considerably more than I'm used to. Previously it was in a floating floyd RG, and it had a load of bass there, but my RS trem is flush to the body with the springs tight so it doesn't move (making it more like a hardtail) - equating to yet more bass :laugh2:
For metal rhythm this pup is great, and surprisingly also great for rock rhythms across the board, you can get great medium gain tones out of it also.
The lead tone is quite chunky, and really excells at high gain shreddy kinda stuff imo.
Clean the pup doesn't do that much for me as a humbucker though it isn't all that bad split.
The Fred neck was completely different to what I expected and what I'm used to. I usually lean towards a brightish neck bucker but the Fred isn't bright at all in the neck.
But that's not to say it's bad!
It sounds big, fat and greasey... Well thats the best I could come up with!
Clean - it sounds great! Nice, plummy and full. Split it gets kinda strat-ish, great for funky rhythms. Distorted it's quite smooth and fat sounding. I think it's a great tone for leads, kinda obesse sounding :smoker:
It has got me gassing to put a no load tone pot on this guitar also though, I don't see it costing too much.
Thus ends my first full pickup review thread :burnout:
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