Recommendations for Alder Body (HSH)

[stratoskier]

Greetings,
I have a few SD pups around and I was trying to decide which ones would work best in an alder-body HSH guitar with a vintage trem. In this particular guitar, I'm looking for a Robben Ford/Scott Henderson sort of vibe. I've read lots of posts in the forum but I'm still pretty fuzzy as to what might work best. The pickups I have are:
Jazz Neck
Alnico Pro II neck
Pearly Gates
JB (bridge)
Screamin' Demon (currently in another guitar, but I suppose I could move it)

I only have one SD single coil (a Vintage Staggered, I think), but it was from the neck of a matched set, so I'm guessing I shouldn't put in the middle position on this guitar (need a reverse wound in middle?). If NONE of these pickups seem like the ticket, I could order some other pups, but it'd be nice to use what I have on hand. Whatever I don't use in this guitar might wind up in a mahogany, or possibly another alder guitar, so nothing would be wasted.

Your advice would be greatly appreciated since I've spent a lot of time staring at these pups without heating up the soldering iron!
Thanks,
Bert

 

[tone4days]

Re: Recommendations for Alder Body (HSH)

welcome to the board

i dont have any alder body guitars, so i cant comment from first hand experience in that regard .. but .. from the list of pups you gave, i do have 2 of them ... i love my Alnico II Pro (neck) and JB (bridge) setup in my brian moore i.8813 (solid mahogany) ...

in my HSH guitar i have a duckbucker in the center, and like it alot, but would probably recommend a Vintage Rails if i had to do it all over again (i am partial to humbucking single coil sized pickups) .. i bet a lil59 would be good for you getting a robben ford inspired tone

if i understand correctly, you really only have to worry about RWRP when mixing single coils with single coils to achieve hum cancelling, so you could give the single coil you have a shot ..

what combinations are you wanting to get ?

good luck
t4d

 

[stratoskier]

Re: Recommendations for Alder Body (HSH)

Thanks for the reply T4D. The guitar these pups will go in has a complicated 5-way switch system plus a coil-tap (in a push-pull pot). The 5-way gives me the usual combos, except in the middle position I get the 2 outer humbuckers, rather than the single coil alone. So when I split the hummers and use positions 2 and 4 (split bridge+middle and split neck + middle), I was thinking I needed a reverse wound single to get hum cancelling.

Hey, that's an old Ibanez 540S CT6 in your signature image, isn't it? I have one of those too, but I'm just about to sell it (too many guitars). They were one of the first Ibanez with the AANJ neck on 'em. Ultra thin Wizard neck, and nice trems too.
Bert