Replacing Pickups: Stock for 59'/Custom Hybrids?

[OutsideOctaves]

I'm looking into replacing my stock pickups:

ESP LTD H100FM

I know that, acousticly, my guitar has a great tone capable of "vintage" sound. But what I notice is that the stock pickups seem to "round off the edges"... and do so way too much at times. You don't get those nice tight/crisp highs that you can get with "better" pickups. My guitar can get these highs acousticly, but like I said when I play through any kind of amp... it just misses those beautiful "shimmery" sort of "fenderish/vintage" qualities because it isn't picking up those frequencies. The bottom end, especially on the neck... is glass smooth but lacks the "punch" you get with most decent pickups... I can play bluesy kind of things on either pickup, but they just lack that "shimmer". If I play metal, or hard rock, it can do things quite decently, but the tone can lack the "edge". I think that lack of edge is this generally "glassy" tone they have overall.

Don't get me wrong, with a good amp sim, like say Poulin's Lectco, one can get AWESOME tone with the current set of pickups, but they just have a glassy bit of "undertone" still even with high gain from this amp sim.
I've heard people use this sim and get a hell-a-good tone out of it, with minimal to no processing before or after. So I have to wander if I can seriously do better than these stock pickups.


I'm currently looking at putting the 59'/Custom Hybrid pup in my bridge position, and either it's neck variant or a JB in the neck. But I'm curious as to if these pickups would actually be an "upgrade" outside of the ability to split to single coils. Would they really provide that nice "vintage" tone and still be able to play around in the area of heavy metal... like not uber-hard-core metal heh, just more along the lines of Metallica, Ozzy's various guitarists, etc.

I'm a bed-room player seeking to better my tone, and be as broad as possible in my playing. One minute I might play bluesy riffs, the next I might want to break out something more "acoustic" ala under the bridge (RHCP), then stomp out some Metallica or Ozzy/Black Sabbath, then turn around and attempt perhaps Van Halen and/or Yngwie. LOL> A lot of stuff I like to go after. This guitar currently is capable of getting closeish to darn close, but just misses on any and all of the above.

I've watched a ton of reviews/demos on the 59'/Custom Hybrid, and for the most part they seem to do all the shimmery stuff great, it's when it comes to the harder metal/hard rock sounds that I'm worried. Can this HB actually still do those crunchy, to heavy gain rhythms and smooth leads? Can it be made to sound a bit rounded off with just a few adjustments like adjusting the eq on the amp? (like for doing some of that 80's rock tone)?

I mean I watched the official video SD put out, but I'm just curious as to how much of that glassy yet bluesy tone was in heavy pre and/or post processing?

I mean I'd love to be able to use this hybrid! Especially in the new wiring I'm going to do to my guitar (I'm thinking of replacing the volume and tone pots with concentric pots for coil-splitting to all 4 SCs and blending in any combo I want that I could get without messing with the magnets or such trickery. Or better yet actually figure out a way to split to all 4 SCs and still keep the tone knob and have a way to combine them into the 11 possibilities that are there if you don't mess with polarity or additional holes in the guitar for other switches or pots.) Am I looking at the right pickup(s), at least for the bridge (the hybrid)?


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Edit:

To clarify this post before this becomes anything near an "elongated thread"... I want to say that my mind isn't set on this pickup, I am open to suggestions, same goes for the neck pickup that I have been suggested by others in videos and on forums (the JB). I hear the Jazz might be a better complement to the hybrid?
Also, I should clarify that I know I'm going for a jack-of-all-trades setup here, and that it won't be a master of any kind of tone, except maybe cleans when split hehe. I just want a better pickup, that still caters to my jack of all trades routine, but allows better clarity (Thanks AlexR for the better wording there) and yet still dirtys up enough to growl out some nice decent metal tones. Not expecting to get great Djent tones or anything lol, just thinking "metallica/megadeth" area of grit/edge. Seems the videos I posted below are evidence of all of this being possible dependent on the amp and fx used.

Is there better out there for my bridge and/or neck pups for what I want here, considering the jack-of-all-trades idea and the neccessity of being wired for coil-splitting out of the box? Remember I want clarity on cleans, and yet still can growl at ya with metal tones, and is split out the box (or, er... has the 4 wire config).

 

[AlexR]

Re: Replacing Pickups: Stock for 59'/Custom Hybrids?

Pickups tend to have better or worse areas of competency. A nice clear PAF clone will probably not even close to cut it for metal or high gain riffing - the very thing that makes it good for clean/low gain is what prevents it from being good for high gain. The shimmer you miss is the clarity from a lower output clear pickup

The 59 wind is a bit of a 'jack of all trades', as can be the Custom wind. They both have the sort of eq that will take most magnets well, and will take you from low gain to high. The combo probably won't do low gain as well as a Bonamassa set (or any of the true PAF clone winds), even with the volume down.....and will do metal passably well with an A8 (but not like a Distortion or any other high output pickup).
A JB in the neck will so far overwhelm the bridge you'd have to mount it almost to the bottom of the guitar. I'd try and make a Jazz/59 combo, failing that a Jazz neck. The latter will take higher gain better as it has a flatter eq than a 59.

Maybe a coil split, or a series parallel switch so you can get some thinner tones somewhat like a strat might help for RHCP.

What you are really asking for is about 5 different guitars in 1.......but like any jack of all trades, it is master of none.

 

[OutsideOctaves]

Re: Replacing Pickups: Stock for 59'/Custom Hybrids?

Of course, lol. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough in my OP.

As with any jack of all trades setup, it's not going to nail it absolutely. I'm more or less just trying to get as close as possible to both bluesy shimmer, and heavy metal "edge". My current guitar has 2 humbuckers that can't really be split unless I take the risky step of unwinding the tape. Not something I want to risk, so the update I'm out there for is a humbucker that can be split as they already have the coil-split done for you, you just have to wire it up as such.

What I'm looking at doing, thanks to help from a new friend on another forum, is to go and split the two new pickups (one of which might just be the 59/custom) and run all four "single coils" to one of the four "volume" pots that will be part of the two concentric pots I'm going to put in. The trade off is the loss of a tone knob, but I've heard you can do this with the amp's eq anyways... I have to research that part a little more before I commit, but either way this will allow me to have 4 single coils with "lower output" as you put it, but I can combine in any amount of the other 3 single-coils for various tones and amount of output. At least in theory, I still have to contact someone "professional" to make sure his schematic is correct and that nothing needs to be done different. Then again, I'm also searching for a solution that allows this kind of customization but with a tone pot included... without routing my guitar. (2 pot holes and a toggle hole)

This way I have the ability to "split" to a single coil for nice shimmery clarity (thank you for clearing up the terminology for me there btw), then I can dial in another single-coil for a higher output for "heavy" tone so to speak. I'm not expecting it to sound like something uber-death-core, djent guitarists would use... just something capable of that passive kind of growl. The video SD put out shows it being capable of both and then some, and so do several the demo videos out there on youtube.

Are they wrong?


Seymour Duncan's official video

Metal Demos:

Cover of Metallica's Suicide and Redemption with these P'ups and the Pearly Gates

Even heavier metal with the hybrid

I'm sure there's some pre and post on that last one with compression and what not I bet, but still.

and for the cleans:

Latter in the video, he showcases the cleans and increases gain bit by bit


All in all I think it cleans up VERY nicely as it should (designed so), and yet has some great metal tones, though a bit trebley, I'm sure that can be tamed at the amp by taking out the high bit by bit until you find the sweet spot, right? (to clarify this statement a bit more now that I reread it: "a bit trebley" meaning a bit trebely for high gain metal. I'm assuming one could compress the output and dial out SOME (but not all... not by far I would bet) of the treble. Right? It would still sound off a bit bright, but not enough that some good compression and eq couldn't take care of that...?)


Then again, I don't have my mind set on this pickup alone, I am open to suggestions. It just seems, for a jack of all trades pickup, this one is the best that I've found so far, in how it cleans up and "shimmers", and yet (again) growls at ya when you play it hard and fast as metal is meant to be.

Any other pups do this? (with the idea of coil-splitting)

Same goes for the neck, the JB was a forum suggestion and I still need to research that one. Would a Jazz be MUCH more suited to the 59/custom hybrid, or should I just go with a hybrid's neck variant in the neck position?