Re: The El Diablo "neck" pup is born.
Finally got her wired up this morning. Wow! Super sweet. Since someone brought the old "Virtual3rd Humbucker", (aka Slutbucker), thread back to life, so I decided to do that here. I'm glad I did. The middle sound is amazing. The neck pup kinda reminds me somewhat of the PATB-1 neck pup. It has that full frequency response, hifi-ish character, with maybe a teensy bit of high-end rolled off. Not surprising for a pup designed to be a bass pup. Smooth and warm, but not "boomy" at all. I should probably temper my enthusiasm a bit since I've only messed with it for about 30 minutes, but I'm lovin' this thang.
The "virtual" middle position is even better. The smoothness of one coil of the Ric bass pup, combined with the bite of one coil of the El Diablo bridge is sweet. It's kinda like the #4 notch position of a Strat, on Sensimilla. Oddly, wiring it up using the standard Duncan color codes, makes the two inner coils active, but remain hum-cancelling. The Ric bass pup must be internally "flipped."
The first time I installed the El Diablo, it was in a single-HB'er axe. Now, in my Blackjack, I can instantly compare it to another pup. It seems to have a touch of distortion built into the pup. It's just a slight shaping of the output waveform that sounds "dirty."
Very subtle, but there.
I haven't tried these pups into a dirt pedal yet, but that's next. I'm really hoping to get some kind of sound sample up soon. If I can't do my 1st YT vid, then I'll at least do a Soundcloud thing. I'll really try to get this up as soon as I can get my recording setup . . . . uh, set up, so to speak. Film@11.
Artie
Edit: I almost forgot. To the good folks at Seymour Duncan: take your SRB-1b Ric bass pup. Mount it to a standard humbucker base, and sell it as the El Diablo MK-II neck pup. I promise, you'll have a winner, with off the shelf parts. My 2-cents worth.
