Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

[SJ318]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

BIG + 1 for 59/Custom Hybrid.
The only high output humbucker I have tried that can clean up (unlike the JB) and still go big for any heavy metal
sound you want. I normally use Seth bridge with RCA5, but I have 1 guitar with the 59/Cust. Hyb. In the bridge paired with a Jazz bridge in the NECK. Sound terrific together.
Steve Buffington

 

[murat]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

At the moment I can have just one guitar and one amp because I'm not staying at my home for a while, so need something portable. I use Yamaha THR10X it's a high gain modeler but has sweet low gain tones too. With SH5 Custom I was getting pretty convincing tones both for high and low gain settings. (I don't want it again, I don't know why)
%50 of times I'm playing drop tuned modern metal stuff. Not much clean, but other half is mostly blues with breakup level gain. Black Winters are amazing in all modern metal demos and I'm in love with their grainy, crushing and brutal tone. But I'm afraid if they're too overpowering and harsh for everything except metal. '59/C Hybrid is a safer bet, and has a very pleasing tone. I have no idea if it lacks mids or my amp? It's sweet and versatile. But I still don't know if I'll miss brutality and clarity of Black Winters. (For example if you're playing Architects, you want big palm mutes that feels like they're trembling and grinding in your brain)

 

[The Dali]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

+ 1 for 59/Custom Hybrid from me. The guitar looks interesting, hopefully you post some completed pics and clips!

 

[Masta' C]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

All of the pickups mentioned (except the Invaders) have been good suggestions.

However, re-reading the initial post, I'm tossing my vote in for the Black Winters. The BW are tight, focused and very balanced with a nice snarl. If you wire up a coil split, they sound fantastic, as well.

The OP's initial impression of the BW was pretty darn close to reality and they will work great for the "tight (not rounded or boomy) and clear drop tuned sound" he is after.

I wish I had recorded some series and split clips when I had a Black Winter recently. For now, hopefully this link still works:

Just for the hell of it. This is BW split. Yes, there is chorus. Yes, there is delay. But it's my clean sound as is, with no post prosessing.

View attachment 51170

 

[EDX]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

just stop overthinking and slap a black winter on bridge and a pearly gates on neck, or if you have gain enough just slap the pearly gates set and set your overdrive to kill

 

[murat]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

+ 1 for 59/Custom Hybrid from me. The guitar looks interesting, hopefully you post some completed pics and clips!

I'll definitely post it. It's going to be a very unique piece!

All of the pickups mentioned (except the Invaders) have been good suggestions.

However, re-reading the initial post, I'm tossing my vote in for the Black Winters. The BW are tight, focused and very balanced with a nice snarl. If you wire up a coil split, they sound fantastic, as well.

The OP's initial impression of the BW was pretty darn close to reality and they will work great for the "tight (not rounded or boomy) and clear drop tuned sound" he is after.

I wish I had recorded some series and split clips when I had a Black Winter recently. For now, hopefully this link still works:

I'm thinking like this too. Will the volume and tone pot help me to get more natural low gain tones (to tame the harshness and overpowering gain) from BW's?

just stop overthinking and slap a black winter on bridge and a pearly gates on neck, or if you have gain enough just slap the pearly gates set and set your overdrive to kill

Wouldn't the output difference so drastic with this set? I think pearly gates has way too low output to work with Black Winter but, I never tried, maybe somebody can give a better idea.
I'm afraid I don't have enough gain to drive Pearly Gates Bridge

Seems like it's still hard to choose between 59/C and BW Set. I'll be patient and read as much ideas as I can. I have so much time (guitar is going to be finished in June I think)

 

[Mincer]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

The PG and Black Winter are matched pretty well. I think it would work nicely.

 

[EDX]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

the pearly gates is quite on the hot side for a vintage pickup, it's not like you were going to use a high output monster like the dimebucker to worry so much about output mismatch

btw, from the duncan mV chart

SH-1n '59 Model 7-Strg 572
SH-1b '59 Model 7-Strg 593
SH-2n Jazz Model 501
SH-2b Jazz Model 571
SH-4 JB Model 737
SH-PG1n Pearly Gates 513
SH-PG1b Pearly Gates 543
Black Winter, HB Neck 744
Black Winter, HB Bridge 763
SH-13 Dimebucker 1160

as you can see the general companion of the JB, the Jazz neck is more than 200 mV lower in output yet they perfectly match, the mV difference from a PGn to a BW is about the same so the matching should be perfect, also the dimebucker is matched with a '59b as that was dime's own go to set and the dimebucker is almost twice the output of the '59...

PD. yup i know that this data is a bit old and from the moment it came out some numbers were quite dobious (like the '59b being that hotter than the PGb seems a bit off, but it can easily be the fact that the '59 set used for the tests was the 7string model rather than the 6string one and the added output is the one to be expected from the larger 7string format) but for the intended purpose of a quick comparison it's usage seems rather fine.

 

[Despair]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

the pearly gates is quite on the hot side for a vintage pickup, it's not like you were going to use a high output monster like the dimebucker to worry so much about output mismatch

like the '59b being that hotter than the PGb seems a bit off

It makes perfect sense that the '59 bridge is hotter than the Pearly Gates bridge. A5 magnet on similar coil wire & turn count is going to be louder than A2, but have comparitively scooped mids (which lets the PGb keep up better in apparent volume than mV suggest). [From Seymour Duncan's product pages, Pearly Gates bridge is 8.1K resistance, '59 is 8.2K. They are known to both be 42AWG.]

The PGn might be a touch too low volume, but if you don't mind volume disparity, it isn't unworkable. If you want an A2 neck pickup, it should work. I've heard of people doing PGn or PGb with a Distortion bridge pickup and being happy with the results. Some people like a volume shift, to go from cleanish to heavy distortion at the guitar.

 

[EDX]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

It makes perfect sense that the '59 bridge is hotter than the Pearly Gates bridge. A5 magnet on similar coil wire & turn count is going to be louder than A2, but have comparitively scooped mids (which lets the PGb keep up better in apparent volume than mV suggest). [From Seymour Duncan's product pages, Pearly Gates bridge is 8.1K resistance, '59 is 8.2K. They are known to both be 42AWG.]

The PGn might be a touch too low volume, but if you don't mind volume disparity, it isn't unworkable. If you want an A2 neck pickup, it should work. I've heard of people doing PGn or PGb with a Distortion bridge pickup and being happy with the results. Some people like a volume shift, to go from cleanish to heavy distortion at the guitar.

welp forgot the eq and voice difference, it definitely makes the difference for the pearly, still the difference is 50mV for the bridge and 60mV for the neck and i assume the 7string version to be a bit hotter due to having extra copper in there (at the same turn count a 7 string pickup definitely has more wire in it than a 6 string pickup) so probably the output gap on the 6 string '59 would be less, anyway the PGb can and does work well as a neck pickup for the dimebucker which has more than twice it's mV output so absolutely no reason for PGn to not work great with the black winter.

i strongly suggest the PGn (PGb will work too but will have more bite) as neck picku since OP says he plays both ola englund stuff (chug for days high gain br00tz death metal) and SRV (da friggin shreddin' goddamn blues son) so he needs pickups that cab deliver the chug but would also do a okay blues tone, hence using a "bluesy" (what is Rev Gibbons known for anyway) neack pickup is a better match for his needs than the black winter neck pickup (not a bad pickup in any way and very versatile too, but it ain't beating a PG when the need is to get ya ridin' dat blues train)

 

[Despair]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

welp forgot the eq and voice difference, it definitely makes the difference for the pearly, still the difference is 50mV for the bridge and 60mV for the neck and i assume the 7string version to be a bit hotter due to having extra copper in there (at the same turn count a 7 string pickup definitely has more wire in it than a 6 string pickup) so probably the output gap on the 6 string '59 would be less, anyway the PGb can and does work well as a neck pickup for the dimebucker which has more than twice it's mV output so absolutely no reason for PGn to not work great with the black winter.

i strongly suggest the PGn (PGb will work too but will have more bite) as neck picku since OP says he plays both ola englund stuff (chug for days high gain br00tz death metal) and SRV (da friggin shreddin' goddamn blues son) so he needs pickups that cab deliver the chug but would also do a okay blues tone, hence using a "bluesy" (what is Rev Gibbons known for anyway) neack pickup is a better match for his needs than the black winter neck pickup (not a bad pickup in any way and very versatile too, but it ain't beating a PG when the need is to get ya ridin' dat blues train)

I was just considering the magnet and similar coil, and what I know about the 6-string versions. Take the Jazz bridge, it's higher mV output than the Pearly as well, and that's a 6 string apples to apples comparison. Jazz bridge is 8.4K and A5 magnet, so shouldn't be too different from the '59 for output. Biggest difference is magnet, not a few percent difference in resistance.

Anyways, there's a number of other pickups that have been suggested. Sentient has some similarities to both the '59 and the Jazz, for example. '59 and Jazz are both in same vintage PAF range as PG. Or you could go with a Whole Lotta Humbucker, for a hotter, fatter neck pickup... that is still PAF-derived.

Or a Screamin' Demon, which has bite and growl, without uncontrolled bass. Might be too warm in neck, depending on taste. Hotter than traditional neck PAF, similar to a '59 bridge in neck, but tighter. And don't be fooled by the name, it's more like a more controlled '59 bridge than an overwound pickup. Thinner wire throwing off the resistance/output behavior.

 

[murat]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

I really like the idea of PGn with BWb. It's like having the god's light and darkness of the satan in one guitar haha. It seems to fill all my needs once. Idk if the volume/gain drop would be so drastic but according to your words about dimebucker and '59b it won't. Actually I'm not considering Screamin Demon on the neck because, if I go modern/hot side I'll get the Black Winter neck. It's just PGn or BWn with BWb now, for me. I normally use single coils in the neck because I generally don't like neck humbucker sound. PG seems like more singlecoil-ish compared to 59/Jazz/SD. Am I right?

i strongly suggest the PGn (PGb will work too but will have more bite) as neck picku since OP says he plays both ola englund stuff (chug for days high gain br00tz death metal) and SRV (da friggin shreddin' goddamn blues son)

I loved this description! You're hilarious mate, cheers!

 

[murat]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

Guys, I wasn't considering active pickups but Fishman Fluence Classics got my attention. They got 3 voices paf/jb like high output/single coil. People generally recommended classics instead of moderns because of versatility. Also Josh Middleton said the last Architects record is recorded with classics. Are there anybody using them? How does it sounds compared to passives? Are they really superior or just like another hyped active pickup? The idea of having both high and low output hb and single coil without noise sounds really good to me. But I hate EMG's with passion. (I'm talking about 81) The weird response, obviously digital and super compressed sound is awful, but this is just me I know many people loves them. If fluences are like the improved (maybe hi-fi) passive pickups without drawbacks of most actives I may try them. I'm really curious how they sound compared to the pickups that I mentioned in this thread.

 

[murat]

Re: Torn Between Pickups For My New Handmade Guitar

Anyone???