Torn on new pickups for Carvin CT6

[Alduin32]

First Hello everyone. I've been reading the forum a lot recently and just finally registered. I've been using a Custom and 59 in my Epiphone G-400 for 10 years now and I have always enjoyed them a lot. I've had my Carvin for about 3 years now and at first liked the pickups but now I am recording a lot more and I'm starting to notice somethings I don't like about them. I'm wanting to put some new pickups on it and just trying to decide. Tonight I took the Custom out of my SG and put it in the Carvin and I really liked that. My complaint with the Carvin stock bridge (C22B I think) is that the low end is loose and the high end is harsh. It definitely seems to have more output than the Custom. I know the Custom isn't know for an especially tight low end but it was tighter than the Carvin pickup.

I'm leaning towards getting a Jazz for the neck (because I really love nice cleans in the neck) and a Custom for the bridge but the Distortion grabs my attention a lot and I'm interested in the Black Winters. So my conundrum is do I go for a more classic versatile set up with the Jazz Neck/Custom Bridge, a versatile hard rock/metal set with the Jazz Neck/Distortion Bridge, even further Jazz neck/Black Winter Bridge, or complete balls to the wall Black Winters in both.

I play mostly metal and am using a Laney IRT Studio for my amp. I like tight fast lows and reserved highs for the bridge with plenty of definition. For the neck I want pretty cleans, and when it's driven, fluid singing for sweeps and legato. I'm not adverse to other companies. I had some Dimarzio D activators in my Xiphos and I liked them but they seemed kind of overly compressed. I like a dynamic pickup that can play well with a volume knob too.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[jimijames]

Re: Torn on new pickups for Carvin CT6

First of all, welcome to the forum.

You seem to have a pretty good idea of what you want, which is a good thing. The only complaint you had about the D activators was that they're very compressed - and I've found that to be the case as you go up in output with passive pickups. I can't speak to active pickups, but just going from a vintage output bridge to the custom, or the few JB's I've gotten to play, I've notice that with a passive pickup you sacrifice some dynamics for output.

But, on the flip side you get things like pinch harmonics that 'pop' for lack of a better word. The compression makes notes feel livelier too - which can help out for fast runs, when you might want all the notes individually to have a lot of muscle.

Admittedly, I don't get a lot into the metal side of things - but when I do, my approach has been to get the gain from the amplifier, and pedals, and have the brighter and more dynamic low-output pickups in the guitar. There are hundreds of guys who will swear up and down that higher output pickups are the way to go, and I'm not going to say they aren't right. I'm just of the view, that you can add another distortion box, or compressor, or gain stage or what have you. But I don't recall seeing a "clean" pedal, at any rate. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm sure there is one.

I wouldn't call this "advice" in the traditional sense of the word, but in the sense of "what someone with completely different tastes than you would do if they were looking for a metal sound," if it were me, I'd find the tightest-sounding low-output humbucker (jazz bridge? Screamin' Demon?) and just turn up the gain on the laney. If it were really me choosing, I'd make a 59/jazz hybrid with A4, and throw in a screamin' demon bridge pickup, maybe with a ceramic magnet, through 250k pots because the highs would be fierce.

Just my .02 - I don't have much experience with non-duncan humbuckers (just the VPAF, predecessor to the 36th anniversary PAF I think?), so maybe check out some less biased forums for other suggestions.