Ace Flibble
New member
I'm looking to replace the bridge pickup in a mongrel parts build I have. Swamp ash body, bolt-on baseball bat-thick maple neck with rosewood fretboard, 24.75" scale with a tune-o-matic bridge. So it's not as bright and thin as your typical Fender, but it's still nowhere near as warm as a Gibson-type guitar, either. Currently has three humbuckers and a single 500k volume control with a treble bleed mod. The middle and neck pickups sound absolutely perfect as they are, so I don't want to be doing anything which will effect their tone.
Right now this guitar has a JB in the bridge and I think it sounds utterly awful. The extreme bass and treble is too 'soft' and it doesn't have enough output. Essentially, the EQ balance is the exact opposite of what I'm after.
My big issue is that whatever pickup I put in needs to have a nickel/chrome cover, as all three pickups currently have. So that instantly takes out things like Invaders, Parallel Axis, Super Distortions, etc. Whatever I buy has to be available with metal covers and regular screw pole pieces, i.e. the classic PAF humbucker look.
The closest thing I have to my perfect tone at the moment, in other guitars, is a Full Shred. However it lacks the raw output I'm after, even with it very close to the strings, and it's in a Les Paul, which obviously has a much fuller tone. I'm sure in this guitar a Full Shred would be too weak (not to mention it's not available with a metal cover other than as a floor shop custom, which I can't easily order here.)
From looking around other threads, it seems like my best/only options are going to be an Alternative 8, Custom or Distortion. I would like to stick with SDs so the wiring is all nice and consistent, plus I can get Duncans for almost half the price of DiMarzios and almost a third of the price of any custom hand-wound thing.
I use my volume control to set my clean-distorted rhythm tones exclusively (with an overdrive for leads), so there's got to be a lot of range there, i.e. lots of maximum output. I also like the extreme treble and bass to be really strong in relation to the mids, because I use Orange and Marshall amps which obviously already have pretty strong mids anyway (and I hate scooping the mids out at the amp; just pisses away volume as far as I care).
So, which of those three has the most output? And which has the strongest treble and bass? Or is there another, more appropriate model I'm missing?
Right now this guitar has a JB in the bridge and I think it sounds utterly awful. The extreme bass and treble is too 'soft' and it doesn't have enough output. Essentially, the EQ balance is the exact opposite of what I'm after.
My big issue is that whatever pickup I put in needs to have a nickel/chrome cover, as all three pickups currently have. So that instantly takes out things like Invaders, Parallel Axis, Super Distortions, etc. Whatever I buy has to be available with metal covers and regular screw pole pieces, i.e. the classic PAF humbucker look.
The closest thing I have to my perfect tone at the moment, in other guitars, is a Full Shred. However it lacks the raw output I'm after, even with it very close to the strings, and it's in a Les Paul, which obviously has a much fuller tone. I'm sure in this guitar a Full Shred would be too weak (not to mention it's not available with a metal cover other than as a floor shop custom, which I can't easily order here.)
From looking around other threads, it seems like my best/only options are going to be an Alternative 8, Custom or Distortion. I would like to stick with SDs so the wiring is all nice and consistent, plus I can get Duncans for almost half the price of DiMarzios and almost a third of the price of any custom hand-wound thing.
I use my volume control to set my clean-distorted rhythm tones exclusively (with an overdrive for leads), so there's got to be a lot of range there, i.e. lots of maximum output. I also like the extreme treble and bass to be really strong in relation to the mids, because I use Orange and Marshall amps which obviously already have pretty strong mids anyway (and I hate scooping the mids out at the amp; just pisses away volume as far as I care).
So, which of those three has the most output? And which has the strongest treble and bass? Or is there another, more appropriate model I'm missing?
