What are the hottest passives you've tried?

Rex_Rocker said:
You found it too hot?

I have one and love it. But yeah, if you were expecting Tele twang, probably not.

It is hotter than a PAF-type, that's for sure. But I wouldn't say it's hotter than a Custom or a JB. It is kinda dark for a single coil, though. I run mine with a single 500K volume pot. I bet with two vol/tone 250K pots it would be unusable.
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Yeah, my bad. I should have said it's the hottest I've ever heard in a Tele bridge position.

I wasn't expecting vintage tones, but I was hoping for some bite. Maybe it's my setup, but I just wasn't hearing any bite unless I was doing high gain stuff. For clean tones it was awful. Even with 500K volume and tone. Like I said, I sent it back already and got a refund so no worries. Lesson learned. It's all part of the journey. :)
 
I personally rarely ever feel the compression thing. I guess part of the reason is I tend to dial in my gain accordingly. That's why if one of my guitar has a high output firebreather, I like all of my guitars to have high output ceramic firebreathers. There's a lot of variety to choose from to keep each guitar's identity.

Or if I'm in one of my low output A5 PAF phases, I like my guitars to stay along those lines too.

I do, for example, perceive the D Activator as feeling drier than the 500T or the Black Winter. But at the same time, the D Activator is lower output than either, so I attribute it to that. If I matched the gain to match, would I be able to feel it? I doubt it.

Then again, that's just me. I'm not saying no one can.
 
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Supernautilus said:
Yeah, my bad. I should have said it's the hottest I've ever heard in a Tele bridge position.

I wasn't expecting vintage tones, but I was hoping for some bite. Maybe it's my setup, but I just wasn't hearing any bite unless I was doing high gain stuff. For clean tones it was awful. Even with 500K volume and tone. Like I said, I sent it back already and got a refund so no worries. Lesson learned. It's all part of the journey. :)
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Yeah, for clean, it is indeed awful.
 
For me, using high output pickups suits me because:

a. They're generally voiced tight, aggressive, and/or mid-forward.
b. They drive the amp/pedals in a way that lower output pickups don't even if you raise the gain. With high output pickups, you always have to ease up on the gain, which reduces preamp noise levels, and bright caps in amps start to kick in.
c. They generally feel/sound more familiar. I can learn to love and play through PAF-types (as long as they're slightly overwound A5), but as soon as I start using something really overwound with a powerful Ceramic magnet, I feel like I'm coming back home.


The big downside I find to passive high output pickups is that many modelers and interfaces just don't have the headroom to handle them.

That, and classic distortion/drive pedals don't always have the output volume to reach unity gain with them.
 
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Probably the JB or Distortion. I could take or leave the JB, but I did not get along well with the Distortion. My favorite "hot" pickup at the moment is the Super Distortion in my Soltero.

Supernautilus said:
You didn’t specify only humbuckers so… ;)

I just bought, and promptly returned, a QP Tele bridge model. Unusable. Way hotter than I expected and super dark, even with 500K pots. Lesson learned.
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I've had some fun with a tapped QP set in my Tele (even have a 4-way mod.... you should hear a pair of QPs in series). Big, fat, rude, and dark for a tele. I use them with 500K pots and they clean up OK when I roll the volume down, though I am more likely to use the tap if I need to clean things up.
 
Inflames626 said:
I keep some guitars for soloing only. That's where I think the bright, compressed, high output passives really shine--when you need something that cuts through and soars over the rest of the mix. I just have to mind my cymbal wash and synths in that frequency range.

To be honest for every day stuff a Full Shred, Custom 5, or Custom is all I need. I haven't used the Parallel Axis pickups very much but I love the Original. For me it's like a Distortion that's easier on the ears.
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See, that's the thing...especially when soloing, I want to use dynamics.
 
Rex_Rocker said:
Are those Tony Iommi sigs?
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In a way, yes. The neck pickup is basically a copy of the John Birch Hyperflux, which seems to be hot vintage output. The bridge pickup is a modified John Birch Magnum, with rail magnets. From what I understand, this served as the basis for the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop Tony Iommi/El Diablo and later the Gibson Tony Iommi Signature Humbucker.
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The quick connector on the weirdo hybrid bridge pickup I had in my Gibson 7 string is giving me some trouble - I think the bare section of ground wire was getting pushed into something else by the battery box after the last time I took it off. Need to troubleshoot. But anyway that gave me a chance to at least wire up the BKP bridge Warpig for the first time since I put a ceramic magnet in. I'm in love. It is definitely the highest-output pickup I've used but it's still crunchy and full of attack, and it has a nice feeling of openess on top. Highly recommended, at least if you're me. It's just going to the jack right now. No accessible bridge ground, annoying. I'm going to see if I can hook it up to a quick connector and actually plug it into the rest of the wiring, and if that works maybe I'll move the hybrid to the Epiphone.

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I'm not sure what to make out of the Invader. It's been ages since I've tried one, and back then, I was easily impressed. I later came to learn I prefer brighter pickups with varyind degrees of a low-end rolloff.

The Invader always came across to me as more of a pickup to for higher tunings and brighter amps.

I do know Karl Sanders used or uses one, though? I bet it must have something good to offer for heavy music.

I can't help but think of the association with Blink or Avenged Sevenfold, though, and I like neither.
 
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For me its my black outs, I have a x2n in a ibanez rg, but have not played it for quite some time and the hett set that came in my iron cross are pretty hot.
 
My bad you were asking about passives, xn2 and the invader are the hottest passives i have played and own, other than the black winter i just got installed today.
 
The 500T that I've in a guitar appears to me as noticeably less hot than a X2N, with which I've started the aftermarket pickups odyssey more than 40 decades ago - and that I've still on the shelf in a recent version in the name of nostalgia... but they don't make it no more as they did, bro's!
Now, in terms of "hotness", my vintage BL L500 (equivalent of a current XL) is not far behind. It also spits more than 1V even when it's "two nickels" far from the strings (to quote what was recommended by Bill Lawrence. RIP).

These PU's have an inductance around 10H, FWIW. I've not gone beyond that: my very first X2N was already hot enough to overdrive any clean channel and I remember this feature as rather annoying so no desire for me to try anything hotter.

Hot Rails have an even higher inductance than both but their single magnet and single coil frame make them less powerful, of course.
 
freefrog said:
The 500T that I've in a guitar appears to me as noticeably less hot than a X2N, with which I've started the aftermarket pickups odyssey more than 40 decades ago - and that I've still on the shelf in a recent version in the name of nostalgia... but they don't make it no more as they did, bro's!
Now, in terms of "hotness", my vintage BL L500 (equivalent of a current XL) is not far behind. It also spits more than 1V even when it's "two nickels" far from the strings (to quote what was recommended by Bill Lawrence. RIP).

These PU's have an inductance around 10H, FWIW. I've not gone beyond that: my very first X2N was already hot enough to overdrive any clean channel and I remember this feature as rather annoying so no desire for me to try anything hotter.

Hot Rails have an even higher inductance than both but their single magnet and single coil frame make them less powerful, of course.
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Yeah, both the BW and the X2N are noticeably hotter than the 500T. I just gave it a third place because it is hotter than the D-Activator, which is the third hottest DiMarzio (according to their site, but I cannot imagine how, based on the DCR and going under the assumption both use the same oversized Ceramic magnet, it is hotter than the Super 3, but whatever). It's also hotter than what I remember the Duncan Distortion being.
 
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JB and PAF pro. I don't use PAF pros anymore. I don't plan to have another A5 HB but the JB is a keeper.

Like Rex Rocker said, the JB drives my amps too. It's high output makes it incredibly versatile with the guitar volume setting. It retains great tone when dialed down. For a while my only amps were plexis (NMV) so the guitar volume with the JB was like having a 2 channel amp. Not much of a pedal guy except for a clean boost (for jam solos) and wah. With my guitar volume at around 9-10 the JB just saturates nicely like a Marshall at 4+ master volume. The JB can do everything well.

I can't really see a need for anything hotter for me. Ceramic pickups, I'd never use.
 
Rex_Rocker said:
I'm not sure what to make out of the Invader. It's been ages since I've tried one, and back then, I was easily impressed. I later came to learn I prefer brighter pickups with varyind degrees of a low-end rolloff.

The Invader always came across to me as more of a pickup to for higher tunings and brighter amps.

I do know Karl Sanders used or uses one, though? I bet it must have something good to offer for heavy music.

I can't help but think of the association with Blink or Avenged Sevenfold, though, and I like neither.
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Actually the stark contrast of Nile vs Avenged tones just goes to show that a pickup in itself isn't a specific tone.

Invaders are not bright, but they certainly are not all bass either. IMO they have an almost active feel when playing. Notes jump out so easily.

They really are good in guitars that need some thickening in the mids, especially if you like lower mids and/or have an amp like the typical marshall.
I like them for brighter-toned guitars that have floyds. IMO not the best for big tight beefy strings, although Karl uses big gauges iirc.

My invaders are custom-shop gates trembuckers so maybe they are wound slightly brighter though, not sure, but they can be very full yet still have a nice crunch.
Like the x2n they must be set lower than normal because of those poles sticking way up, but not quite the distance as the x2n must be set.
 
dave74 said:
Actually the stark contrast of Nile vs Avenged tones just goes to show that a pickup in itself isn't a specific tone.

Invaders are not bright, but they certainly are not all bass either. IMO they have an almost active feel when playing. Notes jump out so easily.

They really are good in guitars that need some thickening in the mids, especially if you like lower mids and/or have an amp like the typical marshall.
I like them for brighter-toned guitars that have floyds. IMO not the best for big tight beefy strings, although Karl uses big gauges iirc.

My invaders are custom-shop gates trembuckers so maybe they are wound slightly brighter though, not sure, but they can be very full yet still have a nice crunch.
Like the x2n they must be set lower than normal because of those poles sticking way up, but not quite the distance as the x2n must be set.
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I agree, they are great for brighter guitars and I find they work really well for low tunings. I do wish they had more natural crunch and bite, but it's easy to get them in the zone with a bit of EQ boost in front of the amp in the upper mids.
 
My Lace Deathbuckers seem pretty hot...though they have a resistance of something miniscule like 4k. Apparently them being "current-based" makes that non-indicative of their "actual hotness"..
Mightymite Motherbuckers, Tesla Plasma II's = cheaper pup's that are hot as hell :firedevil:
 
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