what neck pickup?

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ok, what should i get for my charvel?


i need a single coil sized humbucker.
at first, i wanted a lik 59 but after thinking about it, im not sure anymore. i also thought about the vintage rails, i like single coil sounds, i like how they cut through, and their clean sound is beautiful. another thought i had was the classic stack

now, to those of you that have any of these pickups in the neck spot

how do they sound?

im looking for a sound that can cover a very large array of styles, from jazz, to metal, to blues, to praise and worship music.
what would be the best for all these, i already have a JB in bridge, and that covers what i want for bridge, and im gonna get an ssl-1 for the middle spot in the future.

 

[kdawson]

Re: what neck pickup?

Wow,

I play all across the board, too (including praise and worship). And I've settled on a set on Alnico II Pros (single coils) in all three postitions in a Strat. Really the best tone I've ever had. And for the neck position, especially, I like that single coil sound, as well. I do know that I don't like noisless or stacked SC pups in general (personal preference, of course; they sound thinner to me). I would think most rail pickups would be too hot for a nice balance in the neck position, but you'd have to look at the output ratings; I generally like a lower output pup in the neck so that I get less gain (and less drive) there.

Problem with pups like the Lil' 59, for your application, is that you'll get more of a HB sound than a SC sound and I'm afraid that the output would too low if you split it (not to mention you get the hum back and it probably sounds a bit thin too; I'm thinking of toying around with it in the bridge position of a tele, though, to see what happens).

Unfortunatley, you won't get a pickup that does it all well, so you have to pick your priorities or put a couple of different setups on a couple of guitars.

I went with the low output single coil solution on my strat, but it doesn't do shredding, that's for sure. So I keep my Yamaha (set-neck mahogany type guitar with a Super Distortion in the bridge) for when I need lots of humbucking power. Gotta say that the Strat prabably still sounds better for "classic" rock and blues rock than the Yamaha does, so I don't want to mess it up and compromise things with a sc size hb in the bridge.

 

[\m/(00)\m/]

Re: what neck pickup?

hmm, interesting

well, i have my les paul which has a DD/59 in it and that does the rock, hard rock, plus any style very well. the charvel is really supposed to be the all around guitar, i dont really play all that much metal or hard rock and the rock that i usually play is more of like Delirious or Starfield or even Kutless sometimes and Salvador as well
so far, the vintage rails or even the duckbucker is looking good, especially for the stuff like Starfield and Salvador. i like single coils because you dont need to have so much gain for it to sound full, like the first song on the new Salvador CD , but i dont use that much gain anyways...

 

[Travis]

Re: what neck pickup?

I'm a big fan of the Distortion/Cool Rails/Hot Rails set up in my Charvel 650xl. It's geared mostly toward metal, but the Cool Rails adds a lot of verstility to it. I prefer the Cool Rails over the Lil 59 mostly due to cosmetics, as they are very similar. The tonal difference is subtle, but it's there. THe Cool Rails just works better for me than the Lil 59. What Charvel is this going into?

 

[\m/(00)\m/]

Re: what neck pickup?

it's going in this guitar

i know im gonna stay away from the cool rails or the hot rails, that's definitely not the tone im after.

does anyone have clips of the vintage rails?

 

[Travis]

Re: what neck pickup?

Oooh, nice San Dimas. I don't have any clips but the Vintage Rails is a very sweet pickup. I've got a couple matched with a Hot Rails in my Hamer Mirage. They do the single coil thing very well, but NO HUM!

 

[Artie]

Re: what neck pickup?

It was only a few weeks ago that I had a Lil59 in the neck, paired with an SSL-1 in the middle of my Strat. What I liked about it was that you got a nice mellow bluesy humbucker tone in the #1 position, but when you clicked into the #2 notch position, the SSL-1 added a nice blend of openness and high end. It wasn't exactly like the typical #2 position, but close, with a little more bottom end and "creamyness". It was just "nice".

btw - The only reason I took them out is that I'm using this guitar to try different single-coil-sized pups. I'm sure the Lil59 will be put back in, but probably with an SSL-6t.

 

[\m/(00)\m/]

Re: what neck pickup?

hmm

i know for a fact that the lil 59 sounds good, because my teacher has them in his strat and he swears by them, and i've played his strat many a times

how bright is the vintage rails in the neck, say compared your average single coil?