Which humbucker for bridge slot will play nice with ....

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Re: Which humbucker for bridge slot will play nice with ....

I'm not familiar with the blackout preamp, so I want ask the following in relation to your project:
Will each pickup be wired to a separate blackout module, or do you switch the pickups into a single blackout module?
Do you know the input impedance of the blackout preamp module?

The Blackout Module has enough inputs and outputs to handle 2 pickups, so a single Blackout module is sufficient. Check out the attached pic to get a better idea of how one of these is setup.

I don't know the Blackout Module's impedance.

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Re: Which humbucker for bridge slot will play nice with ....

The Blackout Module has enough inputs and outputs to handle 2 pickups, so a single Blackout module is sufficient. Check out the attached pic to get a better idea of how one of these is setup.

I don't know the Blackout Module's impedance.

View attachment 83351

I demoed this through my amp today and then went to record some samples but my current recording method -speaker cabinet bypassed with the signal going through an A/DA cabinet emulator into the PC - wasn't able to capture the same tone/character that I was hearing from the speakers, so I ditched the recording attempt.

My description below will have to do.

First off, as a refresher, the guitar is a 2004 Epiphone Les Paul Classic Plus Top. I put a Dimarzio Area 58 in the neck, and a Dimarzio EJ Custom *neck* pup, in the bridge position. I ran both into a Seymour Duncan Blackouts preamp.
I usually use 9 gauge strings but I installed 10 gauge in this case to try and make up for the lower string tension of this 24.75" scale guitar vs a 25.5" scale Fender.

Next, my signal chain was:

Clean tones:
Guitar -> Boss Line Selector Guitar In -> Boss Line Selector Pedal Channel A Send -> Amp Input #2 (lower sensitivity) on Acoustic G120H DSP amp head (clean channel) -> amp's Pre-Amp Send out to Boss Graphic Equalizer #1 -> Boss Line Selector Channel A Return -> Roland Volume Expression Pedal -> amp's Return Input to Amp Power section -> Marshall 1960A 4x12 Cabinet with stock GT12-75 speakers.

Distortion tones:
Guitar -> Boss Line Selector Guitar In -> Boss Line Selector Pedal Channel B Send -> Fulltone Distortion Pedal -> to Boss Graphic Equalizer #2-> Boss Line Selector Channel B Return -> Roland Volume Expression Pedal -> Acoustic G120H DSP amp's Return Input to amp power section -> Marshall 1960A 4x12 Cabinet with stock GT12-75 speakers.

So, I found the Dimarzio Area 58 in the neck to have a great clean tone. I could hear the sponginess of the singlecoil coming through BUT it was a milder part of the character than in a 25.5" scale guitar. I was able to get passable tones from the Area 58 on distortion settings but I preferred the bridge pickup for dirt. That's not suprising or a let down to me as I usually don't like single coil dirt tones any ways.

The middle position that put the two pickups in parallel with each other wasn't anything special. Despite adjusting each pickup's volume, either one pickup dominated or else the tone sounded like a weakened version of one pickup or the other.

The EJ Custom Neck pup in the bridge sounded like a really articulate humbucker bridge pickup on clean settings. On dirt settings I was able to get some decent vintage distortion sounds but it lacked a little beef, but that's not unexpected considering the voicing and intent of the EJ Custom.

I had been thinking of doing a 2nd stage of this experiment and adding a 5 position rotary switch to combine each pickup (split) in parallel to evaluate the Position 2 and 4 notch sounds, but I'm not sure if I should bother considering that the singlecoil character of the Area 58 in the neck - all on its own - is subdued as I wrote above and so many posts on here say that you need a middle pickup to get bonafide notch sounds. I'll have to think about it. All in all, i wasn't too suprised by the results, as I'm sure many others reading this aren't as well. Haha. It was still fun to do.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Which humbucker for bridge slot will play nice with ....

So, the Blackout pre-amp didn't add any oomph?

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

 

[Teleplayer]

Re: Which humbucker for bridge slot will play nice with ....

Interesting to hear you were not happy with the tone from the neck pickup.

According to the Q & A video about the Blackouts preamp on the Duncan website, the designer states the preamp imparts some of "its own tonal flavour". Refer https://www.seymourduncan.com/accessory/blackouts-preamp-short-shaft
The preamp will certainly change the electrical loading of the pickups and may drastically alter the resonance frequency of each pickup.
I suspect the preamp may cause the sound to be darker because that EJ custom neck would normally be painfully bright in the bridge position.

My suggestion is to remove the blackouts preamp. Instead wire the passive pickups to the toggle switch, and then output via a single 250k Volume control.
If you get any encouraging results you can later add the tone controls and dual volume controls as desired.

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Re: Which humbucker for bridge slot will play nice with ....

Interesting to hear you were not happy with the tone from the neck pickup.

If my writeup came across that way, my apologies, that's not what I meant. The neck tones are a great clean tone, better than I have had in this guitar up to now from other aftermarket pups. My only critique of the neck tone is that the full Strat single-coil charscter that the Area 58 is capable of, was subdued somewhat. I imagine thats due a combination of the Blackouts Preamp, and the 24.75" scale of the guitar.

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Re: Which humbucker for bridge slot will play nice with ....

So, the Blackout pre-amp didn't add any oomph?

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

Oh, it did. And that may be contributing to subduing part of the Strat singlecoil character that the Area 58 is capable of.

I have AHB blackouts in my other two guitars and love the boost that preamp gives.

I wanted to use the Blackout Preamp even in this vintage-voiced project because I didn't want to have to redial the settings on my amp each time I switched from one of the Blackout pickup guitars, to this Area 58 loaded guitar.