61

The Pickup Place / Re: DiMarzio or Fluence

« on: November 01, 2019, 12:32:09 AM »

Wait wait wait, is this one of the HSS Chapmans with the three-way toggle? If so, you could get a couple of medium-hot singles for the middle and neck and just run them in series like a humbucker. Maybe something like the FS1 or SDS-1?

62

The Pickup Place / Re: Pro Track vs Super Distortion S in neck

« on: October 28, 2019, 05:21:08 PM »

The Pro Track is voiced kinda like the PAF Pro (PRO Track, PAF PRO) so it might work out well for you if you want something more humbuckery. If you want a more single-coil vibe with bumped up output, maybe a Virtual Solo?

63

The Pickup Place / Re: DiMarzio D Activator X Question

« on: October 20, 2019, 12:32:10 PM »

I had mine level with the pickup rings on my Explorer because they were making my amp sound kinda blown out. It was the same output more or less as the Gibson pickups it had originally, so medium-hot rock pickup output.

64

The Pickup Place / Re: DiMarzio or Fluence

« on: October 16, 2019, 01:54:23 AM »

Passive into Blackouts pre, blackouts pre and Fluence into switch.

Yeah, honestly I'd love to think I could get the two pickup families to work together properly rather than cordon them off from each other. I'd love to hear what the Fluence Modern bridge with Tone Zone S sound like together.

But what happens when two pre-amped signals meet each other at the switch? You're talking about wiring two preamps in parallel? Can you even do that without a mixer?

I think I'd have to run the Fluence into the Blackout Pre. Run them in series.

I feel like this is where it gets dicey, and it's what made me want to look into passive high-output bridge pickups in the first place. Ultimately I feel like that would be the path of least resistance.

The two preamps running in parallel don't affect each other - the Blackouts pre takes high-impedance passive pickup signals and converts them to low-impedance active signals (it does some other stuff too but for your purposes that's the part that matters). The mixer in this case is the switch - either pickup at 100%, or both in parallel (at a percentage corresponding to the output of each pickup). Wiring them in series would be problematic - in parallel they don't really interact.
Dicey, yes. It's an unconventional setup that most people don't go through the trouble of dealing with, which is why there's no plug-and-play or specialized hardware to make it easy, but it's not impossible or finicky by any standard - there's some hoops to jump through, but as long as you understand the problems you'll have, it's easy to work with.
The Bartolini Adjustable Gain Buffer https://bartolini.net/product/agb/ is probably the easiest - it'll convert your signal to low-impedance and let you balance the output with an active pickup. It's also meant to be put inside the instrument, not as one of the controls.
The Blackouts Preamp is meant to take a full set of passive pickups and convert them to active pickups - it does some stuff tonally, bumps up the output, adds compression, and has a specific wiring scheme to increase noise cancellation with humbuckers. It can be wired to do it, and I think might tonally make the pickups mesh a little better, but it's more of a hassle with mounting and stuff.

65

The Pickup Place / Re: DiMarzio or Fluence

« on: October 15, 2019, 09:19:26 PM »

If you have a 3-way toggle you could run a Duncan Blackouts preamp

Considering that the Fluence has its own preamp baked into the pickup itself, I'd still have to wire up the passives to the Blackout pre and have the fluence bypass it, or i'd be in double-preamp land which sounds like a bad time. Right? Maybe I'm wrong tho.

I'd rather save 70 bucks and just wire the passives as regular passives tbh.

I wish I had an HH guitar, then I'd just go Fluence all the way. But I have what I have.

Passive into Blackouts pre, blackouts pre and Fluence into switch.

Yeah it's kind of a pain and more expensive than going for either/or but a preamp is really the only way to make them play nice together.

66

The Pickup Place / Re: DiMarzio or Fluence

« on: October 15, 2019, 04:36:39 PM »

If you have a 3-way toggle you could run a Duncan Blackouts preamp - it's its own pot, so you'd need 2 volumes or some way to attach it in your control cavity while it's rolled all the way up before running it to the switch.

67

The Pickup Place / Re: DiMarzio or Fluence

« on: October 15, 2019, 02:16:08 PM »

You could use some kind of active preamp with your passive pickups to bring them up to level and impedance - I think Bartolini has one, so that might work for you.

68

The Pickup Place / Re: DiMarzio D Activator X Question

« on: October 12, 2019, 04:14:12 PM »

The D-Act X uses blades, so there's no poles to line up. You'll be fine.
If you need to get a pickup with pole pieces, PRS uses a 52mm spacing - a bit wider than old-school Gibsons (50mm IIRC), a bit less than F-spaced (53mm). I'd go F-spaced for the bridge and standard for the neck just for coverage, but either will work.

69

Guitar Lounge / Re: Thoughts and Opinions on Yamaha?

« on: October 08, 2019, 08:31:42 PM »

I dunno, Yamaha electrics have always felt to me like a bunch of parts stuck together, not an organic whole. Their tone, while not bad, has no real personality. Like a guitar built by engineers with no real guitar player input.

I mean yeah but they're built like tanks generally. A buddy had his amp fall on his Revstar and the guitar just had a finish ding.

WARNING: please please please don't try this at home though. Just because you can theoretically get away with it doesn't mean you should do it.

70

The Pickup Place / Re: DiMarzio or Fluence

« on: October 03, 2019, 03:46:54 PM »

Yeah if you want something lower output using a neck pickup in the bridge is a pretty good pick (and if you're a fan of the EMG 60 using that same pickup in the neck wired in parallel works pretty well).

71

The Pickup Place / Re: DiMarzio or Fluence

« on: October 02, 2019, 04:02:31 PM »

The D-activator and D-activator X will be the closest things in the catalog to voice 1 of the Fluence moderns, and either something like the Tone Zone or Dominion would be closest to voice 2.

If you want EMG 81-like, the D-activators (standard is very bright and lean on the bass, X is more 85-ish with good low-mids to high-mids push) will probably be your best bet.

If you want to try something with the SS before you ditch it, try either a TS-type OD with a lot of mids or an OD with a mid control to push your amp - you get some really cool sounds with a scoopy pickup and a middy OD.

72

The Pickup Place / Re: help again with noise cancelling suhr ssv plus ibanez s1

« on: September 30, 2019, 01:00:37 AM »

Hmm I think you need to swap the active coil on the bridge autosplit and/or reverse the bridge pickup magnet. For noise cancelling, you need to have two coils that are reverse-wound and reverse-polarity, but I'm not sure which would be your problem. Try swapping the active bridge pickup coil when you combine it with the middle, because it's easier, but if it doesn't help you might need to pop the pickup open and reverse the magnet.

73

The Pickup Place / Re: Pickup suggestions please!

« on: September 28, 2019, 08:02:33 PM »

I think of those the X2N would work, but it's a pretty wild pickup to play. The others, for my money, I don't think would be as aggressive as you want. The Super Distortion I find kinda muffled on the treble, and the Super 3 is super midrangey and honky. The AT-1 is IMO way too tame for what you want, and the Igno is super new and most people here haven't tried it - I'm pretty big into Polyphia's music (the Igno is Scotty LePage's signature pickup) and again I don't know if it would work for you.

74

The Pickup Place / Re: Pickup suggestions please!

« on: September 25, 2019, 08:00:03 PM »

Okay lessee. . .

The Dominion is probably gonna be a pretty good fit. Check out any of the post-2012 Lamb of God albums to hear Mark Morton playing them, and they're in Drop D too.

The Transition set would work but if you want a more aggressive sound you'll have to pick pretty hard, so YMMV depending on your picking technique.

The Norton/Air Norton would be a pretty good combo that would cut through the mix well. Someone here on the forum has a sig saying that the Norton makes your guitar sound like a mongoose on meth flying a fighter jet, so I doubt you'd have problems with it. The AN is a good contrast because it's a lot warmer, with some really jazzy cleans and a midrange that would work well for bluesy stuff.

The Gravity Storm set I think might work for you, but again, I wouldn't recommend getting a set without trying them out first. The blue floral JEM came with them, if you can find one near you.

I'd personally say avoid the Titan because it's a pickup that needs you to be super on top of your picking technique, so if you want aggressive, much like the Transition, you need to play hard all the time. It's also maybe a little thin for the kind of tones you seem to be looking for. As for the Illuminator set, I just find it kinda flat unless you have a very specific rig like JP and it's generally underwhelmed me outside of a JP sig EBMM into a Mesa amp.

75

The Pickup Place / Re: Pickup suggestions please!

« on: September 25, 2019, 01:25:35 AM »

Well, give us a couple of things to help you narrow it down:

Vintage, modern, or in-between?

Aggressive or controlled?

Bright, warm, or dark?

Hot, middle-of-the-road, or low output?

Middy, even, or scooped?

Smooth or crunchy?

Punchy or more laid back?

Do you want tightness from the pickup or from your picking technique?

Do you want something that will saturate nicely with a light touch or something that you need to play hard to push?

Are cleans important?

Do you play lead/rhythm on the neck, bridge, or both?

Are coil splits important?

The more information you can give us on what you're looking for, the more specific we can help you get.