301

The Pickup Place / Re: Got me some VHPAFS and VPAFS need advice

« on: June 23, 2015, 09:20:41 AM »

I used a VHOTPAF for years in a strat. I ran it and the single coils with a 300K volume pot and 250k tones. It warmed it up a lot. A 250k might be too much. I had a VPAF neck and bridge in a Les Paul for a while with 500k pots. I found them too bright, so they might benefit from 300K pots too.

302

The Pickup Place / Re: Dimazrio Humbucker from Hell vs EJ Custom vs Duncan Jazz

« on: June 16, 2015, 09:32:15 PM »

The humbucker from hell does not sound like a single coil. It will rid you of the mud problem. I use it in a PRS that had a muddy neck problem. The Jazz will do the same, and is more of a traditional PAF sound than the HFH. The HFH does high gain better. I wouldn't use the HFH in the bridge position. You could go with a PAF PRO.

303

The Pickup Place / Re: PAF Master Bridge in Neck position...I've seen the light (video)

« on: June 14, 2015, 08:57:33 PM »

Those are A2 magnet pickups right? I bet that is a good neck pickup.

304

The Pickup Place / Re: Which Middle for Breed Neck and Bridge?

« on: June 14, 2015, 08:55:38 PM »

So no one cares about middle pickups do they? They are the Jan Brady of the pickup world..

305

The Pickup Place / Re: So I've installed a Humbucker from Hell in the neck to pair with a Fred bridge

« on: June 14, 2015, 08:54:40 PM »

I recently installed a Humbucker from Hell in my PRS and its great. I avoided it for so long because I had heard it was overly bright. That isn't even remotely true from what I am hearing. I've got a Gibson 498t in the bridge with it and they pair up surprisingly well.

306

The Pickup Place / Which Middle for Breed Neck and Bridge?

« on: June 11, 2015, 10:01:40 PM »

I'm loving the Dimarzio Breed neck and bridge in an older Ibanez RG. I have the original Ibanez single coil middle in there now and I usually just avoid it. I would like to find a single coil that is somewhere between the Breed neck and bridge to sort of "bridge the gap" between them. Mostly for old-school shred stuff, but versatile is good.

307

The Pickup Place / Re: Good pickups to pair with Humbucker from Hell

« on: June 05, 2015, 09:26:21 PM »

The HFH is a great all-round neck pickup. I've used it with an Air Zone, a Breed Bridge, a Tone Zone, a Duncan Perpetual Burn, a Duncan Full Shred, and the one I think meshes with it best right now, which is a Gibson 498t that I took out of my SG.

The HFH is not a muddy boomy neck pickup and can sound thin by comparison if (and only if) you par it with a really fat warm bridge humbucker like a Duncan Custom/Custom.

308

The Pickup Place / Re: Airzone & ?

« on: May 31, 2015, 08:59:03 PM »

I used an air zone with a 36th Ann neck in a mahogany PRS and they worked well together. The Air Norton is too muddy for me.

309

The Pickup Place / Re: Breed Bridge in Les Paul

« on: May 24, 2015, 10:24:29 PM »

I don't see why it wouldn't work. That would be one FAT sounding Les Paul with that in the bridge. I love it in an Ibanez RG.

310

The Pickup Place / Re: Lack of sustain on E & B, any advice?

« on: May 18, 2015, 07:08:22 PM »

The closer you get the pickup magnet to the strings, the more it pulls on the string, slowing its vibration down and killing sustain. Do you have a set-up ruler to accurately measure your pickup height?

311

The Pickup Place / Re: PRS Custom 24 SE spacing?

« on: May 14, 2015, 09:42:44 PM »

I don't now about that one in particular, but I use regular spaced in my PRS SE. I have also tried F-spaced pickups in there and I couldn't tell any difference.

312

The Pickup Place / Re: What is "normal" turnaround time for pickup installation?

« on: April 18, 2015, 01:13:58 PM »

Couple of thoughts:

Filing on the nut is not what fixes "fretting out", so the tech isn't telling you something.

Adjusting truss rods and replacing pickups are not difficult tasks. With as many instructional books and Youtube videos as are available today, there is no point in paying someone a lot of money to do something you can learn to do in one evening.

You can replace pickups in about half an hour. You need a 25 or 30 watt soldering iron, solder, a piece of sponge and a screwdriver or 2. The most useful specific tool I've ever owned is a small guitar set-up ruler from Stewmac. I use it to make every measurement for a complete set-up. They also sell them on Ebay for just a few dollars.

313

Gear Closet / Re: Picking Picks (picks, not pickups)

« on: April 03, 2015, 02:57:21 PM »

I've added a few more to my growing collection. I'm really liking the larger Triangle Tortex Picks. They really help highlight downward pick-slanting while shredding and if you wear out one tip, you still have two more tips. I've been using them for bass as well.

Rob (I guess??) from Rob's String Shack, who I've been getting these multipacks from, sent me a couple of extra picks to try. The Glow-in-the-dark D'Addario picks made by Planet Waves are very slick on the strings. Very low friction and very fast. The gripping surface is one of the slickest of any of the picks too, so that might not be great when sweating on a hot stage.

One that has quickly become one of my favorites is the D'Addario Duragrip line. When shredding, I actually hold a little too low on the picks for the molded-in grip surface to do much good, but I really like the material. It is very similar to the Tortex, maybe just a hair stiffer, and you can get thicker versions of it than you can in the Dunlop Tortex line. If you were chugging away at metal or strumming chords this would offer the best grip surface I've felt.

My least favorite out of all the picks is the D'Addario Cortex pick. It has a loud clicking sound when shredding and at the same time it is really sticky feeling when leaving the string (not the grip, but the string release). It feels really slow, and I feel like the pick is struggling to roll over the string and let go.

314

Guitar Lounge / Re: Help with pickup vs wood type

« on: March 22, 2015, 10:28:08 AM »

Before blaming the wood, you need to check and see if the pot values are the same, if the circuit is the same, if the pickups are at the same position on the body, if the scale length is the same, and if the bridge/nut are the same. If it is none of these, then it is likely the wood. I found a volume pot in a particularly dead sounding new PRS SE guitar that metered only 215 ohms.

315

Gear Closet / Re: Picking Picks (picks, not pickups)

« on: March 01, 2015, 11:13:14 AM »

** Crickets chirping **

This place is dead. I don't know why I bother posting here any more...