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The Pickup Place / Re: HELP KEEP THIS PLACE RUNNING!

« on: April 25, 2018, 04:20:52 AM »

I know the answer to why it's so quiet here. Dimarzio pickups make people play their guitar more and spend less time on the internet, while Duncan players are more often dissatisfied with what they have and spend more time discussing which other pickup they need to try, only to fail the quest for tone again and be back writing more...

:-D

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The Pickup Place / Re: Help with choosing pickups and pot values?

« on: December 28, 2017, 03:34:10 AM »

Thanks so far for your suggestions. Bluesbucker sounds very promising as a neck pickup, and I got very good options regarding the bridge pickup, I'll just have to pick one and see how I like it, and change it if I don't :-)

@greenlion: I tried few Duncans, and never got on with them. The only thing I liked about the Jazz/JB was how they matched each other, and they gave me a good idea of what I want to achieve when choosing pickups, otherwise not my tone. I found the ones I tried to have like a 'screamy' sound about them (not a bad thing in itself, just doesn't suit me), whereas Dimarzios I tried so far have been 'growly' or 'barky', which is what I prefer. And that's why I post here, not on the Duncan forum ;-)

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The Pickup Place / Re: Help with choosing pickups and pot values?

« on: December 23, 2017, 07:57:58 AM »

Get a few values and try them out.

Yes, figured as much, no harm in having too many pots in your stash ;-)

Fred/Humbucker from Hell combo for the RG with an area67 or area61 in the middle. Do you not even have a volume pot hooked to your bridge humbucker? Why not? They are made to run with 500k pots. Breed bridge sounds good in a Jackson DK. Both of the bridge buckers will have the mid bump you are looking for.

That's correct, I have no pots connected to bridge pickups. I've realized when I want that extra cut from bridge pickup it's because I really want to go loud, and therefore I don't need the volume or tone control on it, just the way I use it. Volume for neck pickup is good if I want to clean up my signal for rhythm, and then I just switch into solo mode right on my guitar :-)

Are Breed or Fred low output enough for vintage style fuzzes, and how similar or different would HB from Hell be to a single coil, as I understand it's designed to emulate one, similar to EJ neck or Bluesbucker?

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The Pickup Place / Help with choosing pickups and pot values?

« on: December 21, 2017, 03:48:22 PM »

Hi,

My first post here, and already got two weird questions:

1. I am looking for a pair of humbuckers for both Jackson DK2 (alder) and Ibanez RG550 (basswood). At first I was thinking of just asking about neck pickups (these guitars currently have a Super Distortion and Super 3 in bridge position only, respectively), but I recently acquired a Fulltone Fuzz Face clone, but it doesn't get along too well with such hot pickups... So I am thinking of replacing those with some low output bridge HB's as well. What I want to achieve with the combo is to have a clear sounding neck and mid-humpy bridge pickup, similar to the Seymour Duncan Jazz + JB combo (had it, didn't like the tone, but loved the 'matching mismatch' :-)). It seems that PAF Master combo, or PAF Master neck + PAF 36th bridge are most likely candidates here, but would I get enough mid boost with the bridge compared to the neck?

2a. In the neck slot of my Ibanez RG550 I currently have a PAF Pro, but I somehow find it really muddy. One of the reason for it could be that I run my bridge pickups WITHOUT any pots, straight to the switch, while neck has a 500k volume. Obviously without any load, the bridge has a very sharp sound, while the pot loads down on the neck and cuts out some of the highs. Would I benefit from moving up to a 1M value pot?

2b. Also, if I wanted to add a single coil between the HB's, would I bump up the pot value for it to 500k, or are they bright enough that a 250k would still be fine? (In my Jackson, as an experiment I wired Super Distortion to a push-pull in such way that I get either straight to output series HB or split coil with volume; I find the split coil brighter with 500k volume than the series HB, and it's not a true single coil either, that's where I'm coming from anyway).

Thanks for at least reading ;-)