[headcrash]

I‘d like a louder noiseless neck single coil in a HSS guitar ( Music Man Axis Sport).
The full-size bridge humbucker is a DiMarzio Custom EvH, which makes it very similar to Tone Zone, Air Zone or AT-1.
For the neck I imagine a rather fat sound in terms of fat single coil, or thin underwound PAF, hence the three candidates.
I am used to double humbucker guitars, so a very single coilish sound just doesn’t sound quite right for me.
At the moment I have an Injector neck there, which is a little too quiet there and maybe also too single coilish. I‘d rather put it in the middle position.

[gregr]

I’d consider The Chopper or warmer/rounder Pro Track in the neck, and perhaps a Virtual Solo in the middle. Satch Track is another option in the neck if you want to go a little weaker, though I prefer the Seymour Duncan single-sized humbuckers over the Satch Track which I found to be disappointing.

I have an HSS with a Fast Track 1 in the neck, an HSH with a Fast Track 1 in the middle and an SSS with a Fast Track 1 in the bridge. It’s a great pickup for straddling the line between single coil and humbucker. It has the dynamics to keep up with vintage up to weaker medium output pickups but it isn’t particularly fat sounding in the latter context. It completely lacks top end chime, as does anything else hotter than the Virtual Vintage 54 Pro (though some chime can be coaxed out of the Injector Neck). This can be a good thing with distortion dialed for humbuckers where top-end chime can get brittle and harsh. However, I’m not recommending Fast Track 1 for the fear that it won’t keep up with the Custom EVH as you described it, combined with your preference for humbuckers in the neck that will likely also preclude the Injector Bridge and Virtual Solo, which sound even more like single coils than the Fast Track 1.

[darkbluemurder]

I would be cautious about the Virtual Solo in the neck position as it has Alnico 5 magnets which have more string pull than the other models mentioned. Anything else fine - Chopper and Satch Track would be the closest to the humbucker camp.

Cheers Stephan

[headcrash]

Thanks guys for your reply!

I should‘ve added, that I already had a Pro Track (too loud , too fat) and a Satch Track (still quite a bit too loud and too fat) in that guitar on the neck spot.
Good advice concerning string pull with the Virtual Solo, Stephan!

I wouldn’t necessarily want that pickup to sound like a PAF. That’s what I have my double humbucker guitars.
Also I think with the Satch Track I already ruled out the weakest of the dual blade PAF variants.
TBH, most of the attributes, gregr is pointing out with the Fast Track 1 make me want to try one, despite of the possibility it sounding not humbuckery enough, and being (too) quiet.
Maybe I should have an eye on the used market for a FT1…

[gregr]

My concern about pairing a Fast Track 1 with a fat bridge humbucker is about it lacking body, not so much about it lacking output. The limiting factor of it not sounding “humbuckery enough” has more to do with the aperture than the wind and this issue still exists with the hotter rail pickups, IME. In my SSS with an Area 61 in the middle and Injector Neck in the neck, the Fast Track 1 sounds very much like a humbucker, though I’m shaving off a bit of top end and am using a larger tone cap dedicated to position 1 in order to give it the appearance of sounding fatter. Likewise, in my HSS I’m sculpting the Fast Track 1 in the neck position to have more of a single coil tonality in position 4 and more of a humhucker tonality in position 5 (positions 4 and 5 are both neck-only). Context is everything. So with all that out of the way I say go ahead and give it a shot.

To push back a bit on the Satch Track sounding “too fat,” it’s actually pretty tight, the problem is that it’s dull. It’s great with a lot of distortion where the distortion is filling out the top end. Cleans are perhaps better suited for jazz, though it still lacks too much articulation for my taste. Perhaps I’d be more ok with it in a 24-fret guitar that is naturally bright.

[Schneidas]

To push back a bit on the Satch Track sounding “too fat,” it’s actually pretty tight, the problem is that it’s dull.

There is one easy fix for a dull pickup - it's disconnecting the neck tone pot.
It was the cure for a Steve Morse neck Humbucker, which was super warm and dull. Upon disconnecting its tone pot, it became a totally articulate and clear Humbucker for me.
Try it for the Satch Track and it will totally transform it.

If you're set on trying other Pickups, the Fast track 1 is definitely great, nicely bright and sounds like a cross between a humbucker and Singlecoil. I love it in the neck and it balances great with hotter Humbuckers. I ran mine with a Breed Neck model (which I use in the bridge) or with a SuperD.

The Cruiser Bridge is another great option for the neck for brightness but if you play a lot of cleans, there is definitely a big volume spike when switching from the Cruiser Bridge in the neck spot to a hotter bridge Humbucker.
I wish the Cruiser Bridge was louder, it would be one of the best Single Coil replacement pickups in the neck spot IMO.
It balances fine with a Humbucker up to PAF Pro hotness, but nothing hotter than that IME.

[darkbluemurder]

It is certainly worth trying as it costs nothing and can be redone at any time. Keep in mind though that various pickups react very different when the load of a tone control is removed. From my personal experience the Injector neck as well as the Chopper are quite sensitive to this whereas with other pickups the difference was rather minimal (i.e. audible but not significant). As the Satch Track's specs are close to the Chopper's this could have a significant effect. It is also a matter of whether the guitar in question produces the frequencies. In some cases it is not really the tone that changes much but the playing feel - this is hard to describe but the guitar "feels faster" and more open. You have to try to see whether you like the effect.

It also depends on the value of the tone pot. Going from a 250k to no tone control is a bigger step  than going from 500k to no tone control. So if you have a 250k right now, you could go to 500k or 1meg, lighten the load on the neck pickup and still have a tone control for it.

I have a tele (my Pinepartscaster) that has a Chopper T in the bridge and an Injector neck in the neck. 500k volume. I started out with a 500k tone pot and a 0.0015uf cap (yes, not 0.015uf) but that made both pickups slightly nasal. I then removed the tone control but that made both pickups too harsh. I settled on a 1meg tone control as a happy medium - now the pickups are open, articulate and neither nasal nor harsh.

Cheers Stephan

[gregr]

Since the Satch Track was compared to The Chopper, I’d like to add that unlike The Chopper which is a dual resonance design, the coils in the Satch Track are identical.

[Schneidas]

Actually no, the Satch Track uses Dual Resonance as well, see the patent number (from their webpage back in 2014)

[gregr]

I just measured mine (again):
Red-Black: 3.71k
White-Green: 3.77k

[darkbluemurder]

That is a small offset but I guess this still qualifies as Dual Resonance. I just checked in the stickied post and found that the Satch Track is not listed. And since I assume you measured the coils back-to-back, we can rule out variances due to temperature changes.

The description on the current website does not help much insofar. "Articulate, vocal and musical, it is our most advanced Fast Track-style pickup to date."

You can only infer from the wording "most advanced Fast Track-style pickup to date" that it would not have fewer technologies than the other Fast Track-style pickup but we are talking marketing language here so I would not jump to conclusions.

Cheers Stephan

[gregr]

It’s less than 2%.

From the patent abstract:
“The coils have substantially the same number of turns of electrically conducting wire wound thereon, and the wires constituting the coils are of different gauges.”

Perhaps someone can tell me what two different gauges of wire can give those DCR measurements using substantially the same number of turns.