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Favorite Pickups


jonnyfontaine

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well i have to give a shout out to Bare Knuckle Pickups.. expensive, yes.. but they make my guitars sound so good i am almost using them exclusively. They do stock models so people know what to buy but its also a fully custom service so any model can come with a wide range of finishes, magnet types, polepiece , baseplates... anything really.

i recently wanted a humbucker for the Jake E Lee charvel replica i am building and the obvious answer would be Holdsworth humbucker from seymour duncans custom shop or at a push a JB which doesnt have the two rows of screw polepieces but is pretty close. A quick chat with Tim and he told me exactly which wire, magnets and windings the SD holdsworth has and the holdsworth pickup he made for me arrived two days later.. cant beat that for service

If you look at the product lines people tend to go straight for the high power stuff with names like warpig, nailbomb or sinner and these are all great pickups but as someone who deosnt always like high powered pickups i think where BKP really excell is with there vintage style stuff. I have a mule which is meant as the obligatory PAF style pickup and its truly amazing. My current favorite is a model they dont advertise called the manhattan which is an under wound (6k) humbucker sized P-90 thats sounds so clear and natural, voiced for jazz but capable of so much more

i also like SD's as well, quite fond of a JB/Jazz combo

I am not an EMG fan but its just horses for courses aint it

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For my money I can't go wrong with the SH6N- and SH6B from SD if I want passive.

For boutique I like Diesel pickups

For active I like the pups that Guitarheadz sells. I have one in my Warlock and it's got the best of the EMG and the livewires and doesn’t have their liabilities.

However, I get more people wanting my custom built pickups these days which is nice but it takes up a lot of time making them. I guess I make a pretty mean PAF and super distortion.

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Personally, I can't stand EMGs. I think they're too steryl.

For most of the super high-gain,intricate metal that I like,sterile is exactly what you want as a starting point....it keeps the bass notes from stepping all over the treble notes...

I do keep at least one guitar at all times with a jb at the bridge though,because for some stuff it sounds better with that "color" to it.

You should check out the emg singles though....they are not sterile at all,and neither is the 85 really...the 81 is the one that is made to be "sterile"(though I prefer the term "cutting"),because of what it is intended for.There is a reason so many metal guys use EMG after all...followed closely by the jb.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Single coils are my pickup of choice for the neck, and low resistance humbuckers for the bridge. I've never tried a P90 guitar though, so I might be in love with a new bridge pickup. Singles in the bridge sound too thin and wimpy for me.

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It varies, and is quite a mystery to me. Sometimes you have a totally happening amp tone, then every pickup sounds great. Different pickups are like different spices then. That's usually when you're just screwing around. Then on another day, you are in recording mode and everything sounds like crap.

But I've been "there" with my Gibson P90 and P94, 2 early 80's hot Fender single coils that have this roar to 'em, like the tone of an added cranked 6V6 added to the amp (put a "baseplate" on one of 'em). My Duncan JBL has given me more dynamic tones than a typical bucker, and I once got this awesome tone from the flat chrome neck pickup on my '61 Kay (I think Dearmond made that pickup, if I remember my research correctly)

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I like fender noiseless sets and the texas sets most. Just love the twang factor. For humbuckers I'd have to go with Dimarzio Fred amd Dimarzio Paf spaced, a good combination of fatness, warmth, and the fred has some single coil snap and twang hidden in it's 2 coils!

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As a general rule, I'm with Joobsauce on the single-coil in the neck, low-ish output humbucker in the bridge thing. I'm also big on P-90s.

Even more than that, I like actual magnetic pole-pieces a la Fender single-coils, but Strat pickups and the like are all too skinny for me.

Which is why my favorite pickup period is the Fender Jazzmaster pickup.

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