Drak...matching 2 Duncan Hb's...opinions?

[Drak]

Without going into a big explanation, I have a JB Trembucker bridge and a Pearly Gates bridge HB.

I want to use the JB at the bridge, and the Pearly in the neck.

Should I buy a real Pearly neck, or do you think it will be OK to use the PG-Bridge in the neck.

I know the resistance of the JB is quite a bit more than the PG, so technically it should be an OK match,

but resistance isn't everything.

It's for a Mahogany bodied V w/Floyd.

[westhemann]

Drak,without knowing anything of the pearly gates,I CAN tell you that with a floyd at the bridge of a 25.5" scale guitar with a 1 5/8" nut,24 frets,and the neck pickup at the standard position,the string spacing at that point is 5 cm...so if the pearly gates has outer pole pieces at 5 cm center to center,then you should be good from that perspective...

I can't tell you how well the tone will compliment the JB...but the 59 and the Jazz are both considered good matches in the neck for the JB,and I suspect the pearly gates might be right in between the two...from the description of it.

[Keegan]

You might as well use the pearly gates since you have it and see how it sounds. I think the main problem you'll run into is that it might be too bassy for the neck. The output could be on the low side too.

I would recommend a Jazz or Distortion in the neck if you decide you want to buy a neck pickup later on. They're probably better matched than the Pearly Gates, though you could try one if you really want. I know Seymour Duncan will take exchanges if you aren't happy with the neck pickup you get.

[Drak]

Hey Wes, I usually use 22 fret, 1 11/16" necks.

I've used standard spaced HB's in the neck with a Fender bridge before, I'm OK with that part, I'm concerned with the matching tones of the two really.

Keegan, that is an interesting choice, Jazz or Distortion, they are worlds apart, I'm curious why you picked them.

PS, I bought both of these years ago, no returns, just other guitar choices.

PPS, I have a pretty large stash of pickups I bought many years ago, I have both you mentioned, but you see, these both have gold covers, it's a gold Floyd, gold hardware, gold cover pickups...you get the picture why I want to try them together, it's primarily because they are the two I have that both have gold covers to match my gold Floyd, and I'm not spending any money chasing pickups.

[crafty]

I bet it'll sound good. I had an Alnico II Pro bridge in the neck and a '59 in the bridge of my LP for a while and it sounded fine. The bridge version of the PG will probably keep you from having too much of a volume drop when switching between the two.

[Keegan]

Just because they both have neck options and have enough output to keep up with the JB. That and I like the sound of a distortion in the neck.

[avengers63]

Or you could swap the pup covers onto pups you know will work together.

[SJE-Guitars]

Well the only difference between a SD Neck and Bridge pickup other than the obvious resistance difference is the string spacing, which is measured between the centre of outer poles - a trembucker pickup string spacing is 52.6mm, standard humbucker is 50mm and a standard neck is 48mm. So if you have a trem and wider spacing in theory the standard 'bridge' spacing would end up about right . . . so nothing to worry about there.

In terms of tone - I virtually always use non-matching pickups for a great tone range - in my strat style guitar before I used a StagMag (2 coils - 16k and I think 44AWG wire - so bright!) with an APH1 in the neck and it gives a great range of tones. Matching pickups are dull in my opinion - just like my old Peavey EVH there was so little difference between to two pickups it was pointless in ever changing I just used the neck virtually the whole time.

In Short . . . go for it!

[Drak]

That's an interesting point that the bridge spacing on the PG may be slightly wider than a neck spacing model would be, that would work to my advantage here.

About using 'matched' pickups, that's an interesting point, because really w/o meaning to, I almost never use 'matched' sets of pickups (actually never) anyway.

Every guitar I've built has different pickups on it for neck and bridge, even with the one strat setup I have, I have a different pickup in the middle than the bridge and neck, which did come from a 'set', so that part is pretty normal for me.

Sounds like it's worth giving it a shot.