Dark Pickup Suggestions Please

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TeleBlaster

TeleBlaster

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Super bright Strat, 2HB. Two piece maple neck. Alder Fender RW body, hard tail, string through.
500K pots, .047 caps. Wired 50's style.

Bare Knuckle Nailbombs are fizzy in this guitar, and just a little bright.

Motor City Afwayus are waaaaaay too bright, like honking bullet tweeter decapitation bright.

Right now I have a SD PhatCat in the neck which would be great except the high E an B strings die with this pickup.

So I'm looking for a dark HB set, lots of mids, anti-scooped, but not bass pickups. ;)

Not super high output, need superior cleans.

Go!

Thanks

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TeleBlaster":3eo65k64 said:
lots of mids, anti-scooped, but not bass pickups. ;)
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Duncan custom custom.
Maybe a dimarzio tone.zone.
 
Yeah, I was seriously thinking of a Tone Zone for the bridge, but I'm torn between an Air Zone or Air Norton for the neck.
 
I was going to say tone zone as well...I like the tone zone in my Charvel So Cal, nice thick mids.
 
'K - ordered a Tone Zone for the bridge, and I am trying the Liquifire for the first time, in the neck.
 
the tonezone is pretty high output. it fits everything you need except you may or may not like the somewhat fuzzy character they have - hard to notice in modeling amplifiers but in tube amplifiers it comes through pretty differently.

some hate the tonezone, others love it. ive had on in my prestige for over 2 years and eventually swapped it out for a JB because i wanted to try something different - its a really dark pickup and for the attitude of this guitar (very dark tonality - solid mahogany with rosewood fretboard) it needed the change.

good luck on the setup - let us know what you think about the liquidfire :thumbsup:
 
glpg80":2hypbear said:
the tonezone is pretty high output. it fits everything you need except you may or may not like the somewhat fuzzy character they have - hard to notice in modeling amplifiers but in tube amplifiers it comes through pretty differently.

some hate the tonezone, others love it. ive had on in my prestige for over 2 years and eventually swapped it out for a JB because i wanted to try something different - its a really dark pickup and for the attitude of this guitar (very dark tonality - solid mahogany with rosewood fretboard) it needed the change.

good luck on the setup - let us know what you think about the liquidfire :thumbsup:
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I've had a love/hate relationship with the ToneZone. :lol: :LOL:
I've got a ToneZone / AirZone set in a Wolfgang USA Standard that is really awesome.
I put the same set in a very dark sounding Wolfgang USA STP and it sucked bad, totally lifeless. :confused:
That guitar ended up with the stock Wolfie pup in the bridge and a Bare Knuckle Cold Sweat in the neck.

The DiMarzio tech guy talked me into the LiquiFire. I'm not a Petrucci fanboi, didn't even know about this pickup until today.
We'll see!
 
TeleBlaster":37kpy7bh said:
glpg80":37kpy7bh said:
the tonezone is pretty high output. it fits everything you need except you may or may not like the somewhat fuzzy character they have - hard to notice in modeling amplifiers but in tube amplifiers it comes through pretty differently.

some hate the tonezone, others love it. ive had on in my prestige for over 2 years and eventually swapped it out for a JB because i wanted to try something different - its a really dark pickup and for the attitude of this guitar (very dark tonality - solid mahogany with rosewood fretboard) it needed the change.

good luck on the setup - let us know what you think about the liquidfire :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

I've had a love/hate relationship with the ToneZone. :lol: :LOL:
I've got a ToneZone / AirZone set in a Wolfgang USA Standard that is really awesome.
I put the same set in a very dark sounding Wolfgang USA STP and it sucked bad, totally lifeless. :confused:
That guitar ended up with the stock Wolfie pup in the bridge and a Bare Knuckle Cold Sweat in the neck.

The DiMarzio tech guy talked me into the LiquiFire. I'm not a Petrucci fanboi, didn't even know about this pickup until today.
We'll see!
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+1 on the love hate relationship. i definately fall into that category myself.

airzone? never heard of it? how would you compare it to an air norton or wolfy neck pickup?

+1 on the lifelessness with dark guitars and dark pickups. talk about mudd and mush heaven :lol: :LOL:
 
I had tried an Air Norton in the neck first, but it didn't have enough testicular fortitude to match up well with the Tone Zone in that particular guitar.
The Air Zone seems like a more natural neck pup for the TZ, no drop off in volume or push going to the middle position from the bridge, just a mellower tone.
Probably could be best described as "Tone Zone Lite".
Much clearer in the low mids to mids than the stock neck Wolfie pup. Lets more of the maple snap through on the bass side.
 
Of the pickups that I have tried, the DiMarzio Super Distortion is pretty dark. It is also muddy and not very good cleans. I have an idea how you can use a brighter cleaner pickup and darken it to get the best of both worlds if you wouldn't mind drilling an extra hole (small one) in your control plate.
 
One way to make a bright sounding pickup darker is to strap some extra resistance across the pickup. All you have to do is grab a resistor: 2M will just take a little off the top, 1M is pretty noticeable darkening and more focused mids, and anything lower is a pretty extreme effect.

To make the mod switchable so that you can deactivate it if you want some spanky cleans, all you have to do is buy an SPST mini-toggle and solder the resistor directly to the throw contact so that it only affects the tone when the switch contacts are bridged. Wire from the pole to the switch contact with the pickup's hot lead and wire the throw contact to the back of the volume pot.
 
Are you against using 250K pots? I actually use them in some of my brighter guitars with humbuckers after running into similar problems.
 
The gibson Tony Iommi pickups sound like what you are after. very dark and not overly hot.
 
RJF":3idnzyzt said:
The gibson Tony Iommi pickups sound like what you are after. very dark and not overly hot.
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I was going to suggest this. Sweet pickups!
 
mixeduplydian":1ksu4mqw said:
Are you against using 250K pots? I actually use them in some of my brighter guitars with humbuckers after running into similar problems.
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You know, I do have the original Fender 250's that came in this guitar and I've tried a couple configurations mixing them in.
It's just that with some of the pickups I've tried, they've come close to working good with the 500's, and some pickups have been soooo over the top bright, I wasn't sure what the best approach would be. Also the really bright pups sounded flat and two dimensional and the 250's didn't seem to give them any character or "roundness" to the tone.
I am appreciating the suggestions, guys.. THANK YOU!!!
Never had this problem with an overly bright guitar before, usually it's the other way around.
Great learning experience, but I wish it had happened on a rear cavity guitar! I can remove the strings and pull the pick guard with my eyes closed on this one!
 
I hear you on that. They work pretty well for me with the JB, but they can take the life out of some humbuckers for sure.
 
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