favorite pickup similar to a jb?

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mchn13

mchn13

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always come back to one of my les pauls with a jb in it for rock or drop tune brutals… something about the snarl always sits right with me vs more polished pups. just wish it was a little tighter in the bass..
anything out there super similar, but a more tight low end.??
 
On superstrats I use the BKP Holydiver

For Les Pauls, I would say the 500T. (To me it sounds what you’d think a ceramic JB would sound and feel like, tighter but still has some give).
 
I grabbed an RTM(Duncan DeMartini Custom shop) used here and it is very similar to a JB, the highs are a bit tamed and the mids less harsh, but still prevalent in a good way. Tight low end too...although I feel the JB can sound tight enough for me. It's like the sometimes harshness of some JBs are toned down in a good way. Great clarity. It's like a refined JB.
 
Suhr Aldrich ... everything you like about the SD JB ... and nothing you don’t.

:yes:
 
Its not at all the same, so I'm really not answering your question, but the Wilde L500L/XL is a really tight passive pickup. Very quiet as well. And it has an attractive price tag to boot. It's probably my favorite passive, and it stays in my superstrat.
 
nigelpkay":3p0evvbu said:
On superstrats I use the BKP Holydiver

For Les Pauls, I would say the 500T. (To me it sounds what you’d think a ceramic JB would sound and feel like, tighter but still has some give).
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500t are awesome. Cheap used too. I have one in a gibby V and one in an SG. Probably one of my favorite pickups overall. Everything is just perfect with it for me.

I have a 80's DiMarzio PAF pickup in a LP, it kicks major ass. Nothing like the current dimarzio PAF's though.
 
swamptrashstompboxes":xfzyldja said:
nigelpkay":xfzyldja said:
On superstrats I use the BKP Holydiver

For Les Pauls, I would say the 500T. (To me it sounds what you’d think a ceramic JB would sound and feel like, tighter but still has some give).
Click to expand...

500t are awesome. Cheap used too. I have one in a gibby V and one in an SG. Probably one of my favorite pickups overall. Everything is just perfect with it for me.
Click to expand...

Yeah I really like the overall tone and feel of the 500T, again it’s the closest thing to a ceramic JB you will find, but the one major drawback is that it is severely compressed. The JB, although also hot and compressed, still has some air about it that makes it ideal for anything from blues, jazz, to hard rock to metal. I keep going back to it all the time regardless :)
 
nigelpkay":2vkjpd6d said:
On superstrats I use the BKP Holydiver

For Les Pauls, I would say the 500T. (To me it sounds what you’d think a ceramic JB would sound and feel like, tighter but still has some give).
Click to expand...
On the Pauls, agreed...i just cannot get away from the 500T. It's what's in all my Pauls now, nothing else in them even sounds right to me now.
 
FWIW, I think the Duncan Black Winter has a similar upper-mid grind compared to the JB grind with less stuffy lower mids and a bolder, leaner, faster bottom-end.
 
GOHOINC":c6138sc4 said:
Motor city afwayu
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Wow, aren't the mids WAY different? I love the Afwayu, but it's much darker than any JB I've played.
 
Racerxrated":29fhnsrd said:
GOHOINC":29fhnsrd said:
Motor city afwayu
Click to expand...
Wow, aren't the mids WAY different? I love the Afwayu, but it's much darker than any JB I've played.
Click to expand...

Well, I must admit that my afwayu is ceramic, not the normal alnico; and the only JB I have left is a JB under Jazzmaster which looks very different under the cover. Add to that my afwayu is in an ash body strat with a gotoh 510 and my JB is in a full mahogany hard tail jazzmaster. So maybe I'm not getting a truly accurate representation of normalcy or a truly relative base of comparison. Not sure how much the differences in pickup build to standard and the different guitars I have them in plays into it but my afwayu plays like a better JB to me... in fact, 2 weeks ago I ordered two new bridge model Afwayus to replace the Friedman Classic+ in my green meanies. The Friedman is a great pickup but I wanted more output.


That being said, "The man" "used jeff becks for years" and then switched to Afwayu so I wouldnt think they could be that strikingly different.
 
DiMarzio Norton.

All the harmonics, crunch, but with a tighter low-end, and while still bright, the high-end never gets harsh.
 
Another vote for the Suhr Aldrich, it's everything you described. Tight low end without the spikey midrange the JB tends to have and it seems to have more of an open sound even though it is very high output, I think 17-18K if I remember correctly.
 
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