Huge beefy pickups for thin bright strats.

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veji

veji

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I have a very thin, very bright harsh sounding all maple guitar. I currently have a mcp afwayu and dimarzio air norton in this guitar. It helped. Can anybody recommend another pickup combo that's thicker more beefy, ballsier?
 
Aldrich sounds awesome in a maple body, tried the Dimarzio SD, the Aldrich kills it
 
Your volume pot is probably 500K. Replacing it with a 250K pot will help if you didn't want to spend the money on a different pickup.
 
Bare Knuckle Holy Diver or Crawler would be my best suggestion.. Both of those pickup have worked well for me at taming and filling out a bright\thin guitar.

I would stay away from anything thats very hot because in my experience any harshness the guitar naturally has will be amplified even if its a dark pickup. You will end up solving one problem but still be left with harshness. So IMO Aldrich, Tone Zone, Super Distortion, Duncan Distortion, BK Warpig, PRS Tremonti all those would NOT be the answer. You want something that is dark, smooth and fat but also not very hot. As far as Dimarzio goes the Gravity Storm, Timmons, Air Zone come to mind but Im partial to Bare Knuckle pickups, As far as Duncans go I have not personally found one of there pickups that have the qualities mentioned although I do like the JB and the Distortion a lot I dont think thats the answer for your maple guitar.
 
zz666":1uskd4wy said:
Aldrich sounds awesome in a maple body, tried the Dimarzio SD, the Aldrich kills it
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The first thing I thought of was the Suhr Aldrich. Another pickup that adds thickness to bright guitars is the Rio Grand BBQ.
 
Oh yeah, good call on Rio Grande BBQ. And speaking of the BK Warpig, there just happens to be one for sale in classifieds from a super cool guy to deal with. :D
 
Send the afwayu back to Wade and have him 'fatten' it up
 
My Strats aren't maple, but the Aldrich is big and fat in them.
 
I like the Tone Zone S. If gain is what you really are after SD Hotrails
 
Old Gibson Tim Shaw pickups work well in thin sounding guitars. 250 Ohm volume pot was a good suggestion as well. I have a 250 Ohm pot with SD Screamin Demon in an all maple guitar that sounds good and fat. It is an old 80's Demon from probably the first batch. They seem to mellow over time.
Good luck and have patience. Takes a while to find the right combo in a thin/bright guitar.
 
the4thlast1":sz3ul948 said:
Bare Knuckle Holy Diver or Crawler would be my best suggestion.. Both of those pickup have worked well for me at taming and filling out a bright\thin guitar.

I would stay away from anything thats very hot because in my experience any harshness the guitar naturally has will be amplified even if its a dark pickup. You will end up solving one problem but still be left with harshness. So IMO Aldrich, Tone Zone, Super Distortion, Duncan Distortion, BK Warpig, PRS Tremonti all those would NOT be the answer. You want something that is dark, smooth and fat but also not very hot. As far as Dimarzio goes the Gravity Storm, Timmons, Air Zone come to mind but Im partial to Bare Knuckle pickups, As far as Duncans go I have not personally found one of there pickups that have the qualities mentioned although I do like the JB and the Distortion a lot I dont think thats the answer for your maple guitar.
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Guess we all hear things differently and/or the same pickups react differently in different guitars. I've used the BKP Holy Diver and it was not at all huge or beefy. It was kinda dark because it was so dull sounding. The Tone Zone isn't really that hot of a pickup, especially since a lot of folks (me included) have it backed pretty far away from the strings. Too close to the strings and the Tone Zone isn't fat and beefy any more, it's muddy and woofy. It's kind of a hard pickup to tame, but the potential is there.

Another option is the Dimarzio Air Norton. Most people use it in the neck I think, but I have one in the bridge and it's great. It has kinda weird specs. Pretty high DC resistance (and it's kinda dark, like you'd expect with something with that high DC resistance) but is pretty low/moderate output. Very thick, solid sounding pickup that is not all that hot.
 
Does it have a maple fretboard too? I am going to assume it does... people focus so much on pups that they forget about the neck. I had the same problem with that plinkiness and thin sound coming from my KOA top on alder strat with maple fretboard and i went to rosewood. Now with the super distortion i have in it, i find myself wanting a bit more cut again. Seriously, consider the neck if you are sold on the guitar.

As for pickups, you could try the dimarzio SD. Great pickup that will fatten things up if you keep the maple neck. You could go to a hot alnico II pup. Maybe a JB with alnico II in it. Maybe try Lynch's Super V pickup which you know he has mounted in his maple axes. Also an alnico II magnet if i am not mistaken.

Besides that, you could try a Super 3 (was totally dead in a mahogany guitar i had) or an Air Zone if the tone zone EQ curve annoys you.
 
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