firejack
Well-known member
Amazing! So impressed by these pickups.
I was able to pursuade a friend of mine to sell me his unused HellBaby pickups. Finally got them installed in two guitars... an Ibanez RG Prestige in Drop C and a Schecter Sun Valley Shredder in Drop B. It has to be my fave pickup for detuned guitars. Period. I've been through many different varieties of pickups over the years, and the HellBaby is king.
It's fat and warm, yet crystal clear through the frequency range. It's very much like a mish-mash of the Duncan JB, Duncan Distortion, WCR Darkburst and BKP Painkiller. Except without the excessive compression that I associate with the Duncans, the lack of output that I crave from the WCR Darkburst, and the ear fatigue of the BKP Painkiller. Just take all the best qualities of those four pickups and there you have it.
The lows are adequately tight for most metal styles. And the mids and highs are perfection. The mids in particular are a standout. They give the HellBaby a singing vocal quality that's reminiscent of the JB voicing, but without the stuffy congested sound artifacts. It has the same sort of unpredictable note artifact and response as the WCR Darkburst bridge, like they are very lightly potted to let the pickups get a bit wild and out of control, but in a good way. And also that same clean 3D quality that the Darkburst has, the HellBaby has that too. But the HellBaby just has a little more character to it. The HellBaby's character is more in the vein of the Duncan Distortion or the BKP Painkiller, just not as extreme as either of those two pickups. Just the perfect amount of mid-grind without getting overbearing.
It's a damn shame that Wade discontinued the HellBaby model. If anybody has some stockpiled that they want to get rid of, please let me know.
I was able to pursuade a friend of mine to sell me his unused HellBaby pickups. Finally got them installed in two guitars... an Ibanez RG Prestige in Drop C and a Schecter Sun Valley Shredder in Drop B. It has to be my fave pickup for detuned guitars. Period. I've been through many different varieties of pickups over the years, and the HellBaby is king.
It's fat and warm, yet crystal clear through the frequency range. It's very much like a mish-mash of the Duncan JB, Duncan Distortion, WCR Darkburst and BKP Painkiller. Except without the excessive compression that I associate with the Duncans, the lack of output that I crave from the WCR Darkburst, and the ear fatigue of the BKP Painkiller. Just take all the best qualities of those four pickups and there you have it.
The lows are adequately tight for most metal styles. And the mids and highs are perfection. The mids in particular are a standout. They give the HellBaby a singing vocal quality that's reminiscent of the JB voicing, but without the stuffy congested sound artifacts. It has the same sort of unpredictable note artifact and response as the WCR Darkburst bridge, like they are very lightly potted to let the pickups get a bit wild and out of control, but in a good way. And also that same clean 3D quality that the Darkburst has, the HellBaby has that too. But the HellBaby just has a little more character to it. The HellBaby's character is more in the vein of the Duncan Distortion or the BKP Painkiller, just not as extreme as either of those two pickups. Just the perfect amount of mid-grind without getting overbearing.
It's a damn shame that Wade discontinued the HellBaby model. If anybody has some stockpiled that they want to get rid of, please let me know.
