Recommend me a pickup

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JakeAC5253

JakeAC5253

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Looking to upgrade the pickup in my Strat. Currently it's a Duncan Invader. I hate the hole it has in the mids, sounds dead right around 750-1k to me. I have a few that I am considering...

Duncan Distortion
Duncan Custom (Not sure which one?)
Duncan JB
Bareknuckle Alnico Warpig
Bareknuckle Painkiller
 
Suhr Aldrich or SSH+. I like Bareknuckles also but for the money the Suhr is excellent. Great Mids and no ice pick.
 
Going off of your list, Id say the JB or painkiller. The duncan custom is absolutley killer but a little light on the lowend compared to the other 2. And its 180 degrees different than your invader.
 
droptrd":13fkrflk said:
Going off of your list, Id say the JB or painkiller. The duncan custom is absolutley killer but a little light on the lowend compared to the other 2. And its 180 degrees different than your invader.
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I've got the JB in another of my guitars, looking for something new, probably shouldn't have included it in my list haha. I'll keep the PK on the list. How is the Duncan Distortion? I've recently found out that Bill Kelliher of Mastodon stands by it. I like Mastodon's tone as well so I was thinking of trying it. This particular guitar is currently tuned to Bb standard. It's basically emulating a 7 string guitar tuned half step down, except not. My style has been floating somewhere between Mastodon/Nevermore/Gojira/Meshuggah/Textures/TesseracT etc etc.
 
JakeAC5253":2lawhqgg said:
droptrd":2lawhqgg said:
Going off of your list, Id say the JB or painkiller. The duncan custom is absolutley killer but a little light on the lowend compared to the other 2. And its 180 degrees different than your invader.
Click to expand...

How about the Duncan Distortion? I've recently found out that Bill Kelliher of Mastodon stands by it. I like Mastodon's tone as well so I was thinking of trying it. This particular guitar is currently tuned to Bb standard. It's basically emulating a 7 string guitar tuned half step down, except not. My style has been floating somewhere between Mastodon/Nevermore/Gojira/Meshuggah/Textures/TesseracT etc etc.
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I have one in a strat. I keep it tuned to B. Its tight enuff to handle drop tunings very well. The Custom is awesome for drop tunings too.
 
The one thing that worries me, Duncan's website states the EQ on the Distortion is 5/8/9 where the JB is 5/6/8 reading as B/M/T. If there is one complaint about the JB it is the shrill high end and that extra point on the Distortion's high end worries me a tad. I know these EQ's are pretty close to arbitrary and shouldn't hold any real bearing on decision making, but It's still pretty glaring right now. Especially since I think my body wood is of the brighter sorts. Do you think it would be a problem?
 
The JB can definitely be shrill/brittle in a Strat or other maple/alder bolt-on if you are running 500k pots, but with 250k pots, it is usually smoothed out nicely. You may find that with the Distortion, as well. I don't have experience with that particular combo, so it's only speculation on my part. Eb or drop D is also about as close to 'down-tuning' as I get, so going down to B might yield different results.

In the end, it always seems like a gamble of some degree when you want to introduce something different in to the mix.
 
jet66":334xowfu said:
The JB can definitely be shrill/brittle in a Strat or other maple/alder bolt-on if you are running 500k pots, but with 250k pots, it is usually smoothed out nicely. You may find that with the Distortion, as well. I don't have experience with that particular combo, so it's only speculation on my part. Eb or drop D is also about as close to 'down-tuning' as I get, so going down to B might yield different results.

In the end, it always seems like a gamble of some degree when you want to introduce something different in to the mix.
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This is off-topic, but I'll share it with you anyway. You don't really need to swap the actual pots out just to achieve that effect. If you are running a 500k and think that your tone is a bit bright but don't really want to commit to a 250k pot and have to do all the wiring, grab a 500k resistor and solder it across the outside lugs of the volume pot. This will work against the pot resistance and show the pickup 250k. If you just want to tame the top end without going down the full pot value then experiment with smaller value resistors. It's a real neat trick and I thought I should share it with you! :thumbsup: :rock:
 
The Warpig will give that exact hole in the upper mids you don't like so you should delete it from your list. Painkiller will give you that upper mids but it might be too stiff for leads.

Dimarzio Evolution would also work but in some guitars it can be a bit shrill, it works best in a dark guitar.

EDIT: Seeing what bands you like, I definitely recommend the Painkiller :rock:
 
JakeAC5253":656pcxaa said:
This is off-topic, but I'll share it with you anyway. You don't really need to swap the actual pots out just to achieve that effect. If you are running a 500k and think that your tone is a bit bright but don't really want to commit to a 250k pot and have to do all the wiring, grab a 500k resistor and solder it across the outside lugs of the volume pot. This will work against the pot resistance and show the pickup 250k. If you just want to tame the top end without going down the full pot value then experiment with smaller value resistors. It's a real neat trick and I thought I should share it with you! :thumbsup: :rock:
Click to expand...
I've heard of that before, but never tried it. (Experimenting with other values, in particular.) Does it affect the sound of the sweep at all when turning the pot down? And in theory, if I had one 250k pot for volume, no tones, and ran a 250k across it, would it be akin to having a 250k vol + 250k tone (tone always being on 10) sound-wise? If so, that might give me an idea for one of my other guitars...
 
jet66":7wjz5ocm said:
I've heard of that before, but never tried it. (Experimenting with other values, in particular.) Does it affect the sound of the sweep at all when turning the pot down? And in theory, if I had one 250k pot for volume, no tones, and ran a 250k across it, would it be akin to having a 250k vol + 250k tone (tone always being on 10) sound-wise? If so, that might give me an idea for one of my other guitars...
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I haven't noticed any difference in taper, but then again my volumes are modded as 'no tone loss' volumes, so I probably wouldn't notice any small change in taper. To answer your question, I'm not sure what you mean by simulate a tone pot on 10. There's not really much to simulate lol. If you mean simulate tone pot on 0 by using a resistor across outside lugs, then no. By soldering a 250k resistor across the outside lugs of a 250k pot, you simulate a 125k pot. You could however simulate tone knob on 0 by using a capacitor across the pickup. Solder the cap from the input lug to the pot ground and voila!
 
MetalMongolito":1jzff9sr said:
The Warpig will give that exact hole in the upper mids you don't like so you should delete it from your list. Painkiller will give you that upper mids but it might be too stiff for leads.

Dimarzio Evolution would also work but in some guitars it can be a bit shrill, it works best in a dark guitar.

EDIT: Seeing what bands you like, I definitely recommend the Painkiller :rock:
Click to expand...

Thanks! I really appreciate the insight!
 
JakeAC5253":3vvkxu4h said:
To answer your question, I'm not sure what you mean by simulate a tone pot on 10. There's not really much to simulate lol. If you mean simulate tone pot on 0 by using a resistor across outside lugs, then no. By soldering a 250k resistor across the outside lugs of a 250k pot, you simulate a 125k pot.
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Someone had given me that idea some time ago, and it didn't make sense, but I thought they knew more about it than I did. I think the concept would be more like tying a 250k resistor in series to a .022 cap, and then bridging them across the outer legs. That (I think) would simulate a 250k tone pot turned up all of the way, with that little bit of treble roll-off that you get when the tone is on 10. I don't use the tone control, but I find that I prefer the sound of having one vs. not. That might be finicky and subtle, but I definitely notice the difference, especially with the JB in a bright guitar.
 
Since you already know what the JB sounds like, this should help a bit:

The Duncan Custom kinda sounds like a JB with some of that upper high/midrange cut out and maybe a bit more bass added. It works well in alder to help thicken the guitar up.
The Duncan Distortion is a very tight and punchy pickup with some strong bite/grind. While I've heard this is just a JB with a big ceramic magnet inside, it really sounds completely different to me.

I should be getting a Painkiller in the mail in a few weeks, hopefully. By the way people describe it, it almost sounds similar to the Distortion.
 
Big fan of the Duncan Distortion here.

It is very tight with good mids that make it very crunchy. It has a very grindy aggressive sound that I like. As far as the highs compared to the JB, I think my JB equipped guitar is a tad stronger in the treble than the Distortion, I use 500K pots in everything.

IMHO, why the JB to me sounds a bit stronger in the highs, and the Distortion is a little crunchier, is due to the alnico mag in one and a ceramic in the other.
 
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