Seymour Duncan Invader Trash?

Smashedguitaris⸸

Smashedguitaris⸸

Hack
My bud is asking me about this pickup. I think, like me, he has been sold by marketing. I tried it a few years ago, and thought it was the shittiest pickup i had used from a name brand company. It was bad. Real bad. I love seymour duncan. everything else i have tried from them is good. I absolutely love the custom/59. Has anyone had better experience with invader?
 
Smashedguitarist said:
My bud is asking me about this pickup. I think, like me, he has been sold by marketing. I tried it a few years ago, and thought it was the shittiest pickup i had used from a name brand company. It was bad. Real bad. I love seymour duncan. everything else i have tried from them is good. I absolutely love the custom/59. Has anyone had better experience with invader?
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Hated it and I'm a SD fan
 
I have one from the 80's that was in a '85 Jackson RR1. It smokes! It led me to trying others and I did not like any of them instantly. Any that I have tried in the last 15 years were disappointments and do not come close to the 80's version. Completely sound like different pickups.
 
I like the Invader, but it has to be in the right guitar, and it helps to lower it more than typical pickups. It has a lot of mids which makes it sound like using a Tubescreamer boost all the time.
 
My guitarist was just complaining about his guitar with Invaders the other day. I agree with JB/59 all day, but those can be a bit smokey.
 
I wouldn't call it a terrible pickup. but it's not an all-arounder like say a JB. It's pretty specialized and picky about which guitar it goes in, how it's set and the amp you're playing to get it to behave. It's fairly high output, has a lot of mids present and a big bass response. Putting it into a warmer sounding guitar will make it sound a muddy. Ina brighter guitar it will balance out. You also have to watch how you set the pole and overall pickup height. Too close and it starts overpowering everything and sounds like a garbled mess. Last is being mindful of the tone stack on your amp; especially gain with high gain amps. With it's output too much gain will oversaturate the preamp and you end up with crap sound. It can work to your advantage if you wan to push a low gain amp into having more drive, but can push too much into a high gain amp.

All this isn't to say the pickup is trash. It's only that everything needs to come together just right and it takes some work to find that right combination. And when it does fall into place it can sound really great.
 
I've got one in my Charvel pointy a la Vivian Campbell

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Tom DeLonge from Blink 182 used this PU in his Strat in the early 2000s. Keep in mind, the bridge PU in a strat is closer to the bridge the for example in a Gibson guitar. This gives a brighter sound with slightly less output which the PU tends to balance out.
 
I got one in the 90's because the other guitarist in my band had one in his main guitar, an Ibanez Jem with a Kramer neck. Sounded cool in that guitar so I put one in my Dean and I hated it. At the time we were both using Marshall JCM 800's but his guitar sounded better than mine. I got rid of that guitar and got a Jackson King V, put a JB in that, got a 78 Marshall and then I sounded better than him. :ROFLMAO:
 
Marshall Gallagher of Teenage Wrist uses one in an old Ibanez Strat looking thing and his tone through an Orange 2x12 combo is bad ass 90's rock/dream pop/emo/shoegaze. I fucking LOVE his tone.
 
Revi San said:
Keep in mind, the bridge PU in a strat is closer to the bridge the for example in a Gibson guitar. This gives a brighter sound with slightly less output which the PU tends to balance out.
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Not sure I'm reading your statement correctly but in Gibson guitars the bridge PU is definitely closer to the bridge saddles than in Fenders. It's mostly due to scale length differences.
 
Invaders are extremely picky about guitars and amps.

They're hugely bassy and low middy, and therefore don't balance well with certain rigs.

I think they can sound good in strats and superstrats, but putting them in a Gibson scale guitar is a recipe for mud.
 
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