SD pickup thoughts - Liberator & Screamin Demon

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crushabud said:
I said the alder/mahogany thing out of personal experience; the Jackson Kelly I have @ the moment is alder, and I get the 'brash' tone I referred to. Years back, I had the same p/u (JB) in an SG, and it sounded great. I'm not saying this goes for all SD pups, just the JB. Seth Lover designed it from overwound Gibson HBs...

Hear you on the 'tone-chaser' thing! I used to stress about tone constantly, back in the day. Now I've gone in the opposite direction; sounds good, ok, let's play!
Correction, Seth Lover started the humbucker thing and inspired the overwound buckers that Seymour Duncan based the Jeff Beck off of ;) Same thing with the John Milner (a.k.a. the Jazz)
 
Shinozoku said:
crushabud said:
I said the alder/mahogany thing out of personal experience; the Jackson Kelly I have @ the moment is alder, and I get the 'brash' tone I referred to. Years back, I had the same p/u (JB) in an SG, and it sounded great. I'm not saying this goes for all SD pups, just the JB. Seth Lover designed it from overwound Gibson HBs...

Hear you on the 'tone-chaser' thing! I used to stress about tone constantly, back in the day. Now I've gone in the opposite direction; sounds good, ok, let's play!
Correction, Seth Lover started the humbucker thing and inspired the overwound buckers that Seymour Duncan based the Jeff Beck off of ;) Same thing with the John Milner (a.k.a. the Jazz)

Correct, sir, my bad! Got my Seth/Seymour references reversed...

I fall on my headstock...
 
Here is my experience...

Screamin Demon - great modded PAF tones with bright but not harsh top end and low end clarity and balanced mids... medium output... nails Lynch tone!

Custom Custom - Open and crunchy balanced with more mids overal and excellent clarity in the bottom... medium output. This pickup begs to play with JCM 800's... hangs in the Angus camp of big ballsy rock tones.

Invader - totally HOT huge tone, will distort the cleanest tones... fairly balanced with lots of teeth... lives for loud ruud mid to high gain tones. Sets up different than most pickups due to it's own gravitational pull.

JB- Hot PAF with lots of buzzey top end more mids and les bass... does not clean up well with volume backed off. Sounds wicked in a Les Paul thru any amp. Best for classic rock and some metal.

59 Bridge or Neck - Smoooooth and well balanced with medium low output. Neck is especially creamy!

Pearly Gates Plus - Bite that is not harsh, mids that have teeth, medium output... if you like pinch harmonics and the Screamon Demon does not float your boat then this pickup is "the one".

Slash Signature Bridge and Neck - well balanced with excellent detail. Some bite but very smooth with tons of sparkle. Bridge has the beer attitude but will appeal to cork sniffers. Neck is creamy with sparkle detail and the perfect classic PAF mids... like no other pickup I've played. Begs for play time with Plexi or any amp that delivers great detail... Soldano!
 
I really like the Duncan Blackouts... they're active, but they're an easy swap from EMG's wiring clip. They're definitely more "open" sounding than EMG's... not as compressed. In that regard, they're more "passive" sounding...
 
do the 18 volt mod to your fav EMG... makes them more classic bucker sounding... opens them up and softens the attack... great mod it you like that voicing.
 
I've actually never heard a 9v hookup of EMGs (at least not mine). As soon as I got them I told the tech to wire them up for 18v. The Duncan Blackouts might be a cool alternative some day but for now I'm going to mess with passives, which leads me onto the project I finally got together.

Here is a shot of the guitar with the Screamin Demon.
BCRichST.jpg


I invested in the SD Liberator pot as well so hooking up pickups and so forth would be a snap. I wired it up for single hum single tone. The neck humbucker & corresponding pot are there for appearance sake but not functional.

Liberator - I have now made my guitar a modular guitar. :lol: Very strait forward & the schematics Duncan has on their site are perfect even for the not so technically minded. Going forward I can't imagine going back to regular pots, unless the cavity will not accomodate the Liberator. The pot seems to have a dramatic change from the last 1/4 - 1/3 (say from 10-7) then it seems to be more tapered. As stated the junction platform makes this a large object for your control cavity. In fact to make itwork I had to butcher a traditional volume pot so I could get this to fit in the cavity of this guitar. It sits up higher the the other pots but this could be remedied by adding washers or a nut or 2 to the bottom side of the shaft.

Screamin Demon - Well it definately screams. Pinch harmonics are a breeze. The pickup is a little bright for my tastes in this guitar. But for the most part the amp can eq that out for more my taste. Also the tone pot does a pretty good job of gettingrid of some of the brightness with out getting mushy (at least until about 6 or 7 - anything lower & not so good tone) I think this would be beasty in a Les Paul or other Mahogany bodied guitar. I'm thinking Jackson SL2 Mahogany 8)

I'm going to roll with this for awhile. Eventually I might try the Pearly Gates, CustomCustom, or Slash pickups to see what those do as well.
 
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