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Question: How to choose pickups for a guitar!?
I play a gibson les paul but I personally hate the burstbuckers with them!. Now my two choices are an APH-1 Alnico II Pro humbucker set!. Or the hot rodded set with SH-2 Jazz neck and SH-4 JB bridge!. I love the sound of both of them but I use a Marshall Vintage Modern so I control my distortion and clean with my guitar volume and tone controls!. My main question is which is better low ouput like APH or high output like the hot-rodded set!. also could you give me reasons why!. Remember I'm looking for pickups that can allow me to use the volume controls!. Thanks!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
The JB's are some of the best "all-around" pickups I've ever used!. They don't necessarily excel at any one style or sound, but they sound good in just about all of them!. The only thing I don't think they're good at is a supernasty metal distorted tone - I can get one, but it's just not quite what I really want as far as that goes!. I can get a great rock sound, a decent clean and jazzy sound, etc!. Not too trebly, not too bassy, as I said, it's balanced for more "all around okay" tone!.
The JB's aren't that hot compared to a lot of other pickups - you'll be able to use your volume pot to control volume/gain, etc!.
You can also beef up your volume/tone pots - if you solder a resistor across the lugs (iirc) you increase the loading on the pickups, which changes their frequency response!. You might want to Google 'loading pot' or 'guitar loading pot resistor', I forget where I found that information out!.
You can also smooth out the JB's tone by lowering the pickup further from the strings, too, especially the bass side (which is good practice anyways)!.
PS Your tone is more than just your pickups !.!.!. and just because Slash uses them doesn't mean they're automatically good!. With his rig and his style he could put crappy pickups in there and it would still sound like him!.
The Alnicos are good sounding pickups, no doubt about it!. I just like the JB's more - having a decent tone at a little hotter output is no problem with me!
SaulWww@QuestionHome@Com
get seymour duncan alnico 2 pickups!. the ones that slash uses!. if slash uses them they have to be goodWww@QuestionHome@Com