Which hi-gain passive pickup for laminated plywood ? :D

[Manix]

Hi everyone,great to be in this community.Here is my first post
I wanna change the stock bridge pickup of my old Washburn Mg-24.Im gonna play Megadeth,Metallica,Trivium stuff mostly on this one.I use Ehx Metal muff with a behringer v-amp lx110(i use the bypass channel)
Question is i dont know the bodywood of this guitar.At catalog from 1990s it says hardwood so im assuming its a basswood or glued plywood which is
but probably not sth very good .
I thought invader is gonna be a good choice but i red some posts that it can be quite muddy in basswood.
Which pick ups whould you recommend both from seymour duncan or dimarzio?

PSlease no post like,dont even mess with it its a crap guitar.What ever it is i wanna use it and with a little pickup change it can sound good imo

[Franknfilms]

I have a plywood strat copy. I put a duncan detonator in it, it is some amazing tone. Not muddy at all. The detontaor is a duncan designed distortion (made overseas) with invader screws. They only cost $20 used, it is worth a shot. I won't be replacing mine anytime soon.

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Welcome to the Duncan Forums Manix !


I heard the Lace Death Buckers work great in 'no-name wood'/cheap guitars.
Never tried them myself ! Yet !

If it is at all possible, they and focus your attention on the amp 1st.
Tha is your weakest link right now.
I have no idea what amps cost in Turkey, but i would deff try and get a valve/tube amp 1st, then tackle the smaller things, like pick ups, pedals, strings, and what not.

Good Luck

[AlexR]

Its fair to say that if you intend to play heavy styles, the inherent wood tone becomes of little importance. A thick pickup with its own voice and (usually) tons of saturation will squash the wood's tone.

If you want brutality and clarity the PATB 2 is supposedly the one. Its like a Distortion but the staple-like poles remove all stuffiness from your tone (at least they do in the PATB 1 and 3 which I have).

[GregJr]

Blackouts!!

[metalmachine]

welcome to the forum

[MojoMonster]

BMP.
Then just use whatever is handy.

[Manix]

Thanks for the replys guys,appreciated.
Frankfilm;thanks for recommendation,im gonna check some luthiers shop sometimes people leave their stock duncan desing pups thereif i cant find it i will end up buying a distortion probably which i love the sound of it.
SirJackdeFuzz;
Yeah right im gonna change my amp in 1 months probably .One of my friend going to Usa and i want a small all tube head from him.But havent decided which one Mesa Mini Rec seems very nice cus lots of people compain about not enough gain from small tube amps.Like blackstar ht-5 which i think have pretty crappy distortion.But mesa have enough gain from what i heard.And price is 1000$ not too bad its 2000$ in Turkey
Im gonna open a new thread about amps .But any recommendation about amps here appreciated too
After Alex's post i change my mind and im gonna downtune this gitar to play Children of Bodom mostly.I play them on hellraiser c-1 which is a pretty versatile guitar with emgs and coil taps so hellraiser gonna be my standart tuning guitar.
Thanks for post again.
So any recomendation besides patb2 and lacedeath bucker(which is not available here)
Im leaning towards to distortion which i heard have lots of mids(good thing),any more good things about it?

[Aceman]

This is really counter to what you are looking for, but I think it is important to mention:

Mega-gain pickup + Mega-gain pedal + Mega-gain amp = Mega CRAP!

You should b abl to get a serious Metallica etc... tone with JUST the V-amp. Or just the Metal Muff.

A low gain pickup like a 59 will do more for your tone than anything. Learn to work the EQ on the Muff and the amp.


Just something to consider.

[Despair]

First, I apologize if I ramble, nasty headache which may impair clarity... But here goes:

I don't agree with Aceman about low output pickups. Lower output pickups are more dependent on body wood for balanced tone, and there's only so far that EQ can go.

If the guitar is a bit dead sounding, a hotter pickup with a more distinct character may be required for it to be usable. Certainly you should start without the dirtbox in the chain, reexamine if and where to use it.

A lot of classic albums were high output pickups into hot amps. JB into boost into hot amp is not at all uncommon. Anthrax "Sound of White Noise" for lots of examples of that.

Not every plywood guitar is useless, either. It's just rare for them to be the singing sort that is sought after by players who prefer low output pickups, low gain and letting the wood speak. But unknown hardwood could be anything.

The PATB-2 Parallel Axis Distortion is a killer pickup, highly recommended if you can get one. But the original Distortion is likely to be cheaper, and the Detonator cheaper yet.

PATB-2 is a lot of the best of the Invader, Distortion and JB in one pickup. Slightly less deep bass than the Invader, and less risk of mud. But more growl than a Distortion, and tighter than a JB. Sick for riffs, somewhere between Invader & Distortion for thrash rhythms, and a bit closer to a JB (but more compressed, very different sort of dynamics) for leads.

[Jocelyn]

I sort of agree with Aceman. With everything HIGH Gain you wont get a tone that is versatile. I bet you will have some killer Metal tones but even that could lack some dynamics. I suggest getting Your amp first then go for the pups. It will open up a wprld of Pickups for you then.

[Manix]

Thanks for replys
I agree with Despair about hiding the.woods sound.I checked if i can.find patb-2 only 1 shop sells them and price is out of my range sadly.so im going towards distortion.
Also i can get pretty nice tones with my hellraiser c-1 which have emg81-89 on it so i want something in that genre without going actives.
Im gonna get my amp asap this is just side project ,kinda make a guitar more usable
And lastly i need to use metal muff on chain , behringers distortion is pure crap,dont know how i used it that much

[Jocelyn]

The reason I say amp. Because Once you have that, IMO you will be able to narrow down better on what you would like from your pickups. Nothing wrong with getting the pickups first, though. But this is a suggestion.

[Franknfilms]

check out my old thread for more pickup suggestions:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/s...d.php?t=215287