So now that I am running a full stack, nice guitar, and two sweet heads I have been thinking a lot about fine tuning the sound and getting some new pick ups. What do you guys prefer?

passive with no boost, I'm not a fan of active pickups, and the tone you can get from passives (in my opinion anyways) is much better then active

went with passive no boost. Always have had the best results from it.

although, these pickups could work quite well too...

Passive, no boost. All hail the Duncan Custom Custom!

i voted for none of them.

i go for using medium output pickups AND using a boost.

what heads are you using?

I think he has an ENGL SE. Not sure about the other one.

fucking christ. nevermind, engls dont need a boost.

EMG 81 pair, personally double wound, internal shielding, rewaxxed, 18 volt mod for headroom and clarity.


brutality.

Toyota pickups - those are the bestest!

In all seriousness -- I've used both and currently use passive. I'm thinking of switching back to EMG active though when I get off my ass and put 'em in.

Andy, if you're looking for something 'hotter' and 'more gain-y' look into the Dimarzio X2N, it's a passive pick up that has better tone/clarity (and, again, in my opinon) output.

I'll only allow you to use EMG's if you rework Dead Hooker in a Shopping Cart... HAHAHA

Dimarzio Evolution---nuff said.

Dimarzio X2N. Best pickup I have ever heard. Unfortunately, they only make them for 6 string guitars.

I have Duncans on my Vs but I think next time I'm going w/Dimarzios

I have Duncan Distortion on My 7 string V. It's not bad, but don't feel like re-wiring my guitar for active pickups with a good chance that I won't like them.

metal_church101 said:

not true...X2N-7
http://www.music123.com/DiMarzio-X2N-7-i420108.music

DreamingInExile said:

Thanks man, I'll check those out. There has been talk about trying to rework that song -- I don't know if it will come to fruition, but maybe.

how abotu I hang out at your practice space and zap someone with a tazer until you guys get that song playable live again

HAHAHAHA

Brian, that engle was never officially mine. It was only mine until it sold. Really really nice amp right there though!!! Right now I am running TWO 5150's. I will be shipping one out to FJA mods later on today to get the "deluxe mod" "custom mercury magnetics transformer" "Adjustable noise reduction circuit" so it should be a bad ass amp when it is done. I will be able to fully adjust the whole tone range of the amp, pretty much have 4 channels (clean, footswitchable crunch, lead, and a totally new "3rd channel") have like a built in sonic maximizer type sound, compression, and all the channels will sound better than they id new. Should be a killer amp. I wish I could afford to do both amps, but selling my bass gear only braught me so far hahaha.

im an all passive guy. personally i dont need the high output, i let the amp do all the high gain. keeping a lower output pickup allows for a smoother overall tone and higher clarity. i almost think using super high output passives/actives in a modeling amp is kind of useless. the purpose of high output pickups is to drive TUBE amps harder for better TUBE distortion. anyway modeling amps are generally loaded with plenty of high end and using a high output pickup can result in kind of annoying high end overtones.

but i have to say, my favorites of the super high output pickups are probably the duncan dimebucker and the dimarzio x2n.

but the pickups i prefer are of the medium/highish end of the output section, anywhere from 13 to 17k dc resistance:

duncan JB, custom & custom custom
dimarzio paf pro, evolution & tone zone
rio grande (a brand a lot of you should check out) bbq bucker, crunchbox & muy grande

ive also been really interested in trying out the dimarzio air zone, steves special & d sonic as well.

Joshtruction said:



i really want to send my 5150 to FJA, but instead i might just invest in another head (you can never have enough amps). josh, id consider running a boost into the front of your unmodded 5150. the tightness youll get will be nasty. i cant live without a boost into mine.

pizio 90's for me

blue said:


I do boost it, but I am not sure I like the pedal I am using to boost it with. I want to try some other stuff. I am using a boss MD2 to boost right now, and I can't wait to find someone that wantas to trade this pedal for something like a tubescreamer.

EMG81's all day, and nothing else.

Joshtruction said:

yeah, the md2 probably isnt the best pedal to boost with. if youre looking for a nice cheap alternative, try a digitech bad monkey. circuitwise, its very close to a ts9, and its only 40 bucks new.

gain 0
bass 5
treble 3
level 10

blue said:

I have had nothing but bad luck, noise, and breaking digitech pedals. I will either find a boss that works good, or get a ts9.

every person i have ever told about the bad monkey has pretty much said the same thing. but the bad monkey is pretty much the only digitech pedal that doesnt suck, trust me.

the only boss pedals i can say that are decent boosts are the bd2 blues driver or the sd1 super overdrive, but boss pedals just suck tone and bass so just stay away in general.

if you wont try the bad monkey then just get a ts9 or 808. but ill be honest, the bad monkey sounds just as good (if not better) and is over half the price.

whatever pick up you use, you ALMOST can tweak it to sound as gainy, bassy, trebley(?) as youd like...it's mostly taste/preference

hell I can almost guarantee, with the right equipment/ effects you could make a strat singlecoil sound like an active 81...just take yngwie for an example he runs a single (probably some sort of on-guitar boost), not for sure though, but he still has gain out the ass

My_Dying_Bride said:

as long as youre starting with pickups with quality compnents, i can somewhat agree with this. although its harder to go back if you have pickups with overly high output or trebly/bassy qualities.



i can also somewhat agree on this. although yngwies sound is somewhat gainy, his sound reeks of single coils. the only person ive found that got a really heavy sound with single coils is yannick from despised icon.

blue said:



i can say something we can both agree on totally...if you play metal stay with humbuckers and find something to start and work from there...thats what i did...Im on my forth pickup in my main guitar that ive had for 3 years and im still considering changing..

and yngwies preffered sound will def never have (or need with his style) as much bass as ALOT of humbuckers can produce, but probly with a rack equilizer (which im sure he has) he could get decievingly close...

I am also waiting for my friend chad to get his pedals in production. His company is called "Chadder box effects" and his products (while only prototypes) sound absolutely amazing. He also offerd to make me jsut a line booster too. Maybe I can try the badmonkey and see how it is. I would really like to borrow a shitload of overdrives and run them all through the test and see how they do against eaxch other. Maybe even do a review on them.

Joshtruction said:

im way ahead of you, ive been doing heavy boost pedal testing for the past 8 months. throw out some suggestions and ill tell you how i feel about them. the best ones i have come across are:

ibanez ts9
ibanez ts808
digitech bad monkey
digitech screamin blues
boss sd1
boss bd2
fulltone ocd (pricey)
maxon od9
maxon od808
hao rust booster (pricey)
hao rust driver (pricey)
mi audio blues driver (pricey)

my favorites out of those are in order: ocd, od808, ts808 and bad monkey.
however i use a ibanez ts7 heavily modified to vintage ts808 specs with a carbon comp resistors for a smoother tone. my modded tubescreamer is the closest to the ocd that ive found, and for half the price.

do you know how to mod ts bak to the 808 specs?

no, but there are countless modifiers throughout the usa.

duncans

blue said:


word.

blue, how do you set up your od808?

oh and another thing that I am concernd with... true bypass... Does the bad monkey truely bypass? I know most boss effects don't and I hate that.

I just got back from daddy's and tried out the wylde overdrive. seems like it had too much gain, and too much noise. With the gain all the way down the "output" didn't make too much of a difference. I found the best sound out of that one for a 5150 was max on output, around the 10 o'clock position on tone, and gain at 0.

what do you think of that overdrive Blue?

everyone has different opinions for whatever reason on what you should use, i would say just make it really simple on yourself. do your best to try different guitars with different types of pick up configurations through your own gear and see which you enjoy the best.

everyone can give you a general idea of how each pick up sounds, but you'll never know what you truly like until you go out and experience and listen to them for yourself.

I just got a Charvel predator, and it has a Dimarzio FRED, its got go!! I am thinking either a 81 or x2n, but the paf pro sounds pretty good in my buddys carvin. To many choices.

I have truthfully never heard of anything bad with the PAF pro. I played them and liked them. I also like the screamin deamon. Right now I play a jackson sl1 and dk2. I am going to change the pickup in the dk2 first, but I played a soloist with an 81 through a 5150II the other day and it sounded great.

Joshtruction said:


i think the wylde overdrive isnt that bad, more or less a boss sd1 (what its based off of). when boosting with an overdrive pedal there shouldnt be a huge boost in output, just a general gain and tightness boost. dont forget to bring down the amps gain a bit when boosting. my 5150 IIs gain is at about 3.5 when boosted.

Joshtruction said:


well for me true bypass honestly isnt that important, because when boosting my pedal is on 24/7.

true bypass is nice, but not always necessary. if you dont notice tonal coloration due to lack of true bypass, then you probably dont have anything to worry about.

blue said:


I had it at 5 on a 5150 II, they seem to have a lot less distortion than my 6505,5150's. I would guess on a 5150 I'd put the gain to about 3 or 4. You really get heavy enough tone for porphyria out of 3.5 gain on a II? Thats awesome!

Joshtruction said:

yeah 5150 II/6505+s have an overall brighter tone and a little less gain. i like to keep my gain lower so everything stays tighter.

Dual 81's Here, With the 18 volt mod for more headroom and tone. I love the way they sound.

porphyria said:

No shit!!!!

Thanks dude!!!

I use mostly EMG 81's but I've used Duncan JB's and others. There both real thick sounding. I like the Gibson burstbuckers for more rock sounding shit. Bill Laurance pick up needs a nod to. Sweet lead tone.

i picked the passive with no boost...i like to keep the distortion under control because i hate feedback and like to have note clarity. My ESP has Duncan Designed pickups in it that work real well, im going to need new ones soon though since i sweat so bad when we play they're starting to rust

i've been thinking about EMG pickups, but i figure you can't go wrong with an old-school humbucker in the bridge

plese keep in mind that i'm far from a gear-head...i just go with what i think sounds awesome

Sacreligion said:

your ESP has real seymour duncans, doesnt it? i thought you had a DV8, not a DV-200.

rust on your pickups dont mean shit, by the way.

Sacreligion said:

Get one, and youll prolly never go back.
I was the same way, until I played one in Hoser's Mh300, I was instantly hooked, so much crunch, saturation and CHUNK.
Try one out, you will love it. (emg 81)

well I went out and tried a ts9, ts7, od808, wylde overdrive, and a boss overdrive. few days later I went and tried a bad monkey and I was very impressed. Not sure what to get I saw a bad monkey for 25 bucks and went for it. I am using that for now, or until I find something better (IF!!) because this thing sounds good. Big difference on the 5150.

I really should sell all my amps and grab me an engl SE.

For the last decade plus I've been playing guitar, I've been using a Seymour Duncan Distortion humbucker (to play heavy parts) and the single coil neck pick-ups that came with my Aria Pro II (for clean channel stuff). Don't know where falls in your poll, but that's what I use.

Sacreligion said:

This sentence sums me up completely as well.