anyone here try the duncan 59/custom hybrid in a soloist?

[kmanick]

not loving the Custom5 in the bridge of my new soloist. don' hate it but don't love it either.
i wa thinking of trying an Alnico Nailbomb as I've used it in a bright 7 and it worked great. but I was also looking at the Duncan 59/custom hybrid , and it has a similar eq curve
but just a tad lower output.
the BK Abraxas also came into my radar with the same type of EQ curve and similar output to the 59/Custom
any one here try either one of these in a soloist?

[Newc]

Try the Duncan forums maybe?

It's going to depend largely on which magnet you keep - the 59's A5 or the Custom's ceramic. That said, if you didn't like the C5, you might try the standard Custom.
With the ceramic magnet, it'll be a hair less hot than the stock Custom.
With the A5, it'll be a hair hotter than the stock 59.

I do like the JB/59 hybrid. The 59 coil gives the JB the low-end it always lacked, while the JB coil gives the 59 the bite it always lacked. AFAIK, you still have to make them yourself, though.

[Nightbat]

If you want to subdue brightness, a Custom Custom might do the trick

[Newc]

Yeah but the A2 magnet might cut it down too much.

Then there's the PATB-2 or 3. They have enough of an EQ difference from their standard and F-spaced counterparts to be different pickups entirely.

Pickups lead to a rabbit hole, for sure, and once you get into making hybrids with mixed coils, you're getting into the secrets of the universe, many of which you didn't want to know.

Invader with A2, A3, A4, A5
59 with A2 or ceramic (both Distortion/Invader sized and Custom sized)
JB with the ceramic from a Custom isn't bad. I've got one in a BOF DK2.
59/Jazz hybrid
JB/Custom hybrid
Screamin Demon/Distortion hybrid
Distortion with an A2
JB with an A2 isn't too terrible
And then you get into putting 2 single coils on a humbucker baseplate.
Or a pair of Duncan Jr models into one HB slot and wiring them to a 5-way superswitch or Freeway toggle, 2 push-pulls, and a TripleShot.

But for an off-the-shelf offering, definitely look at the classics first - JB, Distortion, PATB series, Custom series, ScreaminDemon, StagMag, etc. Unless you have a specific EQ curve you know you're looking for, and DC output and harmonic resonance and where you want any sort of notch or hump, then you can ask at the Duncan forums, because there's a ton of info there about making hybrids.

And then there are other pickups besides Duncan which lend themselves to the same concepts. DiMarzio uses mismatched coils already for most of their stuff, so building matched sets with those might be interesting. Mixing them with Duncan coils might also be interesting. Part of why I disappeared for so long was to avoid going deeper into that pit of despair. I had plans to test every combination I could think of (beyond what I'd already done) as well as collecting coil readings, magnet data, and all that, but it was brain-hurting and potentially financially crippling.

[Number Of The Priest]

So that's where Newc had been... Newcensteining pickups instead of guitars.

[kmanick]

Decided to go with the Dimarzio AT-1
Major improvement over the custom -5
thicker warmer and bouncy (very responsive)