Duncan Invader in an alder guitar?

[Inazone]

You do realize that with a Soloist the pickups and bridge are not bolted to the alder wings but the maple slab between them. Because of this you get more of the sound of a maple body than an alder body.

True, but I don't think it will be as bright as with an all-maple body. Actually, I don't think it'll even be as bright as with a bolt-on maple neck and ash body. The Full Shred currently in the Soloist sounds a little darker than another Full Shred in an ash Dinky Reverse.

[Inazone]

OK, the swap is complete. First of all, the Invader is an immediate improvement over the Full Shred in the Soloist Pro. The FS is one of my favorite pickups, but I was always surprised that it sounded a bit thin and dark in the Soloist. The Invader definitely is neither of those things, although it is not necessarily bright. The best way to describe it is that it really cuts through more than the Full Shred in this guitar, possibly because of the midrange emphasis. All in all, the Invader sounds great in the Soloist Pro.

The "side effect" of replacing the Soloist's Full Shred with the Invader is that the FS could then replace the JB in my Dinky XL Professional, which was also a significant improvement. The Full Shred sounds substantially better in basswood than in alder, especially when soloing. Although the FS has very little low end, what it has is tight and focused, and has a lot of "chunk" in the Dinky's basswood body. I really should have tried this combination sooner.

I've had both of these guitars for several years and never really compared them directly, but I played them one after the other at practice on Friday night, swapping back and forth to check out the differences. Both pickup swaps wound up being upgrades, although I can't really say that I like one guitar/pickup combination than the other in their new-and-improved states. Not surprisingly, the Soloist has a very raw, "brutal" sound much like my SL2 (with Kent Armstrong pickups) has through a high-gain amp. Having used an Invader in ash and basswood guitars, this falls somewhere between the two. Having been accustomed to using the Full Shred in ash and alder, it sounds completely different in basswood, having some of the qualities I'd typically associate with DiMarzio pickups rather than Duncans. It sounds smoother in the Dinky than in the Soloist.

[Newc]

You do realize that with a Soloist the pickups and bridge are not bolted to the alder wings but the maple slab between them. Because of this you get more of the sound of a maple body than an alder body.

Actually, the neckthrough tenon does not continue the taper started at the nut. At the end of the fretboard, the tenon is straight to the rear strap pin. The pickup ring and the single coil anchor screws and the bridge posts are in fact driven into the wings.

The spring claw and locking nut are mounted to the neck tenon.