Pickup power?

[john-boro]

Soloist pro H/S/S. I also have a tokai les paul. ive noticed that when using distortion, the tokai's sound is very smooth, more sort of fuzzy. The soloist seems to retain more 'bite' in the attack of the note, less smooth distortion, and a thinner sort of tone. is this just because of the different guitars, or because the pickups are too powerful/not powerful enough. I would ideally like to be able to get a highly distorted Pantera sort of tone, without the quack at the beginning of the note.
cheers
john

[Thoraby]

Re: Pickup power?

It would help if you said WHAT KIND of pickups you have in your guitars. Are they stock pickups? Or are they Duncans, Dimarzios or EMG's??

[john-boro]

Re: Pickup power?

sorry, good point thoraby [img]graemlins/baby.gif[/img] . they are stock, ie jc90 humbucker i think. i have just tried an AB test and i notice the tokai is louder than the jackson. the pickups used to have an active preamp, this was removed. could that be why they are lower output?

[john-boro]

Re: Pickup power?

****. i mean J50C
god im stupid [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]

[Ace]

Re: Pickup power?

It is quite possible that the Tokai simply has more output. Seymour Duncan has the Dimebucker, and I am assuming that's what Dimebag plays. Whether or not that's the way it will sound in yur Soloist is a different story. I think I remeber seeing that Dimebag's signature guitars are made from mahogany, which would most likely give them a darker more mellow tone than your soloist pro. Also there are a lot of other factors that determine the way that you are going to sound, such as your amp, effects, playing style, even the cables you use. I have no idea what sort of pickups Tokai makes, but if you want a high output guitar, I would suggest swapping out your stock Jackson pickups, or having an onboard preamp installed.

[Twisteramps]

Re: Pickup power?

Check pickup height also... that can make a difference too.

Pete

[Sunbane]

Re: Pickup power?

As far as I know, Darrel still uses the BL500XL pickups, even though he now has a signature model Duncan pickup. Not totally sure tho'. I considered the Dimebucker for my RR, but I have yet to see any objective review of it - most reviewers seem content to say either "it r0xx0rz" or "it sUxx0rz" - so I went with EMGs as I usually do.

I have no personal experience with the J90C, but plenty of people here do. I've seen it described as somewhat lacking in output as a standalone unit, but a "sonic flamethrower" when coupled with the active preamp.

'bane

[john-boro]

Re: Pickup power?

yeah its all relative i suppose, the tokais are PAF copies. the pickup height is pretty near the strings btw. it's hard to know what to use cus i play a lot of different styles, and perhaps metal is not one of the biggest. it sounds fine for radiohead, nirvana and ratm [img]graemlins/band.gif[/img] . i have noticed a drop in output since i took out the pre amp. i know this is a predominantly heavy-metal geared forum, but does anyone have any reccomendations for a passive humbucker with enough output for good distortion (not necessarily as far as pantera), but still has good clean and overdrive tone. character basically.

[img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] and not too expensive haha

[Outlander]

Re: Pickup power?

JB $60.00 or so from Musicians F. if I recall correctly. Has nice bite and will get sweet when you roll some of the treble and volume off.
Some of the members here can probably hook you up even cheaper than that.

[Outlander]

Re: Pickup power?

Sorry I should have said that was Seymour Duncan JB or the "59"(paf) model which is probably what the tokai was trying to copy or get close to but a cheaper version of course in sound and cost.

[john-boro]

Re: Pickup power?

Okay thanks a lot for your help outlander [img]graemlins/toast.gif[/img] I'll look into that when I've got some money. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Sunbane]

Re: Pickup power?

Originally posted by john-boro:
it's hard to know what to use cus i play a lot of different styles

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Consider EMG as well. You can get a wide range of sounds out of them.

[john-boro]

Re: Pickup power?

do the emgs need to have all the active circuitry and seperate knobs etc? i have just finished messing around with the wiring etc, so idealy i would like something i can just slot into place as a direct replacement. im not keen on actives in general, i would just like reasonably good output.
btw does anyone know a reasonable price for the stock jacskon if i was to sell it? this is on english eBay.
thanks for all your help so far

[Ace]

Re: Pickup power?

The active circuitry is built into the pickup itself. You DO need to use the 25K pots and install the battery to make the EMG work.

[john-boro]

Re: Pickup power?

right, so how would I go about installing an active pickup. at the moment my set up is H/S/S, 5 way swtich, tone, volume and killswitch. How would the pickup (assuming i bought ONLY an active humbucker and left the others the same), fit into this. Both tone and vol are 500k at the mo, would I have to replace both of these with 25k, and if so, would this mean sacrificing the use of the controls with the other two, passive pickups?
john