Ok, I'll be getting some money to upgrade my guitar soon, and I was thinking about a new set of pickups to replace the stock Duncan Designed Detonators. Or, at least a new bridge pickup. I play a Jackson Warrior XT (alder body) straight into a Crate Xt120 2X12 combo. Most of what I play is old school Metallica-type metal. I was thinking about maybe either an EMG 81 or a Dimarzio X2N.. but I'm VERY open to suggestions.
Help finding good pickups?
- Thread starter stigmata
- Start date
Iced In Flames
Shredderite
X2N is a good metal pickup. The clean channel sucks ass tho and it can scream like a bitch. The Duncan Custom is sposed to be good too.
Bryant
Mr. Sleepy
Iced In Flames said:
My particular preference is a hotter than stock pickup in the bridge and a weaker than stock, in the neck. I don't play much "clean" stuff, but I play more clean than I do distorted with the neck pickup and many of the metal axes put fairly hot humbuckers, singles or rails in the neck. They distort often unless you swith then roll down your volume knob a little and that's too much work, so I look for softer pickups for the neck.
The less expensive metal axes don't use super hot bridge pickups either. If you like Metallica, both James and Kirk use/used (I don't know what they use now) EMG81 pickups in their axes. They are great pickups, but if you use a solid state amp, they sound a little sterile. The pre-amp is designed to give a very flat response and equalize all of the notes. Tube amps have a "sweet spot" and produce a nice tone even with the flat response of the active pickup, but the SS amps sound better to me with a passive.
Bryant
Iced In Flames
Shredderite
I usually dont use my neck pup much at all. It sounds too dull for me no matter what the pickup. But I like the Duncan Jazz in the neck the most so far. There are other pickups I like much more but I'm not wishing to divulge it. I will say I have a custom pickup from Wolfetone and I could ask for a better custom pup. Its fantastic.
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