Passive pups?

migreeni

Dismember
Nov 27, 2005
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Finland
www.malummeh.com
I'm into passive pick-ups. We play pretty low, C - and A-drop and I'm about to get two new guitars. 6 and 7-stringed ones. What I'm looking for are PASSIVE pups that have balls, presence, clarity etcetc. You know the drill.

I've heard that X2N, Evolution and Tonezone might be what I'm looking for.
It's not a necessity, but it would be cool if there was also a 7-string version of the pick-up. Or there were two pretty similar sounding pickups for each guitar.

Thanks!

E:Also heard great things about Bareknuckle pups! Your thoughts?
 
Choose a rail-pickup, eg. the X2N or the D Activator-X.

The sound of railpickups is hard to explain, but try to think the balls, presence and clarity from EMG's active, but with the warmth of passive ones.
 
I've gone..EMG, Bill Lawrence XL500 and Now Evolutions...by far the Evolutions are the best things I've ever spent my money on....I'm sure theres more pups as time moves on but right now I'm as happy as I can be
 
I like the good old duncan Invader for that.

expected this one to be overly gainy and muddy, but it sounded damn good in my Gibson V, lots of balls and clarity.
 
these days the Dimarzio D sonic is doing it for me.. Tight , edgy and good low end balls. It also has a great clarity for soloing. For rhythm sounds I like the duncan custom, distortion and the tried and true JB.. Dimarzios seem better for lead work
 
I totally agree, Di'Marzios for Leads *Thicker smoother but also cutting* and Duncans for the Rhythm, fat warm and just smooooth low end I love them XD
I have 4 guitars, 2 with DiMarzios and 2 with Duncans XD
 
just put a duncan custom in my Gibson Explorer, and it's a great match.

Tried this pickups in my Gibson SG before, but in that guitar it wasn't a good match, too tin.

but in the explorer, lot's of controlled low end, and nice crunchy mids, love it :headbang:
 
Gibson Dirty fingers, hottest passive pick-up that I'm aware of...but I haven't looked far or wide.
 
Thing is, nowadays you don't necessarily need that much output from the pups. With the preamps offering such insanely amounts of gain (I'm looking at you Engls and colleagues) you might be even better off with a more "cultivated" pick up like a PAF.

That being said, the Dirty Fingers are pretty hot but they have a more classical voicing.