Official Luthiers Forum!

A group of guys contacted me about building a guitar for them, more specifically for a friend of theirs. This poor guy lost all of his guitars and a bunch of equipment in a flood two years ago. He has been slow to replace his gear because he's having some financial problems, so his friends are all pitching in to have a custom guitar built for him (what a swell group of guys!). After spending some time talking with them, i decided that I'll do most of the work free. Anyhow, this needs to be a really diverse instrument. He plays mainly metal, but he also jams in a reggae group, and a few others. Basically, the guitar needs a pickup combination that is diverse enough to play almost anything, but it HAS to sound good playing metal, as that is his main style. The first thing that comes to mind is a p-rails in the neck position. At the bridge, I think there should be a hot pickup that can shred some metal, but is not DEDICATED to metal. Im thinking a Seymour Duncan SH-6 Distortion would do a mighty fine job. What pickup combination do you guys think would do the trick?

The SD would be a good choice, so would a Dimarzio super distortion for the bridge. Either way I would definitely go with a set up that allowed selection between series/parallel/singlecoil operation. Might consider a HSH pick up arrangement to increase versatility.

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

My experience is limited with other products, but I had success making a diverse instrument with a LR baggs piezo bridge and the EMG dual coil pickup 89x. Not a coil tap but 2 pickups in one, the 81x would be more for metal. The 89 in the neck, 81 bridge, piezo bridge with blend, then EMG has the afterburners if a gain knob or switch is desired. That would give tones from acoustic through metal without missing many stops in between. I have the whole thing running on 2 9 volts in series for an 18v system. The piezos blended in can add fundamental to the fuzz of heavy effects.

_________________
http://shastaguitar.com/
http://www.kalimbakit.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/comfyfootgr ... ature=mhee
http://www.facebook.com/robert.renick.7

In the same situation (not the flood) I choose a EMG 81/85 active pickup combination. You will get the metal shredding sound no problem, but using one or the other or both give a nice range of sound.

_________________
http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

DiMarzio crunch lab and liquifire come to mind.

I would suggest that many shredders get their sound further down the signal chain. Shawn Lane used a set of DiMarzio Air Classics on his Vigier after which Vigier presented their "Excalibur Shawn Lane" model with the Air Classics. I put it that way because the internet is all over the map on the subject of who used whose pickups. The fact that Vigier produced a Shawn Lane model with those pups is a pretty good indication that he actually used them.

The thing about the Air Classic is that it's not a high output pickup. It produces a generally clear, musical tone.

When you are trying to drive a tube preamp on an amplifier and you don't want to use a pedal to do it the only option to increase input is to wind the pickup hotter. However, if you are trying to shape your sound with processing equipment, you don't necessarily want a super hot signal going into it, but rather, a purer musical tone.

I suggest you find out if your customer prefers the use of pedals and processing gear to get his sound or if he prefers to drive straight into his amp and attenuate the input with the volume knob on his guitar.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

His rig is very simple. He has a Fender Twin Reverb, a looper station, and a delay pedal. He works at guitar center so he probably gets his fix of metal there. Ill probably wire up a distortion pedal for the guy and ship it out with his guit. One of his favorite guitars is loaded with P90s so Im partial to a P90 in the neck at the moment, but Im willing to do something else if it makes more sense.

I have several pro players who are using Lace Drop´n´Gain´s and they swear by them. I turned them on to them because they work incredibly well with high-gain, have wider bandwidth than traditional pickups and also have a more consistent tone all over the neck. The guys have compared them to everything while tracking and they told me the Lace´s sounded the best.

Hi Alex,
I built a guitar for myself similar to your brief. It uses two over-wound humbuckers:I used GFS Power Rails for budget reasons (but am pretty impressed with the result for less than $80.) The neck is wound to 10Kohm and the bridge is just under 16Kohm and both have ceramic magnets.

The circuit comprises a five-way super switch selecting:-
1. Neck
2. Neck and Bridge in series
3. Neck and Bridge in parallel
4. Neck and bridge in series Out of Phase
5. Bridge

Along with this I have three mini-toggles:-
One toggle (on/off/on) lets you choose either the 'screw' coil or standard bucker (both coils in series) or the 'slug' coil on its own.
The other mini-toggle (on/on) allows you to switch the two bridge coils from series to parallel.
The third mini-toggle (on/off/on) switches between tone cap ON, cap Bypassed, and the third position uses two opposed Schottky diodes that create passive distortion/fuzz when the tone knob is rolled backwards. (Optional but sounds great in the Out Of Phase position)

The overall result is an axe with enough tonal choices to play just about anything.

From memory I had to add a high pass filter to the "two humbuckers in series" choice because the combined 26Kohms is too dark but it certainly shakes the cobwebs out of the amp.

_________________
I've got a mind like a steel......whatsername!!?

I like to shred, but my experience with various super-duper hot overwound pickups is that the high frequencies are somewhat muted.
I prefer a low impedance vintage style pickup. I have a metal master pedal that will melt your brain with distortion.
The low impedance pickups really let the highs come through.
I'm no expert, it's just my preference.

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Zlurgh pretty much called it. You can always add more distortion, but overwound pickups generally won't be as clear, unless you wire them to be split, which ive had good success with on some dimarzio d-activator x humbuckers, one of their hottest models. Those pickups are excellent for metal, and the way ive wired them, i get a great clean tone out of them as well.

The way i thought about it for that guitar was that a standard humbucker doesnt quite have the sound of a single coil when split, as one coil on a humbucker has quite a few less windings than a standard single coil pickup. A hotter humbucker, when split, and especially if used with 1meg pots gets closer to that single coil sound.

_________________
http://www.tinyhouseandland.com

yup. i have always managed to get crushing distortion, using several digital processors, from average single coil pickups- they're just gonna be a lot noisier... now if you are a purist and you want to drive a tube amp into clipping WITHOUT effects, then you definitely will need high output pickups- but thats not "shredding" or "metal" territory, thats more like Nugent and Page stuff...

How about something like this but with a P90 in the neck position and mini rail humbucker in the middle?

Duncan blackouts are great hard rock or metal pickups. I also use EMG's. 81 in the bridge and a 85 in the neck. The Gibson Tony Iommi model pickup is killer too.

_________________
Another day, another dollar.

I had three guitars made by a luthier in Florida... and I recommended a company to him which he never heard of. Once he installed the pickups he was very surprised and their diversity in harmonics and tone quality. Impressed enough that he fitted two more guitars and even travelled abroad to visit the person who makes the pickups...

http://www.SublimePickups.com

Hand-made and the same cost as a stock set you would get elsewhere. He will develop these relative to wood type and the tone you're after. I put in a set in a JEM custom and the character difference when the volume is turned up or dialed down is quite something. Take off the distortion and high gain and you can play jazz or blues with these pups, but in the right amp/pedal atmosphere they blaze (at least my pickups... the guy at Sublime can develop a different animal if so desired).

He can add engravings to either metal or plastic casings: