Nicholas-L
A while ago I posted my NGD of the JP100 and have been loving it so far. I have planned a few upgrades to come for this lovely geetar. However the one thing I want to change first is the pickups. It has a Duncan 59 in the neck and a JB in the bridge. Now they are awesome pickups but the combination just isn't working for me. The reason I'm not fond of the combination right now is that the two pups are too far away from each other in tone... The bridge is too bright and the neck too dark. I would quite prefer the opposite, a darker sounding bridge pup and a brighter/clearer neck pup. I've been considering the....
Crunch Lab / LiquiFire set
Tone Zone / Air Norton
D Sonic / Paf Joe
AT-1 / Paf Joe
Dominion set
Mo Joe / Paf Joe
Air Zone / Paf Joe
Norton / Paf Joe
haha yes a lot of sets surrounding the Paf Joe. Now I know the bridge pup is always brighter than the neck pup but I don't quite like the idea of them being too far apart. I also like the idea of medium output pups more than a high output one due to liking the way they clean up, although some of them work like a charm. If you have experience with these pups or opinions about them then please by all means share your wisdom with me or if you can give another idea of a set I might look at then please comment.
So if anyone has a set of pups along those lines and would consider swapping them for my set then by all means pm me.
psyx
You could consider Bare knuckle Pups? Very pricey, but from the sound samples they do sound superior to even most Seymour Duncans...
Which case I would say, VH II/ Abraxas ☹(Drool)
AlanRatcliffe
Either Air Zone or AT-1 and PAF Joe. I love the Air Zone in a bright guitar - PAF-like mids, but a lot fatter and hotter without being mid-biased or over-the top power like the JB. The AT-1 is a less radical version of the same thing which I think suits warmer woods better.
ryanguit
PAF Joe for the neck for traditional brighter humbucker sounds with enough mids to still be convincing as a "normal" neck humbucker.
I think that what you describe was my struggle for a very long time. Here is a list of common neck humbuckers that i went through:
Dimarzio Paf Pro, Seymour Duncan Jazz, Dimarzio Humbucker from hell, PAF Pro. PAF Pro with some polepieces removed...
I don't play humbuckers much anymore (currently i have a single coil hiding under a chrome cover with Alnico5 rods), so take this with salt: I found the PAF Pro to be really close to what i wanted. Even though the jazz and hellish dimarzio were brighter, they weren't single coils, which it seems is what my ear likes. If seymour made a half power (4k per coil) Stagmag, I'd be all over that, and remove some polepieces!!! So before you go on this wild goos chase. You do definately want a humbucker, right? Not a humcancelling P90 or...
just saying
