I've been on a real journey with this guitar. This thing feels amazing, and it stays in tune like nobody's business. It's all I've played since I got it. I've tried 101 wirings, and a drawer full of pickups, but the tone is always something that's nagged me. I just found myself EQing it way way way too much, and finding that the best EQ was always right after the input block, like the tone of the guitar itself has been bothering me.
It took me a long time to discover I do not ever want a neck humbucker. A Strat single coil is right for me, maybe even moreso a P90, if I ever get around to it. So that was one piece of the puzzle I solved recently. I had months ago bought an Artec Giovanni GCS-LN, which I quickly dismissed for having too drastic of a tone difference with my bridge, so it went in my drawer. Just recently I found I needed to come to grips with my constant desire for a single coil neck, and I slapped it back in this guitar; I found all I had to do was roll back the tone when the volume knob is at full, and it does just fine to balance with the bridge for leads. When I roll back the volume, any tone setting works beautifully with this pickup; it's awesome.
Which leads me to the bridge. The Duncan Saturday Night Specials are unbelievable pickups; I love them. And in my Washburn Trevor Rabin, they are the bees knees. But in my Sun Valley, the bridge just sounds like bees. The bridge pickup that came in my Trevor Rabin is the JB, which, to me, sounded just harsh and terrible in that guitar, at least the way I was playing at that time. I swore I'd always hate that pickup. But I've tried so many different bridge pickups in my Super Shredder, I was sure there was no point in trying the JB too.
But I was wrong. In my exasperation, I finally caved and tried this hated JB in the bridge of my Super Shredder, and My God, it couldn't have sounded more perfect. It was like lightning struck, like the frequencies were just right, and this is with A500k pots for the volume and tone (I am using A250k pots for the single coil though, and both are wired 50s Les Paul style, with low value caps). With this JB I'm experiencing that phenomenon where you're playing, and a moderately low amount of gain is so perfect that adding any more just sounds like you're blanketing the magic. It demands a Plexi for ultimate expression, with the gain maybe at 7 max.
And I found, for once, the right voice for this axe. Like I said, it plays great, feels great and natural, and stays in tune with heavy heavy trem abuse. It's just solid as a rock, and now, for the first time, the inherent tone is just right for me, without EQ on the guitar itself. Like, maybe I could go for a P90 neck just for output, but I'm not sure, and the Giovanni is truly fantastic, and hum cancelling too. But that's a question of flavor, not fundamentally good or bad. The Giovanni is just so great for any kind is expression I want to lob, and it has all the chime and articulation I'd want.
Anyway, the lesson I've had drilled into me is what I knew intellectually, but this made it more clear than ever, a pickup is never good or bad, it's just either matched with the right guitar or not.
