Hi guys,
this is absolutely unrelated to the Axe Fx, but we all love every guitar related thingy, don't we? ;-)
So, I recently bought an Agile Interceptor Pro (Agile Interceptor Pro-B 725 EB Black Flame Duncan at RondoMusic.com), awesome guitar, really. But like most guitar players in here I'm as picky as hell, and of course there are a few minor problems (for me: for others might be features).
One, which is actually not that minor, is the pickups, two active Seymour Duncan Blackouts AHB1 phase 2. They might be good active pickups, but I'm just not cut for active, I guess. So here are the problems I can identify (useful to choose new pickups later):
1) way too much gain, cleans sound like broken crunch and distortion is too massive for articulated polyphonies
2) it might depend on the mahogany body more than the pups, but the sound is heavily unbalanced towards the lows: if I play an open chord with distortion, the higher notes get "drowned" in the sound of the lower ones
3) "background sounds" (don't know what to call them...for example, the sound of your palm blocking the strings when you stop) get amplificated a lot, at a level comparable to that of chords and solos. Notice that I'm not talking about ground noise
4) always distorted even when you turn the volume knob to the minimal audible, but that's typical of active pickups
So, assumed that these problems are all due to the pups (if you think otherwise, feel free to share), it's time to look for new pickups, that solve the above problems. So they should be passive, high gain still but much cleaner/clearer, emphasizing treble and mids (and taming lows!).
For now I have two possible brand choices (feel free to suggest more):
a) Seymour Duncan: JB 7 for the bridge, 59 for the neck
b) Bare Knuckle: Cold Sweat or Painkillers
I tried the Seymour Duncans some time ago, they seem very good pickups, silent, articulated and trebly as needed. Plus quite cheap (you can find 110 euros a pair).
Never tried the Bare Knuckles instead, they're hard to find. The cons are that, well, I can't know *really* how they actually sound, and they cost significantly more (about 230 euros a pair). The pros are that people are going nuts about them, and the clips you can hear around really stick out, they really seem to kick ass.
So, bottomline: do you guys wanna share your opinions?
Thanks!
Simone
this is absolutely unrelated to the Axe Fx, but we all love every guitar related thingy, don't we? ;-)
So, I recently bought an Agile Interceptor Pro (Agile Interceptor Pro-B 725 EB Black Flame Duncan at RondoMusic.com), awesome guitar, really. But like most guitar players in here I'm as picky as hell, and of course there are a few minor problems (for me: for others might be features).
One, which is actually not that minor, is the pickups, two active Seymour Duncan Blackouts AHB1 phase 2. They might be good active pickups, but I'm just not cut for active, I guess. So here are the problems I can identify (useful to choose new pickups later):
1) way too much gain, cleans sound like broken crunch and distortion is too massive for articulated polyphonies
2) it might depend on the mahogany body more than the pups, but the sound is heavily unbalanced towards the lows: if I play an open chord with distortion, the higher notes get "drowned" in the sound of the lower ones
3) "background sounds" (don't know what to call them...for example, the sound of your palm blocking the strings when you stop) get amplificated a lot, at a level comparable to that of chords and solos. Notice that I'm not talking about ground noise
4) always distorted even when you turn the volume knob to the minimal audible, but that's typical of active pickups
So, assumed that these problems are all due to the pups (if you think otherwise, feel free to share), it's time to look for new pickups, that solve the above problems. So they should be passive, high gain still but much cleaner/clearer, emphasizing treble and mids (and taming lows!).
For now I have two possible brand choices (feel free to suggest more):
a) Seymour Duncan: JB 7 for the bridge, 59 for the neck
b) Bare Knuckle: Cold Sweat or Painkillers
I tried the Seymour Duncans some time ago, they seem very good pickups, silent, articulated and trebly as needed. Plus quite cheap (you can find 110 euros a pair).
Never tried the Bare Knuckles instead, they're hard to find. The cons are that, well, I can't know *really* how they actually sound, and they cost significantly more (about 230 euros a pair). The pros are that people are going nuts about them, and the clips you can hear around really stick out, they really seem to kick ass.
So, bottomline: do you guys wanna share your opinions?
Thanks!
Simone
