I'm thinking of changing the pickups on my maple topped CE22 but I'm not sure what to go with.
I feel that the Dragon IIs are a little dark for my tastes. I want something with clarity under high gain, but also need to have pristine cleans and great low gain. I'm going to be swapping out the 5 way rotary for a 3 way toggle.
Any suggestions? I'm willing to go as expensive as BKP, though to be honest I've owned the Cold Sweats, Nailbomb and Miracle Men sets and have never been blown away. The only reason I'd be willing to try them again is that those were all in basswood guitars (except the nailbomb in mahogany), and this is mahogany/maple.
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Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Football is rubbish.
Forgot to say that I play through a Fractal Audio Axe Fx II, so I suppose if anything they need to be able to cope with versatility.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I like having lower output pickups for clarity, many bands do this including Lamb of God. If your amp has got firepower you can get away with this method.
I would say a PAF type in neck and something a little more muscular in bridge as @ICBM suggested. I would go for an alnico 8 pickup to be a bit different, the bridge pickup of the Destroyer I sold was seriously good.
The toggle switch is a good move too, just make sure you add a push-push pot to still be able to split the pickups if needed.
They've handled everything I've tried from vintage sounds through to metal.
Long shot but if you're anywhere near Northampton you can have a blast on mine.
Oil city, mojo, bulldog.
Great handwound pickups for Seymour Duncan prices.
Of course, there are some killer Seymour Duncan ones. The custom 5 is heavy and bright, the custom custom is more rounded. I love both.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Football is rubbish.
I have a spare dimarzio push pull pot, so I think for now as a test I might wire the dragons up to the 3 way and push pull to see if that changes the tone at all.
Kind of like when I took the S1 switching out of my Baja tele and the tone improved.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Football is rubbish.
Oh and my pickups are also Gibson spaced.
https://www.prsguitars.com/csc/schematics/2012/navarro_2012.pdf
I've tried it with the original dragon iis I had in the guitar and with the replacements I got from Ash and definitely preferred it with the resistors.
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