Crunch Lab/Liquifire Upgrade?

[Philly Q]

Well, I'm sceptical.  If you're making an artist signature pickup, why make the production version significantly different from the version the artist uses?   Unless they actually use different materials - for cost reasons, as I said - it's no more difficult to make a "good" pickup than a "bad" one.

I appreciate that a "custom shop" version will have a greater degree of care and attention - perhaps they tweak each individual pickup to the particular guitar it's being fitted to.  But that doesn't make it necessarily "better" than a mass-produced pickup.  Once a custom shop pickup's been designed, there's no reason you can't consistently reproduce it - or at least get very close to it - on an efficient modern production line. 

I just smell internet BS.  Much like the "Older BKPs are Much Better" thread the other day on this forum.



Sorry, way off-topic.

[MAJ Meadows SF]

C-Bomb works extremely well in Basswood. On the thread about mismatched pickup combos I described my C-Bomb/PK combo in my JEM77FP. It's more metal than you may be looking for, but I would just go with the CS neck or even an A-Bomb neck. Too many choices, right?

Go with C-Bomb/CS if you want to stick with ceramic bridge pickup.
Go with HD/CS neck if you are not sure about the C-Bomb.

I've heard a few super-strats with HDs and they do sound amazing for soloing and leads. I have a friend that owns a JS-1000  and outfitted it with an HD/CS combo and it sounds wonderful. I just know my experience with the C-Bomb/PK worked wonders nailing a more modern "Vai" tone with more output which is what I was looking for. The biggest plus was both pickups complimented each other well and are extremely controllable/adjustable in the basswood guitar. The same is true with the HD/CS combo.

Artists, especially virtuoso players, always have prototype or specific wound versions of the machine wound production models. Almost every tech or artists I've spoke to admits this. The production pickups are not worse, just not as unique.

[Cammi]

Well I spoke to Tim, and he said the HD in a Basswood Body would be 'as tight as a nut', which sounds very appealing. I'm just thinking with the mids of the HD, and the fact it doesn't have as much highs; it might get me closer to the Crunch Lab than the NB would. Plus, there's a lot of single string playing in Prog Metal, so I'm thinking it may suit me better?

[explorer76]

The HD in my opinion is a masterpiece. It's not as surgically tight as a Painkiller or Aftermath, but has a somekind of "organic tightness" which is enough for everything in metal I can imagine and suits my playing very well.
And if the master told you to get a Diver... get it, he knows best  :)

[Eyes Wide Shut]

Yeah, I have been thinking about this as well. I got a mahagony body Dean Vendatte 7 string with CL/LF combo and while it is missing the clarity and livelyness I love about BKPs it still is somewhat of my favorite PU combo. I guess the guitar and PUs work very well together, but I also just love the gain structure and EQ of this combo. There is such a greatly EQd mid focus just in the right place.
Also it does my sound very well, which is very much Petrucci, so fluid clear driven leads and (heavy) crunch rythm.
The CL and LF just do those so very well...

Still I feel like there is more room to the top, so I really want a BKP (scatter)wound version of them. If Tim could basecally do a rewind in his technique I would be sooooooo very happy.

Like I want the CL and LF Petrucci himself has (we all know those are not the shelf ones.).
I just want those so very, very much.

Sorry just had to say "amen" to this comment. A scatterwound version of the Crunch Lab would be sex on legs. I love the Crunch Lab because it's a great lead pickup, with the advantage of a ceramic magnet. Normally with Ceramic pickups, you get a bunch of highs. For some reason the CL's highs are balanced off perfect.