Advice needed on a H-S-H setup

[Slartibartfarst42]

Well, for what you describe, I wouldn't be getting a Nailbomb at all. Too aggressive, too tight and too 90's Metal for Blues/Classic Rock/80's Metal. In fact, the styles you mention are pretty much what I play and I tried an A-Bomb for this sort of application as I was drawn in by the 'versatile' description. It wasn't and it was sent back. Great pickup but just not naturally made for those styles in my opinion.

Which way I'd go if I were you depends on where you want your main focus to be. If it's more 80's Metal the Holydiver is the perfect choice as that is its natural home but it can also do Classic Rock well and with an overdrive, do far more modern styles too. Blues isn't ideal with a Holydiver but you can get by with it. Conversely, if you want to focus a bit more on the Blues and Classic Rock side of things, the Crawler really is awesome. Thick and rich and wonderful, it works really well for Blues, is ideal for Classic Rock and will get you into 80's Metal territory. The Holydiver is tighter and a bit brighter and really gives that 80's superstrat tone. The Crawler is thicker, richer and darker, giving you more of a Blues Rock tone played on a Les Paul. It has a real growl to it that is great in giving things a bit of bite. The Crawler is actually quite closely related to the Nailbomb as both use AV magnets and both use 43PE wire. Even the DC resistance is quite close but I think the Nailbomb uses more of an offset in the wind to make it far tighter and more aggressive sounding. That really does make all the difference in the world given that I had to send the A-Bomb back and I absolutely love the Crawler.

So, to summarise, for more of an 80's Metal slant, I'd suggest a Holydiver bridge, Trilogy Suite middle and Emerald neck. For more of a Blues Rock slant, I'd suggest a Crawler bridge, Slowhand middle and Emerald neck.

[Telerocker]

Same idea here. Nailbomb sounds too modern and agressive.
All kind of great sets are already mentioned.
I would stick to the HD for the bridge. The middle I would keep vintagehot too get those bluestones out: Irish Tour or the more middy Slowhand. Neck: Abraxas or if you want it brighter Emerald.

[PhilKing]

I have a megarswitch e and dpdt on/on/on switch on my Ibanez to give me this combination with the ability to switch in the middle pickup anytime and to have the middle pickup alone too:



You could also use a megaswitch P with a reverse magnet neck pickup to get the PRS tones from the humbucker, but I wanted the strat single coil tones



The dpdt uses one of the postitions to bring the center pickup in parallel with the with the regular switch, one bypasses the regular switch to give the center pickup alone and the last position passes the regular switch setting through, bypassing the center pickup.