neck to go with miracle man - just do a calibrated set?

[gwEm]

i had a great session with my steinberger this morning, but really the SD '59 neck is starting to piss me off now.

it sounds nicer than the bridge when clean, but its always a huge dissapointment when i switch to it for a gainy lead or something.

i believe in Tim's calibrated sets, so was thinking primarily of a miracle man neck. i heard before here that it has great sustain, and it sounds like the ideal thing to keep up with the miracle man bridge in a ROCK situation. but the big question is can it do mellow jazzy cleans ok?

if not, what do other people suggest? an abraxas neck maybe? but would it have enough output to match volume wise? my bridge is adjusted right next to the strings (and it sounds great there) so not much room for adjustment.

obviously the cold sweat neck is frequently a default choice, but i already have one of those. it is mellow if i roll the tone down - but bear in mind this steinberger has no tone control.

[Philly Q]

I have no clue about the Miracle Man neck, but maybe the Crawler?  It's quite similar to the Abraxas but a little hotter.  Not super powerful though - how big is the volume disparity between the MM and the '59?

[gwEm]

in fact the volume disparity is ok - its the thickness/sustain/'je ne sais quoi' disparity that is the problem.

the miracle man doesn't seem that high in actual electrical output in fact, which is why i was dissapointed at first. i think this pickup is more about the low-mid thickness.

i'll inform myself with responses here, and then give tim a call.

[PhilKing]

The MM neck is a great sounding pickup.  It doesn't sound as dark as you would htink with the DC.  It is more in the PAF family of sounds.  I think you would be very happy with it.

[MDV]

Another Cold sweat!!!

What? Someone had to say it!

Edit: phil's suggestion of Crawler is bang on, IMO. Outstanding jazzy clean, and you can shred on it quite cheerfully, too.

A Nailbomb would also give you what you ask for here.

[hhcave]

I've just stuck a calibrated set of MMs in my Les Paul and the neck sounds incredible! It sounds like it has less output than the bridge...very vintage sounding and articulate...and loads of sustain, i think it goes really well with the bridge as they aren't too similar and cover a very wide range of sounds (im now starting to use the neck MM for rhythm stuff which i used to oppose because my gibson pickups sounded seriously muddy compared to the MM!)

[gwEm]

I've just stuck a calibrated set of MMs in my Les Paul and the neck sounds incredible! It sounds like it has less output than the bridge...very vintage sounding and articulate...and loads of sustain, i think it goes really well with the bridge as they aren't too similar and cover a very wide range of sounds (im now starting to use the neck MM for rhythm stuff which i used to oppose because my gibson pickups sounded seriously muddy compared to the MM!)

thanks! thats very interesting hh... how would you say it sounds clean? does it have a nice sparkle to it?

[TwilightOdyssey]

I would put in an Abraxas.

[ericsabbath]

i hated the duncan 59 i tried in my les paul since the first minute i played it
completely dark, dull, hollow and has no volume
i always thought my tone knob was on 0 and the volume knob on 2

try a nailbomb neck

[gwEm]

in the end i went with philkings advice and got a miracle man neck - its very nice indeed! paf family of sounds clean, dynamic despite the DC, and not dark. dirty its nice for flowing/shred leads. it sounds like i describe the CS neck, but in fact its rather different. its less fluid than the CS, but more punchy somehow. hard to put in words, but its very cool.

anyone considering the MM/CS combo would probably do just as well, or better probably with a MM set