Best clean neck pickup.

[EffigyForgotten]

Well very soon i'm going to order my pickups and I have decided that i'm going to get the holy diver bridge instead of an nailbomb and I haven't found much info on the holy diver neck so i'm looking for the perfect neck pickup for opeth style cleans and leads that will match the holy diver.

The site i'm ordering the pickups from ask for the string spacing, "conductor (4 or 2)", and leg length. What do I use for a guitar currently with EMGs and the PRS tremolo.

[Attica!]

Go for the Emerald.

Regarding the other questions, it's very strange for a company to ask for string spacing with a neck pickup as it's the bridge that actually matters. Regarding Leg Length, just get short leg as Long Legs are more commonly found in Gibsons, but Short Legged will fit in any guitar anyways as long as they have pickup rings. And get 4 conductor, it will give you more options for splitting coils should you wish.

[explorer76]

Definitely go for the Emerald, best neck pickup in the range IMO. Excels in cleans and singing leads!

[EffigyForgotten]

Ordered the holy diver bridge and emerald neck!

[darkbluemurder]

Ordered the holy diver bridge and emerald neck!

That is a very interesting combo. Looking forward to hear your report.

Cheers Stephan

[explorer76]

That is a GREAT combo, got it myself :-).

[EffigyForgotten]

That is a GREAT combo, got it myself :-).

What kind of music do you play?

[explorer76]

modern metal(core) with progressive influences... a mixture between Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, Periphery for example

[monkey8911]

In my experience its not the best to mix up pickup sets, except if you want your guitar sound like two different guitars.
I regret not going with a matched set, Iīve always kept changing only one at the time and that made one or the other pickup always sound weird/out of context.

[Attica!]

In my experience its not the best to mix up pickup sets, except if you want your guitar sound like two different guitars.
I regret not going with a matched set, Iīve always kept changing only one at the time and that made one or the other pickup always sound weird/out of context.

I think that's totally rubbish. There's plenty of BKP combos that work well. With Holy Diver/Emerald, even Tim has that setup in his Basswood guitar, and he said it was as tight as a nut. Sometimes you have to mess with pickup height, etc.

The only time combos may not work is when you have something like a Warpig which is over 20k, combined with something like 7k. That's when it's more pickups for different jobs.

What sets did you mix btw?

[monkey8911]

So far I mixed the A-bomb bridge with Cold Sweat neck, I found the Cold Sweat too sterile compared to the A-bomb.
Then RY Bridge with Cold Sweat neck, same thing, so I changed the Cold Sweat to a VHII neck.
Like it, but the VHII has much more bass and a less punchy sound. This is not the worst combo, but Its still like having 2 different characteristics in one guitar.
Ohh, also tried the Crawler neck with the Blackdog and Nailbomb bridge, didnīt work with one.
To be fair, the Crawler neck wasnīt the best choice for my guitar, it sounded really muddy.

Iīve also tried the Riff Raff Neck with Black Dog bridge, hated the Black dog at this point.
Tried my Stock BB Pro neck with the RR bridge, I guess I donīt have to go deeper in that... :-)

So for me one pickup always cancels out the other, canīt help it.
Iīll soon get the matching neck pickup for my RY bridge, might keep the VHII neck though.

[darkbluemurder]

In my experience its not the best to mix up pickup sets, except if you want your guitar sound like two different guitars.
I regret not going with a matched set, Iīve always kept changing only one at the time and that made one or the other pickup always sound weird/out of context.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not work as well. Depends on the guitar and what you want to achieve with the different pickup spots. It also makes a big difference with neck humbuckers if the guitar has 22 or 24 frets since the pickup will be in a different position.

Cheers Stephan

[darkbluemurder]

So far I mixed the A-bomb bridge with Cold Sweat neck, I found the Cold Sweat too sterile compared to the A-bomb.
Then RY Bridge with Cold Sweat neck, same thing, so I changed the Cold Sweat to a VHII neck.
Like it, but the VHII has much more bass and a less punchy sound. This is not the worst combo, but Its still like having 2

Well, you may have liked the A-bomb bridge with the VHII neck. I have that combination in one of my guitars and it works really well - very good balance output and tone wise.

I have the Cold Sweat neck with a Holydiver bridge and I like that combination as well.

Never found the need to change anything about the Rebel Yell set.

On the other hand I did not like the Cold Sweat set as a set - much preferred the bridge pickup over the neck pickup. Same with the Abraxas set, although the difference was closer. I use the Abraxas bridge now with 2 single coils (not BKPs) and the Abraxas neck with the Cold Sweat bridge which I like better.

The strangest combination I use is a Cold Sweat neck as a bridge pickup together with a Holydiver neck pickup. That works well, too.

Cheers Stephan

[monkey8911]

Hey Stephan,
Thanks for all that information.
Seems like houīve tried quite a lot.
Yeah, now that I think about it, the VHII Neck and Abomb Bridge may have worked...

I think Iīll go for the RY neck for now and put my remaining Cold Sweat neck, VHII neck and Abomb Bridge for sale.

I think the stock RY set will cover the more balls out rock tones for me.

Cheers,

Martin