Pickup Recommendations For a Jackson SL3 Soloist rebuild...

[blackrazor]

Hi all,

I have a MIJ SL-3 soloist that I'm working on rebuilding. Right now I'm on the finish portion of the project, but expect to have moved on to bridge and electronics by the fall. As such, I am hunting far and wide looking for just the right set of HSS pickups to get the sound I'm looking for once the rebuild is complete.

What am I looking for? That classic "Jackson" sound from the '80s. I put it in "" because some of the sounds I associate with that phrase are ESP or Ibanez or even Kramer so it's more of a type of sound, the kind associated with JCM 800s and bands like RATT, Dokken, Anthrax, Def Leppard and a myriad of other bands from the 80s, before NIRVANA, grunge, and OU812 brought about an end to the era. I'm not looking for mud. This is why I have avoided things like JCM900 & JCM2000 or more modern Marshalls. I'm after that searing JCM800 distortion of the '80s metal/rock scene. Right now I have a Lee Jackson designed Crate Stealth GT50-H which can, (I'm told), get similar tones and gain, but what I also need is the right set of pickups.

Now, I've been told some Seymour Duncan Custom Shop pickups can fit the bill, such as the AH Metal Fatigue, and the Warren DeMartini RTM or the Lynch Screamin' Deamon.... but I'm not sure. Also, I like to explore all my options before investing. SO, that brings me here with this question:

Can anyone recommend an existing, or custom built BKP that might fit the bill?


PS: A note on the SL-3 and why it's getting a full refinish... Bought it from Sam Ash. It was listed as having a few normal scratches from play and otherwise being in good shape. Even called them about it. I was told it played awesome and sounded fantastic. SO I pulled the trigger and had it and a hardshell shipped to me. I get it and find that there are more than a few scratches... it had full on chips and bangs and all sorts of finish issues that exposed bare wood. Also, the pickups and their screws were rusted, there was no tremolo arm and when I got it out and tried to play it, something seemed quite off.... So I pulled out a tuner and found it was tuned a full step flat. SO, I did what anyone would do and tuned it properly at which time I noticed the Floyd stood almost straight up... So I did some investigating and found to my horror that the guitar had been de-tuned to keep the floyd from pulling it's mounting studs out of the body for they were so loose that simple hand pressure is all that is needed to pull them out completely. THUS began the refinishing project to try and make it playable again. Hence what brings me here looking for new pickups as I stripped ALL of the wiring out as it was all badly corroded along with the pots and pickups.

Moral of the story: Add this to the list of complaints about merchandise not being as described from Sam Ash. If purchasing from there, buyer be ware!!!!

[Slartibartfarst42]

Ah, this takes me back to when I had a MiJ Jackson SL3 

What you're describing seems to me to be essentially that classic 80s Metal sound so you need smooth and fluid with plenty articulation. Under normal circumstances the answer to your question would be easy enough as a lot of that sound was based on an alder body and maple bolt-on neck with a Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge. Try a Jackson Pro Dinky and you'll see what I mean. It's a classic pairing and nails the tones you're after but sadly your guitar is a maple neck-thru, which is a very different beast. I found maple neck-thru guitars to be pigs to get pickups for as it seemed to me that it was a difficult wood for pickups to cut through in the right way. The JB is superb in a Pro Dinky but was absolutely awful in my SL3. The Cold Sweats weren't bad at all but more the earlier part of the era. The Holydiver was also a great pickup in there, as was the Miracle Man. The Holydiver is the early to mid eighties tone while the Miracle Man is more late eighties and early nineties. Both of these will do a great job for you and for the singles, use Trilogy Suites, without a doubt.

[blackrazor]

Hey, thanks for the info! Glad to see someone else who had the same issues with an SL3 (sound wise).

Now my SL3 had a JB in the bridge, but I'm not thinking it has the output that I'm looking for... Not to mention it was in poor condition anyway..

I did some digging and while the neck-through portion is maple, the wings are Alder I believe... Though there's a maple veneer on top... Which was damaged and is now another finish all together...

Anyway, I may have to pick up some of your recommendations soon.

OH, I came across another pickup elsewhere that the demo for it had the pickup wired with a toggle switch to switch between passive and active... Anyone know what sort of active pre-amp might work with this sort of setup? Might be kind of interesting having that sort of option.

[Slartibartfarst42]

It does have alder wings but because the pickups are mounted on maple, due to the neck-thru construction, it's the maple that affects the tone most. While alder is the dominant wood on most superstrats of the era, it will have virtually no impact on your guitar. I wouldn't get too hung up on output if I were you for a couple of reasons:

1) In the era you're talking about, even the hot pickups were relatively tame by modern standards so there's absolutely no need to go berserk on output because all you'll achieve is output at the expense of tone. Think about it for a second and it makes sense because the more modern the pickup sounds, the hotter that pickup tends to be and the less versatile it becomes. The more you push the output, the more you're likely to move away from your tonal objectives and the operating window for the pickup will narrow considerably. If you consider either a Mule or Abraxas pickup, they will cover anything from Blues to eighties Metal while a hotter pickup like the Miracle Man will do Metal and very little else.

2) Originally pickups were made hotter to drive the amps harder and increase the distortion being produced through saturation but these days, most amps have more than enough gain on tap so the power of the pickups is far less important. Players use hot pickups today to achieve a particular, modern tone, not to drive an amp. If you like that kind of level of distortion, I suspect your amp or amp and pedals will do that for you, regardless of the pickup you choose.

The upshot of all this is that if you do go hotter, you'll need to go for a thinner and thinner wire so that the winds can fit on the bobbin but that makes it more difficult to achieve the tones you describe because in the era you're referring to, most pickups would have been either 42AWG for a PAF style pickup or 43AWG for a hotter pickup. This is why the Holydiver is a good approximation of eighties Metal tone but it's not as accurate as it could be because it had to be wound with 44AWG instead of 43AWG. The Miracle Man moves that bit further away from an authentic eighties tone because that's made with 45AWG instead of 43AWG. For the tone you're describing, you need to stick to 43AWG in my experience and wind it pretty much as hot as it will go or at least as close to 43AWG as you can get. If you do this you'll be able to get a mass manufactured pickup made hotter because you can get more winds on a machine wound bobbin. Hand winding gives far better note definition but you can't wind it as hot because hand winding takes up more space on the bobbin.

I guess what I'm saying is that you face a compromise. To get the tone you're describing with a handwound pickup, you're not going to get much beyond the output of a Nailbomb (a pickup that very definitely DOESN'T work in an SL3). You can get it hotter if you want, but it will mean moving to a different gauge of wire that will create a tone that isn't exactly what you've described. The tones and bands you're describing is very much in my territory because that's exactly what I tend to go for and in that search I've tried loads of pickups from various manufacturers with varying degrees of success. In the BKP range, the Holydiver is the closest to the tones you describe while the Miracle Man is a step more modern but still retains many of the characteristics. I've had pickups from elsewhere that nail the tones you describe better but they're not as hot because they used 43AWG so maybe not for you.

[blackrazor]

Awesome info! That answers questions I didn't even realize I had! Thanks!!

I actually am focused on that era tone and what not, but I think I was attributing much of the gain from the pickup and not the JCM 800s and other distortion effects etc.... While I don't have a JCM800 yet, I do have a Crate Stealth GT50H which is a Lee Jackson design which is supposed to get close to that Marshall sound... at least the Lee Jackson modded ones... So, for now I have something to start with... But I've noticed I just don't seem to be able to get that cutting tone... I absolutely hate modern metal tones and most modern amp voicing... too muddy for my taste. I prefer that 80s cutting sound far more than just...mud..

The reason I ask about the active preamp is that I know that a ton of soloists and Model 6s from that era used active pickups and have wanted one of those for eons... I was just thinking that if I could wire the SL3 to run active AND passive with the throw of a switch or pot... that'd be awesome... I'll have to dig into that sort of thing.

Anyway, thank you VERY much for the help!!

[Slartibartfarst42]

The usual way of tightening things up on your amp is to use an Overdrive pedal with the gain on zero (or only about 5% if you feel you need more) and max out the level. I find that this both tightens things up and smooths them out. I use an overdrive pedal for this a lot so it's on most of the time and you don't need an expensive one to have the desired effect. The Digitech Bad Monkey is dirt cheap and works a treat.

[blackrazor]

I have an old DoD Overdrive + that I used to use in front of a Crate TD70 which had all kinds of tube issues and always sounded muddy to me. It helped some, then I found one single 12AX7 from the former Chek Republic that sounded much better... hope it never fails... 

I've been checking the market for either a script era or early block era MXR Distortion +. May have to look more seriously.

[Dave Sloven]

MXR reissued the script Distortion+ a while back.  If you live in Australia I am happy to sell mine to you

I have used the MXR Custom Badass Modified O.D. to good effect.  Many people like the Bad Monkey or (if you have money burning a hole in your pocket) the Maxon OD808