and new forum member. I'm gonna start with the perhaps the most common thread on here....which pickups for a "fill-in-the-blank" guitar. In this case, the guitar in question is a custom build I'm preparing to finish. Solid flamed maple San Dimas style Strat, with a maple bolt on neck and a rosewood board. It's going to have a Gotoh High Stability tremolo with a brass block. A bridge humbucker, and a neck single coil. I'm pretty well sold on the Trilogy for the neck, but for the bridge.........oh decisions, decisions!!!
The clips I've enjoyed the most from the Players room so far have been from the NBs and HDs. Tim advised against anything that hot for solid maple in A5. Told me the hottest A5 he'd go with would be a RY. Ceramic on the other hand is another story and is suppsed to be a good match for maple. Are the differences in tone between rock and flamed maple subtle? The info on Warmoth's site described rock maple as more "brittle" than figured maples. Do they both have the same pronounced mid range or is figured maple a little more forgiving? On the other hand, Ben's HD demo on YouTube was absolutely amazing, and it's almost certainly a rock maple body on his ESP. If the mids do end up a little overpronounced, can they be compensated for through EQing?
Also can anyone comment on how well a ceramic NB or HD cleans up? How do they respond to rolling off the volume? What kind of brutality can RYs achieve? Tone wise I'd like this to be able cover from "Wild Frontiers"-era Gary Moore, to Savatage, to Firewind. HELP!!!!