Ok guys, I have had an aftermath bridge installed into my Schecter Omen Extreme 6, its a great inexpensive guitar but thought id give it the bkp treatment to make it a greater guitar...
The guitar is a mahogany body, maple neck, rosewood fretboard. In my other guitar (PRS SE CUstom24) I have a c-bomb calibrated set and in my PRS SE Tremonti I have a cold sweat set I play mostly metal through a mesa single rec and marshall 1960a cab.
Output: Not as high as the cbomb but then again i dont think its meant to be, again, dont panic about this-u can always turn your amp up a tiny bit more!. So dont be surprised if it doesnt sound as loud as you expected. What i found imperative though is pickup height-i know people go on about it but its true, and the AM needed more attention in this area than my other bkp's. Having it closer to the strings i personally found it too fuzzy and compressed - out of the other pups i mentioned it is the one i have furthest away from the strings. I suddenly found it sounded clearer and with great balance: the sound really came into its own. So remember: tweak, tweak and tweak some more.
Sounds:The AM has its emphasis on the midrange spectrum, this means that the bass feels smaller and its not as 'big' as the c-bomb/coldsweat. This does not mean that you miss out on a good whopping thud from palm mutes, it just means it doesnt emphasize the bass frequencies as much as the other pups. One thing i have to mention is how clear it is, i think this is also down to its 'dry' nature; though there is some compression going on it doesnt seem to have as much of it as the cbomb as it was more percussive though not as big sounding. Its attack is more precise and to the point-it knows its frequencies and goes for them-in this guitar the midrange felt clearer than even the coldsweat. Its great for metal and all its conotations, but i dont find it as flexible as the cbomb or coldsweat.
Palm-muting also has a different voicing to the other pups, it has more of a snarl than a chug-hard to explain, but i like it a lot :-)
Tightness:I find it to be the tightest of the pickups i own. At times it almost felt like it had a noise surpressor built in as to how responsive it is to palm muted flurrys-you stop chugging and theres silence....dead silence
All the notes sound clear and precise, surgically so, if youre used to having extra stuff and noise in your pups masking your sound thisll come as a shock-i think it makes u a better player.
Cleans: For a ceramic pup it sounds good, clear and chimy with a good balance.Again its not as good here as the cbomb/coldsweat but you wont be getting this pup to play your cleans...
So to sum up id recommend this pickup to any player who wants a very tight, percussive and clear pickup geared towards the metal end of the market- I personally love it as it adds a different dimension to my arsenal. It is not as big or as warm as a cbomb or as crunchy as a CS though what it does offer is an aggresive midrange with a good balance of treble and extremely tight bass. Leads sound great on it too but i feel this pup is a match made in heaven for fast technical metal riffing:punchy, clear and TIGHT, get the Aftermath and be prepared to practice more ;-)
