Anyone got a bit more info on the Emerald Neck?

[Attica!]

Me and my mate are after the same pickup combo, and we messaged Tim the other day for a pickup to cover styles from players such as: Gary Moore (his more distorted tone as to blues), Michael Schenker (mainly his sound on Temple of Rock), Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, Joe Satriani, John Petrucci, and so on...

I was half expecting him to recommend a Cold Sweat neck which I though would have been ideal, but I was also curious as to other pickups. To cut a long story short, he actually came back and recommend the Emerald Neck without a mention of the Cold Sweat which got me curious.

I just wondered if somebody could shed a bigger light on them, as I'm really unfarmiliar. I did manage to find an Andy Timmons style track from combing the forum for threads, and it has a gorgeous clean and slightly overdriven tone. I just wanted to know how this copes with more extreme styles that involve a fair bit more gain. Kind of like the shredding you hear in Power Metal bands.

Cheers, Michael

[Attica!]

Anyone?

[Rubblebrother]

Hi, sorry I have taken so long to reply. I bought an Emerald set to upgrade a Les Paul copy. I emailed Tim and said I wanted a set that would do Gary Moore, Michael Schenker, Brian Robertson, Joe Bonamassa and Jimmy page, he recommended the Emeralds. I have just bought a Edwards Les Paul and  am going to put them in soon. The guitar they are in at the moment is Rally Gl300 which is similar to an Epiphone Les paul, in that the neck sounds very sweet and hot for a neck pup, not muddy at all and its possible to get great harmonics when I dig in a bit, I have never been able to do this with other neck pickups!  It does what it says on the tin! I will post some more when i put the Emeralds in the Edwards as I reckon they will sound better due to the better woods and construction of the guitar. :D

[Attica!]

Thanks very much for the response. I look forward to hearing more :)

[Rubblebrother]

Well The Emeralds went in the Edwards LP and I am amazed at how different they sound in this guitar compared to the Rally LP.  Bigger and bolder! Did the first gig with the Edwards last night, and played a lot of different stuff, Bonamassa, Gary Moore, Schenker, Page, Kossoff, Robbo and the Emeralds were very versatile and great for changing tones with the volume/ tone pots. They have a great vintage seventies classic Rock sound. Brilliant clarity under a lot of gain and some excellent harmonics. The neck is very sweet sounding and I used it for Thrill Is Gone BB King and it sounded beautiful with just some light overdrive, it is not muddy at all. Also used the neck pu for I'm a Mover by Free and it can nail the tone from that too, just wish I could play these tunes as good as the emeralds sound. Someone was recording from the desk so If I can I will post some clips :D

[Attica!]

Cheers for that :) And if you can get clips, that'd be fantastic!

[explorer76]

I've got an Emerald neck in my alder/ash PRS-style guitar accompanied by a Holydiver bridge and I totally love the Emerald!
What I wanted was that singing, fat but still very clear leadsound of Periphery's "Jetpacks was Yes!"-Solo on the one hand and on the other hand a bright and tight cleansound. To make it short: That's what I got!