Hello and greetings from Greece,
A review of VHII for anyone who's interested...
I received the pickup yesterday and installed it imediately...but before that allow me to give you an idea on how I got to buy this pickup(I think it's more important than a review on sound).
The guitar was,is and always will be an alder charvel star with maple fb and locking tremolo.As far as pickups,I have been a SD Custom fan for ages...I have tested a quite big number of pickups(some of them were BK,I'll come to that later). I always loved the rhythm sound of that pickup and I still do...I even like it better than BK Miracle Man that I tried a few years ago...As I mentioned earlier I am using only one guitar and one pickup,so I demand a lot from it...even though I enjoed MM's EQ it was too gainy and it was impossible to control it with the volume knob(I use it A LOT).Next BK was the nailbomb...I don't know if it's me but I think that nailbomb lacks caracter...It's a very even pickup,able to play a lot of stuff but it just lacks something in my guitar...right after the "failure" of MM and Nailbomb I returned to the SD and DM pickups...factory standards...
DM Super Distortion-too much gain,lacks definition
SD Distortion-too much gain,shril highs
SD 59-TOO MUCH bass and scooped mids
SD Custom custom-lacks bottom end,highs,mids get easily muddy
SD JB-lacks in every single way...nuff said...
So I got back to Custom which was the pickup I had before any change.The problem remained though...not a great lead sound,not bad but not amazing and I couldn't clean it up nicely...it kinda silenced the mids leaving the highs hitting your ears...
The VHII was again a bet for me...at the beggining I was pretty afraid of trying such a low output pickup...and I was right in some way...you need to change the way you play and the way you hear the sound...It's more open that the compressed high outputs but not as loose as the 59...the lead sounds ame FANTASTIC and the rhythm is crazy good too...I found out that I like the custom's amp settings with this pickup...the volume knob now work great and since I am using one channel only gets the job for me.The mids are very present,the highs are nice,not mellow,the harmonics are AMAZING,better than custom's...
It's in the honeymoon period but I think I have a new favorite...
I faced one single problem:I nail the pickups directly to the body and the pickup corners made the pickup too bid to fit inside...I had to use a tool to make it fit by cutting the corners but everything is good now.
Maybe I'll come back in a few weeks if I have anything else to say about VHII,after the honeymoon...
I hope my english is readable...I have been told that I am loosig the language's feel...
