Esp Horizon and JB replacement ?

[aris17561]

Hello from Greece , I have an esp horizon nt alder body...

I play with an evh 5150 iii. The reason I want ro replace the Jb is because in combination with the 5153 the sound is very very very tight , and it has lot of attack and hard highs. Attack its not bad because I am playing music like Iced earth etc but this is way too attacky and presence...

I do not want to cut a lot of high from my amp because I like brightness... So do you have any good recomandation ? It is not nessecary for a super high output pup cause evh has plenty... I like clearness in my distortion but not the fizzy sound (Have this in mind)...

To make it clear , I am playing with lot of distortion but I need a clean distortion... No fizz !!!

I hope I have describe it well

[Kiichi]

Well what comes to my mind right away is the Holydiver. It is a common replacement for the JB as while they are not exactly similar in that sense, they seem to cater to the same idea.
The HD would certainly give you versatility and the ability to go heavy. The tighness is reasonable (middle ground for BKPs I think, which still is pretty tight) and most importantly it has that rounded musical topend (not dull!).

So that would by my guess.

[aris17561]

Well what comes to my mind right away is the Holydiver. It is a common replacement for the JB as while they are not exactly similar in that sense, they seem to cater to the same idea.
The HD would certainly give you versatility and the ability to go heavy. The tighness is reasonable (middle ground for BKPs I think, which still is pretty tight) and most importantly it has that rounded musical topend (not dull!).

So that would by my guess.

Hd is the first i have in mind, but what about crowler ? Dont forget , clean distortion , no fizzy

[Kiichi]

Well the Crawler is a different monster. I am actually in the process of restringing my crawler axe with Thomastik Power Brights right now after some toying around with dadaee tuning. Really looking forward to seeing how those strings work out.

The crawler is a growly rock beast. It reminds me a bit of Steve Vais desciption of his new gravity storm pickup which was something like: “a thundering cloud of ice cream.” I would make the crawler chocolat vanilla flavour.
With it you get a lot of mids, the really growly kind and also a version of that musically rounded high end and rather tame high mids. You get a very saturated sound, which I like for clean to medium gain.
Thing is that it is probably about the loosest of all the BKPs and due to its character it gets too saturated rather quick imho. Personally I feel in my setup anything over med gain gets too full and lacks tightness for what I need, but it makes for an incredibly rock axe full of character.
Plus I think the Crawler needs a really bright axe to shine.

Bottom line: The HD should be more up you allie for this one.

[darkbluemurder]

My vote also goes to the Holydiver.

The Crawler has a bit less output and a warmer tone - not really the tone you would associate with Iced Earth stuff. If you want/need less output than the Holydiver, the Black Dog and Abraxas would all be good alternatives with different flavors. Emerald would probably work as well but I have no experience with that one.

Cheers Stephan

['Ash' J. Williams]

Well, I have the exact same guitar (alder wings) and it is indeed a bit difficult to find pickups that are a good match for this one...

Problem with the NT1 is that the neck-thru construction works well... a bit too much if you ask me.
You have this very natural tight (too much ?) low end and very clear/crisp highs and they are hard to tame.

I had alnico Nailbombs, Holydivers, Coldsweat, Aftermath and Miracle Man in it.
The best match was BY FAR the Holydivers : they did warmed up the sound while keeping it very tight.

The NB was too aggressive, the Coldsweat could not bring the natural mids up, the MM (actually in it) is great but brings too much of his own lows and highs even though the low mids are great.
The aftermath was too bassy (although it's great in a alder Bolt-On Jackson).
As a general rule of thumb Alnico worked far better than ceramics in it but YMMV.

I also have a Alnico BlackHawk in a 7 strings basswood RG and i think it could be fantastic in the NT1 because of the gorgeous purring low mids (I'd like to try this one day).


If your NT1 sounds even a bit like mine you should really be locking at the HD !

[Zaned]

From the way you describe it, that sounds like maple dominating the tone. Which is not surprising, given that it's a neck-through, where the neck wood tends to dominate tone-wise :) Maple is bright, but NOT REALLY bright, usually. What's probably irritating you is the upper mids combined with that mid-spike of the JB. Maple has a lot of mids, and is tight both on the lows and highs. And yes, a lot of attack.

HD has a warmer (but not dull) top, but also a lot of center mids, which might or might not work. For J. Williams, they apparently worked, but your guitar might be different. You didn't mention the bottom end, just the high spectrum.

In general, maple (or maple neck-through) guitars get recommended ceramic pickups here. If your guitar sounds like I described, the ceramic model I would choose is the Miracle Man. I haven't personally ever owned a neck-through, so take my advice with a pinch of salt. However, it's been a proven combination here, and is great for early Dokken tone, for example. Tight but big lows, no nasality in the midrange and aggression (but not too much) in the highs.

-Zaned

[ericsabbath]

how about a black dog?
the voicing is pretty similar to the holy diver, but has a cleaner texture, so it sounds more open
round top, solid bass, thick midrange
and it was one of Jon Schaffer's favorite pickups around iced earth's framing armageddon era

I have it in a maple neck les paul and it sounds much much better in it than in did in my mahogany neck les paul

[Zaned]

how about a black dog?
the voicing is pretty similar to the holy diver, but has a cleaner texture, so it sounds more open
round top, solid bass, thick midrange
and it was one of Jon Schaffer's favorite pickups around iced earth's framing armageddon era

I have it in a maple neck les paul and it sounds much much better in it than in did in my mahogany neck les paul

Yeah, definitely an option, if you wanna go with the mid heavy -voicing. I have both the HD and the Black Dog (in a strat and an LP, in that order).

A great video of the Black Dog in an LP. Bare Knuckle Pickups Official : Bruce Dickinson Black Dog/ Riff Raff

-Zaned

['Ash' J. Williams]

My 2 favorite sets are HDs and BDs.
I must say that BDs in a NT1 sounds like a very good idea. I should try it sometime.

[ericsabbath]

don't know about the nt1 or the horizon woods, but in my maple neck greco lp, the black dog seemed to take advantage of the maple + brazlian rosewood mids in a good non-spikey way
the mids sound really thick and juicy and now the guitar sustains better than my riff raff loaded les paul custom
(and I do not mean the sustain of the guitar itself, but the extra mid push into the amps gain stages)
it's just a dense big tone with lots of weight in the single notes
the guitar itself is a quite bright sounding les paul compared to all the other les pauls I had, but now it's all about the mids