Miracle Man/Trilogy: 1st Impressions

[fdesalvo]

I have an HxS tele with a mahogany body and one piece maple neck that I decided to turn to a metal rhythm tool. These pickups are replacing and Abraxas bridge and 63 neck. I have a Strat dedicated to lead work that is stuffed with the Abraxas and 63 set, which I love.

MM bridge: when you need a sledgehammer!  This is one thick beast.  I had to bring up the treble on my amps considerably. The tone is very percussive in that the low end has a very chesty wallop to it.  When you chug, it's got a subsonic thump that hits your chest, but it's very clear without muddy bass.  Lots of low mids, where the Abraxas emphasized high mids, but no flat or papery mids.  Just the right frequencies for girth. 

I've owned the Crawler and HD aside from the Abraxas and they all lived in this guitar, which is well balanced.  From a saturation standpoint, the Crawler is at peer level, but cannot track as tightly.  It's not a huge difference, but it's perceptible.   The HD falls behind here and shares a more inorganic quality with the MM. It's not the compression that's throwing me.  It's the rawness of this pickup.

It's actually shockingly powerful compared to the vintage hot lineup and not in a bad way.  This pickup doesn't give a damn what you want to play. It showed up to the party to drop a turd in the punch bowl and it's going to hang around to watch who fishes it up on the ladle. The MM laughs at your struggles in life; it tells inappropriate penis jokes in front of your grandmother.

Once I adjusted my amps and lowered the gain a bit, the true colors of this pickup became clear. It's a beautifully aggressive rhythm pickup.  I'm hoping further experimentation will reveal some good lead qualities, but that would be a bonus.  I also noted a decent dynamic range given the horsepower.

This guitar has gone from a well rounded axe to a very one dimensional tool. It's extremely limited now, but that's why I sought it out.  I have a very well-rounded guitar, but needed something more convincing for instrumental metal.  I always end up with too much guitar overlap, so here's how it has to be.   

Some have said it is supposed to be in the EMG ballpark, but having played them long ago, I don't quite agree.  I might have painted myself into a corner with this one. Maybe I'll decide that I need something with a bit more upper midrange.  For now, I'm looking forward to laying down  some thick and heavy tracks. I plan on using it in Eb tuning with 11s. I played with it in dropped D for a bit tonight and had a blast. 

Trilogy neck: installed as an afterthought in the event this would be my backup guitar live. This is a fat singlecoil replete with huge mids. There's no sparkle or vintage tone here.  It's a bit unspectacular in that way.  No surprise however. I believe that if I end up with a dedicated metal guitar, I might either go with a single humbucker or HH arrangement, despite detesting neck humbuckers. The truth for me is that it doesn't take much power to balance with a high output bridge pickup in an HH configuration.  I'm sure I could finds humbucker with more pleasing highs in the neck than this particular singlecoil.

Update and tracks to follow. 

[Slartibartfarst42]

This pickup doesn't give a damn what you want to play. It showed up to the party to drop a turd in the punch bowl and it's going to hang around to watch who fishes it up on the ladle.

 

It seems we've experienced very similar pickups and it's interesting to see that your experience of them mirrors mine very closely. I've always felt that the Miracle Man, Holydiver, Crawler and Abraxas are closely related, though I have no direct experience of the Abraxas. All are smooth, the Crawler and Miracle Man are more saturated, the Crawler and Abraxas are richer and more vintage, the Holydiver and Miracle Man are more modern, the Holydiver and Miracle Man are tighter and all of them are relatively thick with the mids playing an important role in their tone.

The Miracle Man is certainly the least versatile and while I can see why there is an association with EMG (other than the name of the pickup), it's so much more organic than an EMG.

My experience of the Trilogy Suite wasn't quite the same as yours as I really liked it, though I confess I prefer the noiseless ones I have in my Strat now. What is it about neck humbuckers you so dislike? It sounds like you might get on with a Holydiver neck pickup as that isn't particularly hot, isn't particularly thick at all and has some lovely highs. Actually, and I'm sure you've realised this already, if you decide you need a step back from the Miracle Man, a Holydiver in the bridge would be an excellent option.

[fdesalvo]

I posted this at such a late hour - and from my iphone lol.  Awful misspellings and poor sentence structure that I have yet to correct.  Such is life.

As the coffee begins making its way into my bloodstream, I will clarify.  I have been using vintage-hot humbuckers for the past 6 or so years. Prior to that, I have been using fairly hot ones such as the DiMarzio TZ/Evo, EMG 81/85, Rio Grande BBQ, JB, etc. I stepped away because I was limited to one guitar and it had to do it all exceedingly well.  I began looking for something less hot and more organic. 

As it pertains to my studio work, I have found pickups like the Abraxas more than adequate for heavier styles.  With a bit of increased input gain from my interface, compression, EQ'ing, etc, the Abraxas can find itself rising to the top in any given musical situation, with the exception of highly technical speed metal/thrash.  The low end is a bit loose for this, but sometimes that blurriness is appreciated.  Since I had two guitars with identical pickups, albeit two different configs (HSS vs HxS), I decided to dedicate one to the more extreme side of life.  Truth be told, I was recently reminded of my love for the older Thrash tones of Exodus and the like.  I want to bring back that old aggressive tone, but in a new way.

I've spent the last 3 years refining my recording and production skills and having recently listened to all of my old favorites with new ears - with ears that can sense the backend engineering/production, I am so motivated and fired up to get cracking on some new instrumental metal work.  I need a pickup that has that old, raw, tight tone - but with a dash of organic goodness.  From a recording perspective, the MM is perfect - if I need more of any particular frequency - if I need to alter the attack or feel, I can do that from my desk.  I literally installed it, threw on some 11s and tuned up.  After a few tweaks, I was getting some really inspiring tones.  If I find myself in need of this tone live, I may have to look for something with a bit more upper mids since I play primarily lead lines.  Truthfully, the Abraxas covers all of my bases live, so I think I can stop here - unless someone tells me I need to try the ceramic NB for the studio.

My review of the Trilogy was not even handed and I hope that disclaimer made its way to the bottom of my original post.  I played it through a 5150 and modded Marshall with some boost pedals cooking the front end, so no clean audition was done.  Where the 63 would sparkle through this rig, the Trilogy was exceedingly dark.  It's simply a case of not balancing EQ settings with the new pickups installed, I'm sure, but my expectations of singlecoils are always vintage, so how fair am I?  I literally bought this one to balance with the bridge, which it does.  I will find some great metal tones from this one once I play around with it in the studio.

Im going to finish tweaking this guitar for this purpose and will inevitably have to bring in another studio queen for lead work.  I've been eyeballing some older Ibanez 540s for this purpose!  I have no problem with throwing a Crawler into the bridge.  That might be one of my favorite lead pickups of all time.

Cheers, brotha.

This pickup doesn't give a damn what you want to play. It showed up to the party to drop a turd in the punch bowl and it's going to hang around to watch who fishes it up on the ladle.

 

It seems we've experienced very similar pickups and it's interesting to see that your experience of them mirrors mine very closely. I've always felt that the Miracle Man, Holydiver, Crawler and Abraxas are closely related, though I have no direct experience of the Abraxas. All are smooth, the Crawler and Miracle Man are more saturated, the Crawler and Abraxas are richer and more vintage, the Holydiver and Miracle Man are more modern, the Holydiver and Miracle Man are tighter and all of them are relatively thick with the mids playing an important role in their tone.

The Miracle Man is certainly the least versatile and while I can see why there is an association with EMG (other than the name of the pickup), it's so much more organic than an EMG.

My experience of the Trilogy Suite wasn't quite the same as yours as I really liked it, though I confess I prefer the noiseless ones I have in my Strat now. What is it about neck humbuckers you so dislike? It sounds like you might get on with a Holydiver neck pickup as that isn't particularly hot, isn't particularly thick at all and has some lovely highs. Actually, and I'm sure you've realised this already, if you decide you need a step back from the Miracle Man, a Holydiver in the bridge would be an excellent option.

[fdesalvo]

I Just had to update this after spending some time dialing in my new tones around these pickups.  I am just floored with both - amazing lead tones to be had here!  I had to bend my mind around the fact that these are meant to do a certain style.  Once I was able to do that, it was all gravy. 

I was initially under the impression that the mids were gone from the bridge tones, but after some quick tweaking, it's just there in glorious, glorious spades.  I just gave my eq a little bump around 500 and 1400K and it's all there.  This is such a great set of pickups for all things metal - they handle rhythm and leads stunning well with power and dynamics by the shovelful.  EXCELLENT lead tones.

THESE might be visiting my incoming S540LTD, though I'm itching for the Crawlers powdery smooth midrange.  I have a feeling that I should just shelf or sell the Dimarzio Gravity Storms before I break the seal on the cases.  My gut tells me that these are Dimarzio's versions of the Crawler, though.  Might as well give them a run before I see what's lacking.