Review: Duncan custom+screamin demon vs JB/jazz

[Orpheo]

Hi guys, I just wanted to post a review of my experiences with the above mentioned pickups, just to shed some light on those designs and strange and/or unique combinations.

First, I used the custom in the bridge and the screamin demon (SD) in the neck. boy oh boy, that was just TOO fat. OH, yeah, it was in a les paul (mahogany body/maple top, wenge neck, ebony board). on every position, there were just too many mids and lows. pinch harmonics went quite nicely, but thats might be due to my technique. I can get pinches from every guitar, even my sisters violin...It didn't work for me, that combination, so I swapped them out. The SD in the bridge is nice! its a bit like a nice PAF with a bit more output, a bit like the seth lover, but with a bit more growl, less bite, bit more output, and tighter; very nice for paul gilbert's music, or well, anything as long as you dial in the amp just right.

The custom in the neck is nice too! very much a surprise! Very clear and clean, but nice amount of output when coilsplit, exactly the tone I want for 'los lonely boys'. its smooth enough for santana-solos, but tight enough and clear enough for the intro of look what the cat dragged in (poison). yeah, I play that on the neck-position

The tones though, are not really much different from what you can get from a jb/jazz set. I won't change it, or exchange it, cause I've got a thing that I dont want 2 pickupsets at home which are the same (so no 2 jb/jazz sets), but I recommend the jazz/jb set, cause with a bit of tweaking, you can get the some tones from those pickups! for the jb vs SD: just use your tonepot, or a resistor to make a 500k pot into a 300k pot... same shit. The jazz with low polepieces sounds almost the same as the duncan custom in the neckposition. same superclear and clean tone, maybe a bit more hifi where the custom is more 'organic' and woody.

both sets are great in each respect, and I can't decide which one I like better. I noticed that the tone of the pickup gets influenced a lot by the other pickups you might use. a duncan JB sounds on its own a bit different than with a Jazz or duncan custom in the neck...

To summarise:
I love the JB in the bridge; the duncan custom in the bridge sucks; the SD in the bridge rocks, but sounds like a sweeter JB.
I like the jazz in the neck; the duncan custom in the neck is great (with a SD in the bridge!) better than jazz in neck; SD in neck is fine too by the way, but a bit too mushy compared with jazz or D.Custom.

 

[KKorina]

the duncan custom in the bridge sucks;

Thanks for the post, as it's always cool to read what other people think.

II have found the Custom to be a great rock/metal pickup in the bridge of a Les Paul. It can get bright in the wrong guitar, but also adds some compression (ceramic magnet) as well. What's interesting is that all of the Duncan Custom's are the same, with the exception of the magnet. Custom has a ceramic, Custom Custom has alnico II, Custom 5 has alnico V.

If the regular Custom isn't working for you, try swapping the mangets. It really does make a big difference.

 

[MUYFUE]

Good review.
Im not big on the Custom, however I went crazy and bought 2 Custom 5's and stuck them in both positions of my V and LOVED IT!

I eventually changed out the bridge for a Lawrence, but when I had the Custom 5 in the bridge WOO HOO! it was great at solid rock tones. A bit whompy, but crisp and clean. However I pulled it out cause it seemed to be a bit...laggy? It was as if when pushed really hard, it smushed instead of keeping up.

I left it in the neck though, cause it had a smooth and clean attack, not too icepicky but enough defnition for fast and Phat solos. I use the neck position every once in a while on rhythm too, when i need some serious BOOM.