SD humbuckers

[chazzyfresh33]

hey guys i'm looking to make a pickup change on my blackout tele and possibly for a future tele build
i've got it narrowed down to either Seymour Duncan's 59 model or Jazz model for the neck, with either the Custom Custom or JB model in the bridge. Its an alder bodied, rosewood fretboard-ed guitar used mainly for Rush/Triumph/other classic, alt, and hard rock, but i do need a good clean tone as well
thoughts?

 

[Damon]

Supposedly, Seymour's favoite combo is the Jazz neck and JB bridge. I had that in my LP for a while. Decided the Jass was too smooth for me, so swapped it for a slightly growlier 59. Now I'm finding that for some reason I can really hear the compression inherent to a high output pickup when I'm playing the JB, so I'm planning on swapping it for a Pearly Gates (basically a slightly hotter 59). I've not played a Custom Custom, but it's higher OP than the 59 (and the Pearly Gates) but still less than the JB, so I can make an educated guess that I wouldn't want it for my current tastes.

All that being said, the Jazz was the "best" pure clean of the bunch to my ear. Actually, it was too clean for me and that's why I switched to the 59. The 59 is plenty clean, but is just a bit less smooth - still has a tiny bit of bite to it, which I like. The 59 dirty wins hands down for me. Growls just right. The Jazz was always a little too polished sounding for me, although when I was fooling around with stupidly high gain it was very good at evoking violin tones. The JB is actually quite good clean for a ~16k pickup, but being it's in the bridge position, it can get piercing at times if you're not careful. It's got a great tone for leads and chunky bridge rhythms, and if the compression doesn't bother you it's really a hard pickup to beat.

Hope that helps, but take all of it with a grain of salt. It's based on my experiences with my own ears, which malfunction to varying degrees on a regular basis.

 

[Strat Avenger]

The Jazz sounded weak in my alder-bodied super-Strat. I swapped it into my Mahogany-bodied LP style guitar, and it's perfect. The '59 I had in the LP was too bassy for that guitar, but may work great in your alder-bodied guitar. I also have a JB in the bridge position of my LP, and it just plain Rocks. 'Has plenty of everything.
I definitely would not want to go any hotter.

 

[chazzyfresh33]

Thanks guys! Sounds like 59 is definitely the way to go at least for neck. leaning towards custom custom a bit after seeing this video [youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbRqTE4nVw0[/youtube], although my cousin's HH Strat has 59/JB and sounds pretty good. although i do already have the JB in my HSS... decisions decisions lol