The Watering Hole

What are some of your favorite all purpose humbuckers? I am building another project strat that is going to have H/S/S and have not decided on pups yet. Right now all of my guitars have a Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge. I do like the pickup, just trying to figure ou if there is another flavor I may want. I have owned hundreds of guitars over the years, most of them had active EMG pickups, Dimarzio (Evolution, PAF Pro), Seymour Duncan (Invader, JB, 59) etc... My old project strat (which I hate myself for ever selling) had Kinaman Vintage Noiseless pups. They were great.

While we are on the subject, what are some good neck and middle single coils that you guys like? Also, when telling me what pickups you like, might be really helpful to tell me why, what characteristics of the pickup make i work for you.

I had two bodies to chose from with this guitar, one was a Warmoth Swamp Ash Strat body made to be pick guard-less (all rear routed) and routed for 3 singles coils, natural finish, looks sweet. The other was a Mighty Mite Swamp Ash standard Strat style body, Alpine White. I went with the Mighty Might mainly because I already had it here and he Warmoth I would have had to buy from a friend (whom I actually sold it to a couple years ago). I actually brought the Warmoth body home and am looking at it right now, but I don't really have the money and the whole reason I decided to make this guitar was to utilize this MM body that has been sitting around for the last two years. Then my buddy called to tell me he was selling the neck and body I had sold him, went and got them today. The neck is a Warmoth AAAA Birdseye maple with 22 stainless steel frets. Got the Schaller locking tuners and the Gotoh Wilkinsin VS100 bridge, so pickups, electronics and some hardware to connect it all is what's left.

I'll let more of the "real" guitarists answer your question, but I love the pickups from Bare Knuckle Pickups (in the UK).  I used to use only Seymour Duncan's.

I never found a set of "all purpose" humbuckers so my current guitars all have different pups in them.  One has a set of Crawler humbuckers (beautiful for Classic Rock), another has a Rebel Yell humbucker (a little harder rock tone) with two Sultan singles (a Dire Straits type tone) and the third will have a Nailbomb humbucker (much higher gain) with two Trilogy singles (very high gain).  Each covers a different sonic teritory.  Eventually, I'd love to get a Warpig for my baritone as well (it currently has a custom-wound Dimebucker with a Seth Lover for melodic tones - a combination chosen for me by Seymour himself).

Their website forum has lots of real samples (made by employees and others).  Here's the link: http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/

I no longer have the next four guitars, but I'll list them to show what they had in them.

One of my Les Paul's used to have a JB with an Alnico II Pro which was the same combination that Slash used and for the same type tones.

My Axis had those custom wound humbuckers designed to Eddie's specification and covered lots of things very well.

My Strat and another Les Paul had Pearly Gates pickups in them (HH/HH for the LP and S/S/HH for the Strat).  Both came from the same owner and, while it was a nice tone, it wasn't what I was looking for.

I think the first thing you need to do is decide what "all purpose" means to YOU.  That said, check out my thread in the Gear area about the electronics I put in one of my guitars.  I can get 24 different pickup variations just from a 5-way switch, a knob and two on/off switches (mine are actual switches, but in my next guitar they will be push-pull pots instead).  Here's that link: http://www.chargermusic.com/wh/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1225595252

Perhaps "general use" would have been better than "all purpose". What I mean is I don't want to have o change guitars going from "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (Metallica) to "I know A Little" (Skynyrd) or "Pretender" (Foo Fighters).

I do use my pickup selecter a lot for tonal variations of course. My Kinman guitar had all kind of options with what they called a "blender" knob that basically was a mix, when the switch was in position 5 turning the knob would add bridge pickup to the neck, more knob turn, more bridge added. Vice versa in position 1, add neck to beidge, knob acting as the necks fader.

I have been looking at these ultra cheap ready wired pickguard assemblies tonite by a company called Dragonfire. Less than $150 for a drop in strat kit. The one I am looking at most strongly is the SRV setup, has an orange drop cap and all, as well as a push/pull pot that adds the bridge pickup whenever it is engaged.

They also make some hot rail type singles. For the price it is tempting.

All around?  JB or Custom 5 would be the decent without breaking the bank.  

The Bareknuckle Nailbomb is an amazing pickup.  Tons of balls and tone.  I've got a calibrated set in my Ibanez S-1620 and they rock.  Definitely more a hard rock/ metal pup.  I think it work for other things.  If I went with Bareknuckles, I'd snag a Crawler for the bridge and a pair of Irish Tour for the middle and neck.    

My PERSONAL pick would be, for bridge, a WCR Godwood.  http://www.wcrguitar.com/godwood.html
I have the I have a Godwood/Darkburst set in my PRS Singlecut (I have the Darkburst in the neck).  

The Godwood has AWESOME harmonics.  Even my Nailbombs don't have pinch harmonics like this little bastard.  Hell, EMG's don't have harmonics like this puppy.  Yet it's a more moderate output PUP (it's not quite as hot as a JB).  It can do everything from classic rock to competent metal (though it'll never sound like an EMG).  

Jim Wagner (the maker of WCR) can also do custom winds.  He's made singles (he recently didn't a limited run of singles, but he's more known for his HBuckers.  His turnaround time is AWESOME.  I ordered mine and had them in 3-4 days.  

I am a big believer in the Seymour Duncan Custom Custom.  It has a bit more mids than some other pickups, but it is a soaring lead machine.  From what I have heard (I don't own one) the Custom 5 is very similar but more well-rounded and might be more of what you are looking for.

Duncan JB forever ! :)
Well built and GOOD sounding PU !

Finished today to rewind 3 Tom Anderson...they're considered boutique pu's. IMHO they're just terrible ! All 3 broken in the same point for the same reason: bad design. If you can, stay away from them...or buy them to help in the near future a poor Italian pu's repairer !  ;D

Ciao!
Marco

Hey Spai.....

i wanna see photo's of this birdseye maple neck... like IMMEDIATELY......  The one I got from Warmoth was a little dissapointing......

I've chucked in a Gibson 500T and a matching 496R into my Gary Moore Les Paul. It still has the Zebra/all black combo - so looks the same as when it had the humbuckers - but with screaming outputs..........

Yo yo yo.....I've been meaning to get in here earlier.

In my Nez I have a PAF Joe and a Fred.  I think these picks are very good pick ups.  I play a lot of different stuff and these just totally cut the mustard. They can be very clean.....they are hot enough for thick distortion.  I have gone through a lot of humbuckers in my day.  And these two I am not parting with.  I was a die hard Seymour Duncan fan for years.  My pick up that I loved next to these two is a Pearly Gates.  Good enough for Rev. Billy G.  Good enough for you.

I use Duncan Distortions, and have been using them since they first came out wayyyyyyyy back. They are a little hotter than PAF's but not too hot.