Brown sound or metal sounding pick up?

[felixbarrell]

any know of any pick ups good for playing metal and hard rock like megadeth, van halen, iron maiden that arent really expensive or any decent pick up?

cheers

felix

[ivancic1al]

Try GFS Those bands use a lot of different pickups, so I'm not sure exactly what tone you're looking for..

[felixbarrell]

Originally Posted by ivancic1al

Try GFS Those bands use a lot of different pickups, so I'm not sure exactly what tone you're looking for..

well just any good pick up that is heavy sounding more eddie van halen sounding u got any ideas?

[xtrustisyoursx]

just get a duncan jb or custom. probably the most versatile pickup out there.

[neoclassical]

Originally Posted by xtrustisyoursx

just get a duncan jb or custom. probably the most versatile pickup out there.

Those and add the Custom 5 and maybe the Duncan Distortion.

[Nights_Blood]

I'm going to throw the Tone Zone into the ring here.

[b7string]

Dave Mustaine played the JB/Jazz combo all through the 90's, and those pickups are just awesome. I personally like a 59 in the neck instead of the jazz, but the JB is a very versatile and relatively inexpensive pickup. Can't go wrong there.

[Necky379]

what guitar are they going in?

i agree with the custom 5 bridge for that stuff in most guitars. personally i like the duncan pearly gates in the neck position though.

[felixbarrell]

Originally Posted by Nights_Blood

I'm going to throw the Tone Zone into the ring here.

i currently have that would it sound good in a custom VH1 that i am planning to build?

[blackrobedone]

Mustaine's tone was terrible on Rust in Peace. I'd steer clear of the JB if that's what was used there.
Metallica's tone has always kicked the shit out of all other thrash bands, and even to this day - EMGs, my friend.

BTW, what the heck is the brown sound anyways. Did EVH have the brown sound on 5150? That tone is terrible as well. If it's the first album's tone that it's lots of reverb and an over-driven Marshall (in his case modded). I don't think the tone is in the pickup.

[Knossos]

I'd have said Metallica have always had god awful tone

Well, Black Album aside, because they layered it the fu-

A nice sharp SD pickup like the JB or distortion will do wonderfully, particularly into a Marshall. Remember not to go nuts on the bass though, The Brown sound is all razor-sharp mids.

[Philligan]

+1 JB.

It's awesome for pretty much everything. At least one of the guys from Lynyrd Skynyrd uses them, and Michael Amott used them up until he got with Dean.

The Custom 5's great, too. I prefer the JB, because I find the Custom 5 a little more polite sounding and controlled, but they're both great pickups, and have a lot of the same qualities.

Honestly, man, your amp and signal chain are gonna play a bigger role in this. Pickups will affect things, obviously, but anything that's like a PAF or PAF+more will pretty much nail all those tones.

[Andromalia]

Originally Posted by Philligan

Honestly, man, your amp and signal chain are gonna play a bigger role in this. Pickups will affect things, obviously, but anything that's like a PAF or PAF+more will pretty much nail all those tones.

As a banket statement I'd disagree. Some stuff is way more sensible to a pickup change than others. Some amps will soud nearly the same whatever pickup you're using (say, Marshalls), and some others will change a lot (say, engls)

[ittoa666]

Originally Posted by blackrobedone

Mustaine's tone was terrible on Rust in Peace. I'd steer clear of the JB if that's what was used there.
Metallica's tone has always kicked the shit out of all other thrash bands, and even to this day - EMGs, my friend.

BTW, what the heck is the brown sound anyways. Did EVH have the brown sound on 5150? That tone is terrible as well. If it's the first album's tone that it's lots of reverb and an over-driven Marshall (in his case modded). I don't think the tone is in the pickup.

Don't forget that metallica used refrigerator sized racks, too.

[ev1ltwin]

for second, eddie's tone on the first album is a PAF->mxr eq (with the mids boosted)->cranked marshall super lead (or so that's what i've been led to believe by reading the interwebs way too much). that tone is dominated by the amp; he was boosting the preamp and slamming the phase inverter and power tubes so hard that you wouldn't be able to tell which pickup he was using in the first place.

for third, i have a kramer proaxe with a JB in it, and i play it through a mesa mark iii. it sounds nothing like megadeth tone.

PICKUPS ALONE DONT DETERMINE TONE. as you crank the preamp gain on an amp, you're hearing less the character of the pickup and more the character of the amp's distortion. any ....ing pickup in between a PAF and an EMG can get you a good hard rock/metal tone.

[Knossos]

Was not I that neg-repped you dude, I just disagreed.

Also tempted to QFT ev1ltwin, though I stand by what I said, a decent Seymour Duncan PAF+ type into anything with the mids boosted will be excellant.

[technomancer]

Guys, if you haven't take the time and read the new site rules. The next person talking about rep in this thread is going to get some time off. If you have a problem with rep, contact a mod and we'll take care of the problem.

The brown sound is more about a super pushed or modded marshall than any pickup

Also, and obviously YMMV, I've had one guitar with a JB in it and found it to be really unimpressive. That was a Jackson DK2M (alder body, bolt-on maple neck, maple board)

[felixbarrell]

i got a vox vt50 and im gonna get a overdrive pedal and properly gonna stick with the tone zone i have seeing as they have a 8.5 mid according to the dimarzio site so i think it'll be pretty good for the evh tones. i get a pretty good tone with my stock amp and a lag arkane a200 which has emgs in it but i need a more boosted tone and thats goin gto come from the pedal so would that be a good idea to run it through a overdrive pedal to boost it?

[ev1ltwin]

Originally Posted by felixbarrell

i got a vox vt50 and im gonna get a overdrive pedal and properly gonna stick with the tone zone i have seeing as they have a 8.5 mid according to the dimarzio site so i think it'll be pretty good for the evh tones. i get a pretty good tone with my stock amp and a lag arkane a200 which has emgs in it but i need a more boosted tone and thats goin gto come from the pedal so would that be a good idea to run it through a overdrive pedal to boost it?

punctuation please. it makes it a pain in the ass to actually try to give advice when i can't digest your sentences without reading them 5 ....ing times

but yes, if you need a more boosted tone, use an overdrive/boost pedal. a tube screamer type pedal with the Overdrive set low and the Level set high will get you where you want. this will act as a kind of clean boost favoring the mids.

[EdgeCrusher]

Originally Posted by felixbarrell

i got a vox vt50 and im gonna get a overdrive pedal and properly gonna stick with the tone zone i have seeing as they have a 8.5 mid according to the dimarzio site so i think it'll be pretty good for the evh tones. i get a pretty good tone with my stock amp and a lag arkane a200 which has emgs in it but i need a more boosted tone and thats goin gto come from the pedal so would that be a good idea to run it through a overdrive pedal to boost it?

Yeah, a boost will help out the Valvetronix amp a ton, I used to run a TS808 into my AD100VTH and I wouldn't play without it. The Tone Zone is also a really good choice for the sound your going for.

[felixbarrell]

Originally Posted by EdgeCrusher

Yeah, a boost will help out the Valvetronix amp a ton, I used to run a TS808 into my AD100VTH and I wouldn't play without it. The Tone Zone is also a really good choice for the sound your going for.

at the moment i am thinking of getting a boss ge-7 to boost the mids and might add a boss od-3 to boost that extra bit is that a good idea?

this threat is becoming more about pedals now!

cheers