Your pickup combinations.

Elwood

There are well know aftermarket pickup combos out there, like the Seymour Duncan 59/JB. In a bid to help me (and others) come up with alternative pickups option what are the best & worst after market pup combinations you have tried out?

What is the best bridge humbucker & neck single coil you have tried?

Octafish

Don't do humbuckers, but I keep coming back to the Seymour Duncan SSL1 for Strat neck single coil. Has surpassed Fender CS 69, Fat 50s, CS Texas Special for me. I also love the Seymour Duncan Twangbanger in the bridge of a Strat. Got one in my main Strat (along with SSL1 in the neck), sounds great in combination with the neck pickup.

octatonic

My main guitar has a Suhr SSV+ humbcuker in the bridge and a Suhr ML neck pickup.
They sound excellent.

impmann

Worst pickup combination is position 2 and 4 of a Strat.

Limehouse_Blues

Best neck single coil I've tried is Bareknuckle apache. Best bridge HB a score draw between OX4 and Amber Spirit of 59

Octafish

impmann said:

Worst pickup combination is position 2 and 4 of a Strat.

Yeah that's not great in terms of mid/bridge or mid/neck pickups, but I've got mine wired so that position 2 is Bridge/Neck which I really like.

Elwood

octatonic said:

My mail guitar has a Suhr SSV+ humbcuker in the bridge and a Suhr ML neck pickup.
They sound excellent.

Have a wisdom, I hadn't thought of Suhr pickups.

The best pup combo I've had is rather annoying - it was a SD 59 and a BKP in the bridge. I thought it was a Warpig but I was wrong. Never did find out what it was.

Danielsguitars

The best strat combination I've used was mojo pickups, mind you that's all I use now

It was a split coil paf in the bridge and 2 60's single coils
I really liked pos 2 with the paf and middle

Megii

I don't have any guitars with pickups by the big name brands or well-known makers, probably because I don't want to pay the prices. I have one guitar with a set of humbuckers made by Ben Fletcher that I really like - the neck is a low-wind alnico 2 assymetrical coil winds, about 6.9K total. In general I find I like low-wind alnico 2 or 3 paf-style buckers for the neck, to give a detailed articulate but sweet clean tone.

For the bridge pickup, after discussion with Ben, we went for an alnico 4 "paf" type, but I told him to wind it as hot as he thought sensible to go, given the pickup type. It ended up being a bit over 10K, still assymetrical wind on the coils, but there's obviously quite a bit of wire on both the bobbins. But it's great for smooth lead tones, and yet it still has a nice clean tone and mixes well with the neck pickup. I often find bridge pickups in humbucker sets just don't have enough volume to balance with the neck, but not here. The split coil tone is nice also. I'd say this is the best humbucker set I've had so far.

William Williamson

The only mixed set I have is on my primary guitar, an '88 Ibanez 540S. The neck is a DiMarzio single-sized Chopper which is thick and boomy, the middle is a True Velvet single coil to get those Alice-cooper tones, and the bridge is a Gravity Storm for raunchy (but not overpowering) sound. Replacing the IBZ set that was in there before, I think it's a nice combo and alot brighter and more alive sounding than the SD 59/JB set I had in an equivalent Jackson.

fretmeister

Lollar Black Face single coil for the neck.

SD Pearly Gates for the bridge.

grungebob

I've honestly never liked any Bare Knuckle pickup I've tried so I can't recommend them

the pickup set that most surprised me for its versatility was the Duncan sentient and nazgul set. On paper they should be one trick ponies but they proved to be great. 

Singlecoil my fav is the dinarzio hs2 and the BC2

carlos

impmann said:

Worst pickup combination is position 2 and 4 of a Strat.

Madness. Worst is 3. Position 4 (bridge/middle) is the true strat sound.

entee

I play TV Jones T-Armond in the neck and Power'Tron Plus in the bridge - love the sounds I can get out of them 

Octafish

carlos said:

impmann said:

Worst pickup combination is position 2 and 4 of a Strat.

Madness. Worst is 3. Position 4 (bridge/middle) is the true strat sound.

For who? Not me, position 3 over the weak/nasally 2 or 4 any day. It's not like Leo Fender even designed or built the guitar with those sounds in mind.

TTBZ

Position 2 & 4 sound horrible. Such a cheesy nasty sound.

I'm really enjoying my Axesrus pickups - neck Late 50s P90 and bridge Purist humbucker. Really versatile and in this instance they sound better than any other pickups I've had in there including Bare Knuckle (Mules and black dogs). I was half expecting them to be rubbish for some reason but they're still hand wound pickups at a reasonable price. I'd say the Purist is like a Mule but a bit hotter and less "blank canvas" sounding if that makes any sense. 

Bowks

Love the DiMarzio Tone Zone in the bridge with a Fast Track 1 or HS3 in the neck 

koneguitarist

I tried all sorts of bridge pickups for my tele and was changing it regular, SD, David White, DiMarzio etc then I bought a David Florence Voodoo pickup, and ain't changed it since, that's about 13-14 years ago. 
Was thinking of changing it recently, as I would like to try one of Ash's Oil City tappable units, but ain't gonna be playing live that much longer so not sure now. 

Teetonetal

My Schecter has SD59 and Custom Custom. I like both pickups but I don't think they work well together.

I like fender nocasters in a Tele and the oil city stone tone with scrapyard dog hb in my super strat.

Elwood

Teetonetal said:

Oil city stone tone with scrapyard dog hb in my super strat.

Do they balance well between -the SYD and the neck pickup?

dindude

My Schecter PT has a balanced set of Seymour Duncan Whole Lotta Humbuckers and they sound the business.