Cheap pups that suprise with great sound!

[gemini8026]

Interesting point Tim. I have also noticed that digital modelling, some of those subtleties are lost. IT seems most guitars I play thru my gear, all sound ery similar in the long run!

[RobRR]

I really like stock Jackson pickups... namely the J50c and the J80! GREAT pickups, and can be had for next to nothing if you find the right deal.

[TrendkillDBD]

Bill Lawrence humbuckers are great and only cost $40

[straycat]

I agree RobRR the J series pickups are great the J-50 n&b the J-90 n&b J-90 c are outstanding.I love the J-100 singles too. I put an rs guitarworks pot upgrade kit in my 1A and it has so much sparkle and dynamics and rocks when pushed hard.

[JacksonWarrior]

I think it also matters what you plug in to. A great guitar with expensive pickups is not going to sound much better than a cheap guitar with crap pickups when you plug it into a cheap solid state amp or a Boogie Rectifier with the gain dimed.

Absolutely. Well said.

I've heard great things about the Bill Lawrence XL500 humbucker for the bridge, apparently great for metal. No direct experience tho.

Personally I will add the Magnaflux II UBC humbucker. I have one in the neck and one in the bridge on my 87 Westone Dimension IV, both coil tapped and I have a switch to reverse the polarity on the bridge pup. They sound pretty damned hot I think, plus in this setup I have tons of options for setting tones.

[DonP]

+1 to the J50 and J90C and L500XL's, but for really cheap, I found these Aria pickups 20 years ago that sound killer. They are wound to 13K, and have tall bobbins that give a clear powerful tone. Very good George Lynch tone with these. My buddy with his Al DiMiola (sp? Help!) Ibanez was always floored at how great these $5 pickups sounded.

[jgcable]

There's an import Charvel Star out there (white with lightning bolt, reverse head) that has some of the best pickups I've heard. No idea who made them, but I'd like to find out

Also, I had a Jackson JX10 - SLS-shaped with 3 Hot-Rails-type DDs. Those actually sounded nice for a $200 Made In India job.

I owned that guitar too Newc. Those pickups were amazing. If I recall.. they were zebra's.

[straycat]

I have an Aria fullerton model that sounds huge too.The older Jap stuff rocks now that its had time to mellow with age.

[Bert]

+1 on the J90-C .... great sounding pickup, if a bit of a one trick pony.

[hippietim]

I owned that guitar too Newc. Those pickups were amazing. If I recall.. they were zebra's.

and everyone knows that zebra's sound the best

[Newc]

Yep

I had a Kramer Striker 300 in '88 that had a very strange humbucker - no matter what guitar I put it in, it got a very nice "Brown Sound" - even through my BabyGorilla and 12-pedal setup

A friend of mine with a JCM800 head was even impressed with the tone.
Unfortunately, the pickup had roughly 1/4" leads on it, and I had patched it with thicker wires, so that may have influenced the tone.

Sadly, the pickup went away some time ago - wish I had it back

EMG HZs aren't as bad as people make them out to be, either. I do prefer them for D tuning, though. In E they're just blah, but tune down a whole step and they sound great. The AfterBurner helps, but you don't have to max it - just to where it's noticeable.

[Rich#6]

EMG HZs aren't as bad as people make them out to be, either. I do prefer them for D tuning, though. In E they're just blah, but tune down a whole step and they sound great. The AfterBurner helps, but you don't have to max it - just to where it's noticeable.

HZ 4 is OK at bridge but with a 5 way there's not much difference in tone. I don't think should be here at $99 new though. There not "cheap" at all. Kent armstrong's ultra distortion is a good hot pickup.

[usrname]

My kid just got one of the cheaper Dean Dime-O-Flage star guitars. It sounds ten times better than the B.C. Rich with EMG-HZs he was playing. I don't know what they're using but those pickups are much higher output and way more articulate with no feedback. I was really surprised because I thought that it was going to sound like crap. Oh and they're zebra as well.

[gemini8026]

The SLSMG I had with EMG hz's sounded fantastic!! I forgot about those, I had that guitar 1 week though and sold it to finance my lovely SL2H.

[Razor]

I'm a big fan of the J-90C too!