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So I am moderately happy with the bird right now.
It's a 2007 FB-V and I have replaced the neck pickup with a Lollar, which was a GOOD idea as it sounds killer.

I like vintagy a sounding neck pup which I use 90% of the time for clean / overdriven / fuzzed sounds but I do occasionally play METAL (I used to play in lots of metal bands) so I am hesitant to change out the stock bridge pickup.....it is very high output which I like for getting false harmonics and chugga chuggas.

But it is sooo harsh and doesn't have quite enough low end for me. I am wondering if there are any other minis that would sound more like a full sized bucker that I could put in the bridge? I want to be able to gallop into the evil mountains but still have good tone damnit!

I also like my bridge pickup to be much louder than my neck overall.....and the lollar (in the neck) has to be close to the strings for best tone, so even though it's not a high-output pickup it is pretty loud.....another reason I don't want to change out the bridge pickup to something too "vintagy" and lose my massive volume boost when switching to the bridge.

So.....what do you dudes reccomend for a FAT HEAVY BURLY NASTY bridge pickup?
Thanks!

I'm not speaking from personal experience here, as the Firebird tone I seek iappeas to be quite the opposite of your grail tone, but I hear from a couple of other players I respect that the Rio Grande Babybucker might be right up your alley. It is SUPPOSED to sound much like a full-size bucker. You probably don't have a very good chance of finding a guitar with one in it to try out, so you'd probably have to take the plunge & buy one yourself.
Hope I helped...a little...

Tony

Call Jason and see if he will wind you something special. He's usually pretty good about that.

DougK wrote:Call Jason and see if he will wind you something special. He's usually pretty good about that.

I asked him about this.....I said I wanted something with comparable output to a Duncan JB and he gave me some jerky answer about not knowing about other companies and their products and that any custom winds might sound shitty, etc.....and that I should just buy his mini humbucker because it sounds great.

I think that the JB is a pretty standard pickup and I am surprised he has never dealt with one......but I think I made it clear that his stock mini humbucker would be way too wimpy. Ahh well, his vintage wound stuff IS great.

Sleepingtiger wrote:I'm not speaking from personal experience here, as the Firebird tone I seek iappeas to be quite the opposite of your grail tone, but I hear from a couple of other players I respect that the Rio Grande Babybucker might be right up your alley. It is SUPPOSED to sound much like a full-size bucker. You probably don't have a very good chance of finding a guitar with one in it to try out, so you'd probably have to take the plunge & buy one yourself.
Hope I helped...a little...

Tony

I know its vain but all my guitars are chopped in some way except this bird so I don't really want to install something that doesn't have the classic look. I think the Rio Grande is open coil and that would just look too weird on my all white bird.

Why not try out the hot Duncan model, just change the cover to a plain one?

Tony

I have the Duncan sm-3 which is supposed to be a high output vintage pup. I still find it too shrill. I did find a pup from GFS. It's called the Fat Mini-Alnico V humbucker. It's only $35.95. I tried ordering one but, for some reason the checkout link kept timing out. The only issue with the GFS pup is it has screws in the top as opposed to a regular Firebird pup with out.

I had an SM-3 in there and liked it ok, but it wasn't doing it for me.

Right now I've got the original ceramic neck pup in the bridge position. I'll try this out for a while with the lollar in the neck, which sounds great.

I am a few months away from just routing the bridge for a full sized humbucker. Honestly, the used market is kind of shit anyways and I have a common enough bird that it may not devalue it much....I don't have any plans of selling it anyways.

Aw man...really? I hate to see that happen, but it is NOT mine. Have you tried the Rio Grande mini?

Tony