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King Loudness « A cool pickup for prog/shred. »
Published on 05/01/11 at 14:44I purchased a 2010 Ernie Ball Music Man John Petrucci JP6 that was loaded with the new JP pickups, being the Liquifire in the neck position and the Crunch Lab in the bridge position. I'd previously had a 2007 model JP6 that was loaded with the D Sonic in the bridge position, and I can safely say I do prefer the Crunch Lab in that particular guitar.
When I was using these guitars, I was playing progressive/neoclassical shred type stuff primarily and was using either a Splawn Quick Rod or a Peavey Vypyr Tube 60 combo. Compared to the D Sonic that I had before, the Crunch Lab was fuller and punchier sounding, with a bit more output and a bit more of an aggressive edge to it, whereas I found the D-Sonic to be a little bit more classic and a little bit spongier sounding than the CL. The Crunch Lab feels like a hotter pickup overall and definitely suits the heavier progressive/shred type stuff very well.
The clean tones out of this pickup were decent enough for a high output pickup that had no coil splitting capabilities. I didn't often use this pickup for my clean sounds, preferring to use the middle position or the neck. However, when I did use the cleans, I found that they were nice and defined, with a very apparent low end, a slightly boosted set of midrange frequencies and a high end that sat very well in the mix and had a nice chime, but wasn't overly harsh.
The drive tones were the high point of the pickup for sure. For the Dream Theater esque progessive stuff I was playing at time I couldn't have asked for something better. It's a great pickup when hit with a nice dosage of gain. I liked it particularly for complex rhythmic passages as well as faster alternate picked things as it was very articulate and had a much tighter feel than the D-Sonic that it replaced.
All in all I felt that this was a killer pickup for the EBMM JP6 guitar and progressive tones in general. It's a very tight and articulate pickup that takes well to distorted textures and passages with lots of notes. Definitely worth a look if you are after a good high output pickup for prog/shred type stuff.
When I was using these guitars, I was playing progressive/neoclassical shred type stuff primarily and was using either a Splawn Quick Rod or a Peavey Vypyr Tube 60 combo. Compared to the D Sonic that I had before, the Crunch Lab was fuller and punchier sounding, with a bit more output and a bit more of an aggressive edge to it, whereas I found the D-Sonic to be a little bit more classic and a little bit spongier sounding than the CL. The Crunch Lab feels like a hotter pickup overall and definitely suits the heavier progressive/shred type stuff very well.
The clean tones out of this pickup were decent enough for a high output pickup that had no coil splitting capabilities. I didn't often use this pickup for my clean sounds, preferring to use the middle position or the neck. However, when I did use the cleans, I found that they were nice and defined, with a very apparent low end, a slightly boosted set of midrange frequencies and a high end that sat very well in the mix and had a nice chime, but wasn't overly harsh.
The drive tones were the high point of the pickup for sure. For the Dream Theater esque progessive stuff I was playing at time I couldn't have asked for something better. It's a great pickup when hit with a nice dosage of gain. I liked it particularly for complex rhythmic passages as well as faster alternate picked things as it was very articulate and had a much tighter feel than the D-Sonic that it replaced.
All in all I felt that this was a killer pickup for the EBMM JP6 guitar and progressive tones in general. It's a very tight and articulate pickup that takes well to distorted textures and passages with lots of notes. Definitely worth a look if you are after a good high output pickup for prog/shred type stuff.