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jkessel « PAF style neck pickup, goes great with any set »
Published on 04/30/12 at 23:54A very nice neck pickup, goes well with both the L500L and the L500XL. It is a dual blade style pickup with alnico 5 magnets. Along with the other L500 series, Dimebucker, and EMG, and select Dimarzio pickups these are a rail design. The pro’s of rails are a very even balance in volume. If you bend a string there’s no loss in volume or sustain which can be a problem with standard individual pole pieces.
Very PAF like, in the sense that it's very smooth but thick and has a big low end. I prefer brighter neck pickups so I can play leads with good definition and this pickup definitely wasn't designed for that. For playing cleans it's great, very big and strong sounding. Makes any clean tone get right in your face without overdriving at all. Great for strumming where you want the balanced smooth tone, very acoustic like, but for leads it can get muddy quickly. Similar to a Duncan ’59 or Dimarzio PAF it’s a very bluesy pickup, very traditional sounding. For high gain leads I'd recommend a much brighter pickup, for cleans this works great. It’s a medium output pickup so it’s a good match for most medium and high output pickups. For a lower more vintage output pickup I’d suggest the L500C, which I believe the C stands for clean. The higher the output the easier it overdrives your amp which is good for high gain but bad for cleans. The lower the output the cleaner and more articulate the tone is but makes harmonics harder and has less sustain. So this is a good medium for that. Right in between too little with not enough sustain, but not too much to where it’s hard to get a good clean tone. I’d recommend this for someone who wants to keep the dual rail theme but wants a classic sounding neck pickup, but with better string to string balance.
Very PAF like, in the sense that it's very smooth but thick and has a big low end. I prefer brighter neck pickups so I can play leads with good definition and this pickup definitely wasn't designed for that. For playing cleans it's great, very big and strong sounding. Makes any clean tone get right in your face without overdriving at all. Great for strumming where you want the balanced smooth tone, very acoustic like, but for leads it can get muddy quickly. Similar to a Duncan ’59 or Dimarzio PAF it’s a very bluesy pickup, very traditional sounding. For high gain leads I'd recommend a much brighter pickup, for cleans this works great. It’s a medium output pickup so it’s a good match for most medium and high output pickups. For a lower more vintage output pickup I’d suggest the L500C, which I believe the C stands for clean. The higher the output the easier it overdrives your amp which is good for high gain but bad for cleans. The lower the output the cleaner and more articulate the tone is but makes harmonics harder and has less sustain. So this is a good medium for that. Right in between too little with not enough sustain, but not too much to where it’s hard to get a good clean tone. I’d recommend this for someone who wants to keep the dual rail theme but wants a classic sounding neck pickup, but with better string to string balance.