« A more subtle Vai sound »

Everyone knows who Steve Vai is. He is a Grammy award winning guitar player who has played with everyone in the last 30 years. He is one of the great forerunners for modern guitar playing and has a very modern tone. He has designed many guitars and pickups to get his signature tone and this is one of the lesser known ones. He is more known for his Evolution pickup but the Breed pickup is one that more people will find usable if they try it out. Steve Vai designed this pickup for some of his guitars to give himself a more subtle and sensitive sound. The Evolution he uses in most of his guitars is a super sharp pickup that gets crazy harmonics and compression. This is more of a tradtional pickup with a fatter sound. It is like a modded PAF pro pickup. It has a fatter sound than the EVO but it still has enough crispness to not get muddy in any mix. Since it is so fat it works well in modern shred guitars which are usually not made of the best woods. Like most Ibanez guitars which are made out of basswood this pickup will thicken them right up and give them a more meaty tone. Which is good since Ibanez guitars come with some of the worst factory pickups in the guitar market. This pickup is EQ'ed very nicely with the high end slightly cut and the mids boosted a bit. This is what you want with a fat pickup like this. You dont want the high end spiked so it makes you sound like a Telecaster or something, although if you want that sound you can get it easily by splitting the coils. You want the mids high and the bass right behind it. This pickup works well in most every guitar. If you are looking for a fat Dimarzio pickup that no everyone knows about the Breed is a good unit in the bridge.