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ejendres « Not for me »
Published on 11/10/11 at 14:29The JB seems to be one of the more polarizing pickups out there. People who like it seems to be crazy about it and people that don't like it seems to abhor it.
Personally, I fall more towards the latter category. I hated almost everything about this pickup. The clean tones were thin and flat. It was a completely uninspiring and muddy tone. I don’t expect a bridge pickup to have amazing cleans, but I expect them to at least be decent. The JB did not meet that expectation.
With high gain the muddiness is just amplified. There is so little punch and definition in the low end, its useless. On top of the muddiness it’s just thin. This makes the pickup completely useless for modern metal. The only redeeming quality is the midrange, its nice and crunchy.
That midrange crunchiness is the only thing that makes the pickup useful. It does very well for those classic LP into Marshall style crunch tone. I could easily nail those classic AC/DC style tones. It sounded good enough that I actually thought about keeping it.
The pickup really lends itself to 80’s style power metal tones too. I’d say it handles them pretty well, but that is just an extension of that mid-gain crunchiness in my opinion.
Really though, it’s a one trick pony. It only does one thing well, and that’s mid-high gain 80's style crunch. If you boost the amp it does a very convincing eighties power metal tone. So overall this pickup sucks in my opinion. I hated it and I'll never own one again. However, if you're looking for a pickup to play hair metal on your super Strat or you want an LP to nail the classic eighties crunch, definitely check this pickup out. It'll probably be right up you're alley.
Personally, I fall more towards the latter category. I hated almost everything about this pickup. The clean tones were thin and flat. It was a completely uninspiring and muddy tone. I don’t expect a bridge pickup to have amazing cleans, but I expect them to at least be decent. The JB did not meet that expectation.
With high gain the muddiness is just amplified. There is so little punch and definition in the low end, its useless. On top of the muddiness it’s just thin. This makes the pickup completely useless for modern metal. The only redeeming quality is the midrange, its nice and crunchy.
That midrange crunchiness is the only thing that makes the pickup useful. It does very well for those classic LP into Marshall style crunch tone. I could easily nail those classic AC/DC style tones. It sounded good enough that I actually thought about keeping it.
The pickup really lends itself to 80’s style power metal tones too. I’d say it handles them pretty well, but that is just an extension of that mid-gain crunchiness in my opinion.
Really though, it’s a one trick pony. It only does one thing well, and that’s mid-high gain 80's style crunch. If you boost the amp it does a very convincing eighties power metal tone. So overall this pickup sucks in my opinion. I hated it and I'll never own one again. However, if you're looking for a pickup to play hair metal on your super Strat or you want an LP to nail the classic eighties crunch, definitely check this pickup out. It'll probably be right up you're alley.