[darkbluemurder]

Finally I had a chance to try the VV 54 Pro in the neck position. The guitar is a telecaster with a maple neck. The bridge pickup is an Area Hot T. 250k volume, 250k tone, 2200pf tone cap, 3-way switch n, n+b and b, no push-pull pots for extra options.

WOW!

That VV 54 Pro kills in the neck position of this guitar - instant SRV tone (except for my playing ). Nice clean tone and killer overdriven tone, just dripping with harmonics. Previous pickups in that guitar were the Area T neck (good but underpowered), Cruiser neck (better, more power). I prefer the VV 54 Pro to all of them. It balances extremely well with the Area Hot T tone and output wise and the middle position is a very distinct tone from the neck.

Cheers Stephan

[darkbluemurder]

I just set up an alder strat with maple/rosewood neck with Virtual Solo bridge, Area 58 middle and a Virtual Vintage 54 Pro in the neck, which replaced an Area 67 that I found too bright in this guitar, especially on the 1st and 2nd strings. The VV 54 Pro solved that problem nicely. It is still bright in the clean tone but with overdrive all the glass that is still present in the clean tone goes away and makes way for juicy harmonics. The Area 58 is similar in this guitar whereas the Area 67 in that particular guitar retained a glassy element with overdrive that was grating at some times.

Keep in mind that the Area 67 is still my no. 1 choice for the neck position, and in the other guitars I have it in the neck it does not exhibit that overdrive glassiness so it was a suboptimal guitar/pickup match.

If  "thick" or "Texas" is what you are after in the neck position without going into P90 territory, look no further than the VV 54 Pro.

Cheers Stephan