Hey everyone.
I'm looking to replace the 490r/498t set in my les Paul custom. The tone of these is very fizzy, weak, and mushy. I've got an ibanez rg1570 with crunch lab/liquifire that absolutely slays the lp. I'd like to bring the lp up to that same level.
My amp is a mesa dual recto tremoverb and I also use a Friedman BE-OD as well. One thing I find is that the lp sounds better with the Friedman pedal as I think the CL just hits it too hard but the ibanez sounds much better with the recto. Go figure.
Anyhow, I've been on a quest and have narrowed my choices down to about 696,000 at this point. What I'm really looking for is more bottom end, nice fat tone that will retain clarity and have no fizz. I don't really play metal other than Metallica. My tone is more like a beefy muscular hard rock tone. The CL seems to handle it perfectly but it's too dark IMO for a les Paul and as mentioned it pushes the Friedman too hard and makes it mushy. I need something that's going to land in the middle. Big and fat without being too high output.
At this point I'm thinking either the super distortion with either a Steve Morse neck or a PAF pro neck. Or the dominion set. I think either of those would work based on the website descriptions.
I've also been looking very hard a bare knuckle pickups, namely the black dog bridge with a mule neck or a holy diver set. My think with them is that they're twice the price of dimarzio and I just don't know if they're worth it.
So, to recap, I have a les Paul that's too bright, fizzy, and puny sounding. I need more bottom and thickness, more overtones, but I don't want something so hot that it's going to muddy up the tone. The Friedman apparently is very sensitive to this. At the same time I don't want something weak like a PAF which is going to leave me wanting more. Something that gets close to the crunch lab but with a little more brightness and less output.
Very open to suggestions, thank you.
