BACKGROUND
I ordered this pickup in a framework of my Fender MIM HSS FR `95 upgrade project. The original bridge humbucker was seriously lacking mid highs and highs to the point, that artificial harmonics were barely audible, especially on the lower volume settings, also I wanted a pro sound.
TECH THINGS
Many fellow guitarists still have no clue, what's the difference between a humbucker and a trembucker. It's a distance between magnet pole pieces that differs. A trembucker was designed to fit string spacing that is standard on guitars equipped with Floyd Rose or other tremolo bridge(52.6mm between 1st and 6th strings vs. 49mm between 1st and 6th strings on guitars with fixed bridge), hence the name - trem(olo)(hum)bucker. If I were not to read the manuals, I'd ended up with a humbucker with slightly misplaced pole pieces in relation to strings. The trembucker piece itself is also slightly bigger (~3 mm) than a humbucker and hardly fits through my guitar's pickguard, so I ended up cutting custom pickguard with a bigger hole for the pickup.
SOUND
I used 2 of 4 available wiring options and wired the trembucker to act 1 - coils as series, 2 - coil split. Coil split sound resembles any other single pickup sound, bright, usable for clean, but still quite powerful with the use of overdriven channel. As I was looking for the 80's heavy metal and thrash metal sound, the series option was much more interesting to me. I switched to it immediately and plugged into heavy overdrive amp simulations stack on my pc. The sound was just a WOW!!! Singing high strings, solid crunch on bottoms and a wall of sparking harmonics if you hit a chord on higher strings! The crunch has it's very own character, distinguishable from other pickups and exactly the one I was looking for, since I've heard it on the albums of the likes of WASP, MEGADETH, etc. Sound is very, very RICH and living it's own life. When you hit a note it seems at least 3 guitars are playing at once. Also the trembucker does a slight wah and reverb effect itself. I think that's because one coil gets very slightly delayed in relation to the other, when wired in series. I'm happy with the sound 1000%, the sound is alive, not dead or sterile as on many modern records and that was exactly my requirements.
PROS
RICH, ALIVE sound! Each string sounds defined and not blurred even with heavy overdrive(which is a problem with bottom strings sound on some pickups of competition). 10x better sound than that of mid price range guitars stock pickups(any "designed by.." pickup). If you own such a guitar, stop wasting your time and switch to pro pickups immediately. You will be very surprised in a good way!
CONS
Well not any really. Maybe some back noise with heavy distortion, but well if I wanted no noise I'd bought an active pickup, now I use noise gate. Also, if you don't like "wah" and "sparky" character to the sound and prefer something sterile and dead, this pickup is definitely not for you.
CONCLUSION
If you like the sound of 80`s, 90`s metal, go for this bridge pickup BACKGROUND
I ordered this pickup in the framework of my Fender MIM HSS FR `95 upgrade project. The original bridge humbucker was seriously lacking mid highs and highs to the point, that artificial harmonics were barely audible, especially on the lower volume settings.
TECH THINGS
Many fellow guitarists still have no clue, what's the difference between a humbucker and a trembucker. It's a distance between magnet pole pieces that differs. Trembucker was designed to fit the string spacing that is standard on guitars equipped with Floyd Rose or other tremolo bridge(52.6mm between 1st and 6th strings vs. 49mm between 1st and 6th strings on guitars with fixed bridge), hence the name - trem(olo)(hum)bucker. If I were not to read the manuals, I'd ended up with a humbucker with slightly misplaced pole pieces in relation to strings. The trembucker piece itself is also slightly bigger (~3 mm) than a humbucker and hardly fits through my guitar's pickguard, so I ended up cutting custom pickguard with a bigger hole for the pickup.
SOUND
I used 2 of 4 available wiring options and wired the trembucker to act 1 - coils as series, 2 - coil split. Coil split sound resembles any other single pickup sound, bright, usable for clean, but still quite powerful with the use of overdriven channel. As I were looking for the 80's heavy metal and thrash metal sound, the series option is much more interesting to me, so I switched to it immediately and plugged into heavy overdrive amp simulations stack on my pc. The sound was just a WOW!!! Singing high strings, solid crunch on bottoms and a wall of sparking harmonics if you hit a chord on higher strings! The crunch has it's very own character, distinguishable from other pickups and exactly the one I was looking for, since I've heard it on the albums of the likes of WASP, MEGADETH, etc. Sound is very, very RICH and living it's own life. When you hit a note it seems at least 3 guitars are playing at once. Also the trembucker does a slight wah and reverb effect itself. I think that's because one coil gets very slightly delayed in relation to the other, when wired in series. I'm happy with the sound 1000%, the sound is alive, not dead or sterile as on many modern records and that was exactly my requirements.
PROS
RICH, ALIVE sound! Each string sounds defined and not blurred even with heavy overdrive(which is a problem with bottom strings sound on some pickups of competition). 10x better sound than that of mid price range guitars stock pickups(any "designed by.." pickup). If you own such a guitar, stop wasting your time and switch to pro pickups immediately. You will be very surprised in a good way!
CONS
Well not any really. Maybe some back noise with heavy distortion, but well if I wanted no noise I'd bought an active pickup, now I use noise gate. Also, if you don't like "wah" and "sparky" character to the sound and prefer something sterile and dead, this pickup is definitely not for you.
CONCLUSION
If you like the sound of 80`s, 90`s metal, go for this bridge pickup immediately!!
