Hello there everyone!

I was just wondering if anyone could recommend any decent passive pickups (active are a little out of my price range what with all my recent purchases) other than EMGs or Seymour Duncan (as much as I love EMG I want to try something a bit different and I've never been a fan of Seymour Duncan).

I've been looking at some Di'Marzio pickups but to be honest I wouldn't know where to start

So I thought where better to ask than here!

So any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

What kind of music do you want to play? What kind of guitar and amp do you have?

Essential questions

dang i would've said EMG 81s or 85s or even 89s but yeah

They're real cheap at the moment too

seymour duncan?

EMG's are active pickups, not passive pickups.
I can recommend original Gibson pickups, or Tom Anderson pickups.
please, stay away from Suhr pickups. They're really popular, but it makes your guitar sound dead and kills all your sustain.

dang i would've said EMG 81s or 85s or even 89s but yeah

They're real cheap at the moment too

Really?

From what I can see they're still pretty expensive around here.

As for the guitar in question, its a les paul copy which a friend has kindly donated for me to experiment upon.

Its more of a joint effort really, its always interested me the insides of a guitar.

For the playing style, its a predominantly metal/hard rock affair, the amp escapes at this point in time.

I'd never even considered Gibson pickups to be completely honest

Oh and to avoid confusion, when I mentioned EMGs I was referring to the HZ series, I should have pointed that out, my bad

Alright, as far as passive pickups for that style go, Id look at a Dimarzio Air Norton in the neck and a Tone Zone, a Steves Special, or a D Sonic in the bridge. A Fred would be a good pick too, although it has a lesser output than the other two. Another option would be a D Activator combo, as they have the high output like an active, but are still retain a true passive tone.

Thank you for the advice Ghaleon, I'm going to look into the pickups you mentioned a little further.

I'd looked at a few but I had no idea what would make a good combination!

Yeah, I'm gonna start Pickup shopping myself. I have a BC Rich Mockingbird, and the stock BC Rich pickups are starting to piss me off, they just sound horrible, offer no sustain, can't handle higher notes (notes sound dirty and un-crisp, and sort of 'click'), so since I'm not a stickler for the PERFECT sound, as long as I can find something that is doesn't do all the nasty things that I just mentioned, I'll be happy.

check out the Bill Lawrence pickups.

http://www.billlawrence.com/

the L-500XL is excellent and dirt cheap as well.
If yo uhave any questions on them then you can just pickup (pun intended!) the phone and call Bill and he'll talk you though what you need.

Richard

you dislike seymour duncan? have you tried every one of their pickups.
I will hazard the guess you wouldn't know what pickup a given guitar has if you heard a clip of them (aside from maybe emgs).
Seymour Duncan make great pickups, as do DiMarzio.

My tip is either bareknuckle or Lundgren. Bareknuckles really sound amazing and actually set themselves apart from the common crop of pickups we have come to know from dimarzio and duncan

Bareknuckles are the absolute bomb.

And also, I have to question what's wrong with your ears if you don't like the Seymour Duncan JB and Jazz combo

Bareknuckles are the absolute bomb.

And also, I have to question what's wrong with your ears if you don't like the Seymour Duncan JB and Jazz combo

It's just blind fanboyism, it's idiotic

Bareknuckles are the absolute bomb.

And also, I have to question what's wrong with your ears if you don't like the Seymour Duncan JB and Jazz combo

It's just blind fanboyism, it's idiotic

Is this referencing me?

I rather resent that comment if it does, it is just a simple opinion of what I liked and disliked at the time of writing, which bearing in mind is quite a while a go now and I of course had not gone through all of Seymour Duncan's pickup arsenal and was in fact rather new to whole pickup upgrade thing. Now being a little older and a little wiser I have sampled a fair few of the pickups on offer and my opinion has changed and so I would be grateful if those kinds of comments would be reserved for when they were absolutely necessary.

Naturally I still the hold the utmost respect, its just not nice to read such things being said about yourself when you said something which was a long time ago so I felt I had to make my point.

For those of you interested I ended up using a pair di'marzios in the les paul, a d-sonic and an air norton if I remember correctly, last I heard my friend had sold it.

I don't think I've ever heard of someone putting an Air Norton in an LP before, how's that sounding for you?