Choosing the most appropriate Jazzmaster pickups

[idropinus]

Hi everyone,

I have a Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster that I want to improve a bit, so i'm looking for the best pups for the use that i have to do. Although the great section of this forum helped me a lot, can't decide between some of them, i don't have way to try them and from the recs or Youtube videos they all seem soooo good.

First of all, the sound that I need to have is noisy, with possibilities of making feedback and kinda shoegaze parts, but i'm also really interested in a kind of math rock clean/slightly overdrived sound, and i'm looking for the best pick ups that can offer mostly both of them.

I use almost always an Ibanez Ts9 Tube Screamer with the drive on 6/7; when I come to distortion, I have my Big Muff Pi (that is quite difficult to control the way I want, and i want pups that can keep the sound without making only a fuzzy buzz), and I run everything through my vintage Roland JC-120.

Now, after hours of searching, my choice went to one between these four:

- Novak JM-V

- Seymour Duncan Antiquity I

- Seymour Duncan Antiquity II

- Lollar (eventually one standard Jazzmaster on the neck and one P-90 on the bridge)


For the Duncans', I found this on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.it/itm/131929255327?_tr" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... EBIDX%3AIT
that seems good to me, also for improving the wire, although I will make it by myself.

So, does everyone already know if there are pickups that can satisfy any of my requests? Could they be one of these four?

Thank you for your attention.

[Embenny]

There's no accounting for taste. All of those pickups are good for what they are. All of them are mildly different flavours of vintage Jazzmaster, except the Novak P90 style one. That's just completely different in attack, response, and midrange from any of the others.

A vintage-style JM pickup through a Big Muff into a JC120 is going to be a bright, fuzzy tone in my opinion. But what I consider bright and fuzzy might be exactly what you want.

Do you find your pickups too dark currently? Do you like the pick attack that the P90-style stock pickups give? Have you tried a "real" JM/JM pickup through your rig? You will gain brightness, lose mids and bass and overall completely change the string/pick attack by making that pickup change. This may or may not be something you enjoy.

Can you go to a local music store and plug an AV65 Jazzmaster into a JC120 and bring your pedals (or use theirs, since tubescreamers and big muffs are super common)? That'll answer your questions for you. I know you said you don't have a way to try those pickups, but to be honest, the AV65 pickups are not dramatically different from any of the ones you listed (other than the P90).

I'm not trying to be condescending, but there's really no accounting for taste. I would not like the tone of a JM with vintage-style pickups into a super clean solid state amp like a JC120 without some kind of compressor or something to soften the attack, but that's me.

[andy_tchp]

Any of them.

[idropinus]

Thank you for all the answers, i'll try AV65 pickups in a store.

Would it be foolish to put, for example, one Seymour Duncan Antiquity and one Novak p90 on the bridge? I mean, apart from personal taste, are different brands in contrast between each other?

For the Duncans', I found this on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.it/itm/131929255327?_tr" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... EBIDX%3AIT
that seems good to me, also for improving the wire, although I will make it by myself.

And last, what do you think of this? Is the price right or too much?

[Haddock]

Would it be foolish to put, for example, one Seymour Duncan Antiquity and one Novak p90 on the bridge? I mean, apart from personal taste, are different brands in contrast between each other?

I'd avoid mixing a Seymour Duncan pickup with something else : they wind their pickups the opposite way other brands (including Fender) do, so the middle position (both pickups in parallel) probably won't be hum-cancelling like it should.