Anyone have a 'bucker in the neck? (dodges in case someone throws a shoe)

I need a new pickguard for my MIJ and I'm ready to loose the lace sensors. It is routed H-S-H. Since I like quite a few bluesy LP players I am looking into a bucker' set up. I played the Big Apple years ago. It had some cool tones to it. I have also played a tele with a neck humbucker. Probably can't get a true LP sound of course but I want to get that vintage, bluesy PAF sound that I just cant get close to in a single coil. (Joe Perry, CCR, Dickie Betts, Gary Moore, Peter Green, Robben Ford etc...)

Here's a narrowed down list of possible setups that seem like they could fit the bill:

SD JB- SD SSL1- SD '59
SD Pearly Gates- SD SSL1- Alnico II Pro
SD Pearly Gates- SD SSL1- SD Pearly Gates
SD '59- SD SSL1- SD '59

The top two seem the most versatile.
Any thoughts, recommendations, or experiences?

Thanks

I love what you are doing with the MIJ. I have been looking at Fender Showmasters to seemingly scratch the same itch. They come equipped with a Seymour Duncan SH-1nRP '59 Reverse Polarity humbucker at the neck and the Seymour Duncan SHPGP-1b Pearly Gates Plus humbucker at the bridge, which is a configuration I think is very solid.

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Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...

Consider shoe thrown.

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James Burton Upgrade Telecaster
Hot Rodded Am Fat Strat Texas Special (now featuring Kinman Traditional II pickups)
Fender Blues Jr.
SWR California Blonde
Pedals Pedals Pedals

I have two of those Showmaster guitars and I've removed the Duncan's out of both of them. The Pearly Gates, and RW JB in the neck are the thinnest and wimpiest sounding pickups I've ever heard.
The neck pickups I have in both now are the DiMarzio Air Norton's which give a clean, full-bodied tone and really improved the tone of the guitars. Much better articulation without getting muddy.
One guitar has the Air Zone pickup in the bridge position, the other has the Tone Zone in the bridge position.
The Tone Zone comes through with a lot of guts, and really eliminates the mosquito-like sounds that you sometimes get with humbuckers during a lead, and balances very well with the Air Norton.
The Air Zone is a vintage sounding version of the Tone Zone.

IMHO, RWRP humbucking pups is a bad idea, it seems to suck the tone right out of the pups.
There are only two Duncans that I like and both are good in the bridge position:
SH-12TB (Screamin' Demon Trembucker)
SH-4TB (JB Bridge Treembucker)

_Harley

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I only have two brain cells left, and I'm saving them....for this weekend!

Thanks for the info! I have been researching these guitars a little bit and have not played one yet.

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Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...

I think it could be cool to have JUST a humbucker in the neck position (a nice chrome covered one); no other pickups, no switch. And then just a volume control (in the usual position).

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My other guitar is a Strat.

The Showmaster's are nice MIK guitars, the quality of the construction is impressive to me, since this is the first non American made Fender I've ever owned.
The neck has a really flat radius (15.5") and it takes a little getting used to if you've only played the MIA Fenders which have a smaller radiused neck.
The hardware leaves much to be desired though. One thing I will emphasize right off the bat, if you get one of them, pay very close attention to the locking tuners when changing strings. The hole in the string post is not in the center of the post, it's off to one side. Inside the post, is a notched shaft which instead of rising within the post to lock the string in place, it rotates and then catches the outer sleeve of the string post to lock the string. If you thread the string in the wrong way, you'll cut the string at the post as soon as it begins to put tension on it. The other problem is that if you use the tremolo, and dive the bar, the strings will slacken enough to loosen this locking system enough to the point where the strings will no longer be in tune.
This is an example of how "Over-Engineering" something actually gets you worse results than keeping it simple. I replaced the locking tuners on the QBTHH model with Sperzel Locking tuners, and replaced the string trees with the Ezy Glider string trees which really help, and replaced the graphite nut, ( a tone-sucker), with the LSR roller nut.
This sounds much better, and it performs better, but I believe I'm going to end up replacing everything with a Floyd Rose locking system, as the Standard bridge that it comes with is also having pivot issues at the fulcrum points. apparently, it is not hardened metal, and in the few short years of it's life span, it's dulled the knife edges to the point that it cannot be balanced properly.

If you do decide to get one of these from ebay, since these are no longer in production, be prepared to replace the pickups and the hardware. Overall, they feel good and sound good when you get your tones out of them, and they are great guitars to use to perform with.
I'm planning to get two of the S-S-S models to modify, and upgrade the electronics in, and these four will be my main performing guitars which will let me leave my more expensive guitars at home.

I hope this helps in your desicion about these Showmaster guitars, considering my experiences, you might ask yourself if it's worth it.

-Harley

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I only have two brain cells left, and I'm saving them....for this weekend!

Thanks Harley,

I did some browsing through the forum on Duncan's website and saw a trend of preference for the Tone Zone and Air Zone there as well. Another quandary is whether or not to get the middle single coil or just do a dual Humbucker set up. Do you have a particular song or artist that comes to mind that you could compare the sound from your setups to?

Hey Blues,

There is no middle pickup in either of the two Showmaster guitars that I have. These were available in either H-H or, S-S-S configurations. Below is a pic of one of mine. This one has the Air Zone/Air Norton pups in it. This is the one that mentioned had the thinnest sound originally, and now it's much better. The two Air Buckers together in this guitar can sound very much like the same Les Paul sound that Slash ( Guns and Roses/Velvet Revolver), is known for. It's easy to get that sound, in fact I try to dial that out, and keep it cleaner. There's a very unusual quality with the Air Buckers that I've noticed. They seem to have a clean, and articulated sound that hangs in the air over what you are effecting the signal with. I'm not sure if that makes any sense to you, but it's like when you are overdriving your guitar, and you hear the juicy distortion. but at the same time, you also seem to hear the note in a clear sense too.
This model is the QBTHH (Quilt Bubinga Top) The other one is the QMTHH (Quilt Maple Top) and that has the Tone Zone and Air Norton setup. That combination is the Closest DiMarzio can get you to the pickups on the Axis model guitar they still make, (Originally the first EVH Signature guitar)

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I only have two brain cells left, and I'm saving them....for this weekend!

By the way, there is also the Air Classic pickup which can be used with either of these two Air Bucker pickups. The Air Norton and Air Classic can be used in both Neck and Bridge positions.
If you want a single coil recommendation for these, may I suggest the Area 67 pickup, or the Area 58.
I think the Showmaster guitar you are referring to may possibly be the Squier model which are made in Japan.
The guitar I just posted is a set-neck guitar made in Korea

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I only have two brain cells left, and I'm saving them....for this weekend!

I was browsing youtube and found a Strat clone with a humbucker. I can dig it! JJ Cale and EC- After Midnight, notice JJ's Casio Midi guitar at 2:51. Well looky there a 'bucker! Thought this was worth sharing with you guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEhXSerQkwM&feature=related


A little more googling and I find an interview with Pure Music. Read down half way.
http://www.puremusic.com/cale6.html

PM: Incredible. And it's a Casio 360?

JJC: Yeah, it's a Casio 360. They don't make them anymore. I tried to buy more of them. And the synthesizer generally goes bad after a few years. I don't know what happens. It hasn't on this particular guitar. I took one of the pickups off and put a Gibson pickup on it, so it's been modified. I'm not as much into lead guitar as I used to be, but it's really a good lead guitar. It gets real close to sounding like either a Stratocaster or a Les Paul, I have both of those. And it's got a Floyd Rose thing on it, so it stays in tune real good. So when I go on the road, I play that thing with a band. Number one, it stays in tune, right?

PM: Right.

JJC: That's the problem when you're out on the road is keeping them damn guitars in tune.

PM: You bet.

JJC: So I've been using that probably on the last three or four albums that I've made, and that's the sound of that guitar. It's all over that album.

PM: So did you put a Humbucker on that, or a little--

JJC: It comes with a single-coil Humbucker, right, that configuration. So on the neck I took the Japanese Humbucker off. And Gibson makes a Humbucker called a 500, which is their strongest one they make. If you buy a new Les Paul from Gibson, you get a 490 on it or a 420 or something like that. But they make one called a 500 and it's really a strong pickup. I also have it where you could switch it and make it a single coil. It's been thoroughly modified. I don't own a guitar that I don't tear apart and rearrange. That's another one of my hobbies. It don't never sound any better, but I enjoy the process. It's kind of like playing golf.

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