Anyone out there recommend a pickup for a baritone-scale guitar (ESP), tuned to A? I'm considering a SD Invader, since I've installed one on one of my other guitars (non baritone), and love the sound. I've read some good things about the Dimarzio Dropsonic/Dsonic pickup, but find that the 'new' products that try to cash in on the flavour of the month usually are not all they claim to be. Anyhow, Dimarzio does make an excellent product...
anyone have anything to add/suggest? I'm obviously considering a pair of EMG 81's or 81/85 too.
Thanks!

An Invader would totally SUCK if your tuning to A... unless you like major muddy sound.

You'll want a pickup with clarity, maybe a SD JB or Dimarzio Tone Zone.

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Yeah, Invaders are pretty shitty. I'm switching mine out for a JB soon.

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Why would you choose those 2 models (Tone Zone or JB)...
thanks!

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owned. i agree though, a JB will sound good.

Your mom was owned last night... BY MY COCK!

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i dont like my invader awhole lot

Emgs slay it

that's not what she told me, she said all that foreskin was getting in the way.

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dont go with EMGs, they fucking suck.
Invaders are pretty good, Sanders from nile uses them, as far as i can remember
JBs are fucking sweet, id go with those.

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i like the dimarzio super distortion for a clear yet high output pickup...

A tuning is going to turn to shit with an invader imo, they're pretty hot and they sound huge, but the clarity isnt there like it is in the x2n.

maybe an emg 85 in the bridge? more low end than the 81 so it'll probably handle the A tuning better.

how about a P90(the new sd phatcat is a humbucker version)? it's very midrangey and clear, pretty sweet pickup if you like the tone of em'. i'm jamming on my friends gibson les paul jr. and it has a p90 in the bridge... running it through a jcm 900 half stack with every knob dimed except reverb , with .012's tuned D standard and it's pretty heav'. the p90 has TONE.

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Hey xDislexicx
Thanks for the info bud! I'm pretty happy with my Invader in my standard-scale guitar now, even tuned down to A. I agree that it does get a bit too 'big' sounding, but I can pretty much EQ that out, without losing the tone I'm after. I don't play leads at all either, and my chords sound HUGE with the Invader. I do like EMG's... I've got 81/85's installed in 2 of my other guitars. I love the sound in my LP with them, the other guitar sounds decent... but not what I was expecting (it's a BC Rich Beast). I see that most baritones are coming with either 81's or the JB's installed, so I probably can't go wrong with them (or an 85 for that matter... good point about there being more low end in it). I'd really like to try out the DSonic from DiMarzio, but I haven't really read/heard enough about them to do it.
Any other opinions (aside from the side action anyone got with anyone else's mother) out there???
... okay, maybe some more discussion about other people's moms.

no they don't, a huge chunk of your tone is in your fingers, so don't blame emg's blame your hands.

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look man, emgs dont suck to me

i have 3 electrics
and 3 diffrent pickups in bridge position for each of them
Jb,81,Invader

81 is my favorite, Jb comes 2nd, and im not too found of the invader, soon i will either replace it with an EMG 85 or a X2N

i dont use emgs, i use duncans, but i have played on emg's before, the sound fake to me, therefore, to me, they fucking suck.

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i don't see how they "suck", me and hundreds/thousands of people seem to think they're awesome...
but some people claim they suck, i think it's because they don't cover your mistakes with mud like pickups like the invader. it's a thing called clarity, being able to strum a complex chord with more than 2-3 notes and be able to hear them all. something alot of high output pickups seem to lack imo.

when i play guitars with emg's i have no problems getting insanley good tones out of em'... the emg is probably one of the best neck pickups for cleans imo... and a gibson lp with an 85 in the neck with the tone knob kicked back a titch is one of the best lead solo "brown sound" ever imo too.
not a huge fan of the 81 for bridge pickup, the duncan livewire metal is better imo for that position.

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i dont like active p/u's period, i prefer duncan JB's, and PRS HFS's.
they have way more clarity than an EMG.

btw, anything i have written since i have seriously started writing is almost entirely comprised of full chords or oddball chords like |x75300|, |567555|, and similar stuff that, with emg's, sound muddy as fuck. i have tried it with a jackson with active EMG's, as well as a ESP and a BCrich with active EMG's, on a marshall JCM900 dual reverb, on an opeth-type distortion, and it sounding horrid, but on a stock PRS custom 24, or a scheter with a duncan JB, clear as a bell.

so i have tried EMG's, i dont like them dirty or clean, just not my thing.

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i find it very hard to get a "muddy sound" from emg's. especially on all the fucked up chords i play like l243522l, l889-10-78l, l223322l, l809-11-10-12l, ect... with chrds like that you really need to hear every note for it to really be cool.... emg's do it great for me. how do you manage the muddy sound with emgs? every emg i've played, even the hz's, all have a tight, clear, and usually aggressive sound to them.

sure hfs's and jb's are nice and clear too, but they're totally different in tonal characteristics and other stuff from emg's(as well as other active pu's) .... so anybody that says the blunt "emg's suck, passives are better" is an ignorant asshole.
you might find the jb suits your specific needs more than the emg 81 as a bridge pickup, but that doesnt mean it sucks.... if anything it mean you suck at using it. i have reasons why i don't use active pickups for the most part... i prefer the sound of a dimarzio tone zone in the brigde of my rg570 over an 81 or 85... because it suits me... but would i complain if i had an 81 in there instead? probably not because i like the way it sounds too.
nobody says you have to buy one.... thats the best part, it's YOUR choice.

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How do you finger that?

Oh, btw, I use EMGs, and I like them. I don't know how well they'd work for those low tunings, but they work fine for me in Eb and E.

Dislexic also mentioned more low end in an 85 than in an 81, saying that it would probably handle the low tuning better. I would be worried about muddiness, because I had problems with that when I had an 85 in the bridge in Eb tuning. But that may very well have been my amp settings....

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use your thumb for the low strings. some find impossible or extremely difficult... but i have hitch hikers thumb from hell so i play alot of fucked up shit like that...



it might get muddied up in A tuning, especially on a non baritone guitar i find tunings past like C can get muddy really bad.
the 85 is more of a neck pickup but alot of people like them in the bridge because the thicker sound, i thought that might help out in an A tuning area to have a pickup designed to take lows better. though i've never played a baritone with an 85 in the bridge... it just seemed logical.

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Thanks again for the responses fellas. I've got the 81/85 combo in a couple of my guitars, and an Invader in another, and have not had any problem with muddiness in any whatsoever, regardless of tuning. I find the EMG's to be very dry and clear compared to the Invader, or even the stock 490 (I believe) in my Explorer. Even with the shorter scale, tuned to 'A' w/ the Invader I find everything pretty clear. As stated earlier, most likely has much to do with my settings and amp. I'm probably going to go with an 85 or the JB... I'd still like to hear some more feedback about that DiMarzio Dropsonic though.
Hmmm...

all i know about the dropsonic is that the guy from linkin park uses it, so listen to some of their newer shit, and youll hear what it sounds like in a PRS.

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never played one... but dimarzio makes alot of good shit so i wouldnt be suprised if it rocked.
but then again moon raven is claiming linkin park uses it so.... maybe it doesnt rock... but then again tom delong from blink 182 uses/used the invader and the gibson dirty fingers and they both still rock.

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HHmmmmm... both points well taken.

either go with EMG's or Duncan's.....its that simple. Some people have good things to say about Dimarzios....but I have never tried those PU's...so I don't know. You know The EMg 81 rocks....I've heard some good things about and EMg 60....not much though. As far as duncan goes, or all in all, do your homework. Oh and the Invader is basically strictly for punk shrilly BS.

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this post should not be reffered to at all... it's very uneducated, and even ignorant at some points.
why just them? why not gibson? or prs? or dimarzio? duncan's and emg's arent the only good pickup makers you know... at least specify which pickups from each brand should be considered and why... they're all ment for different things.
he might buy a pair of emg hz's and think it sucks or something.


rrrriiight... it all depends on the sound you're going for bro...

btw, the 60 is pretty much a superawesome(imo) neck pickup that does amazing cleans... but sounds like garbage as a bridge pu..

that's why he's here.

roflmao, you have noooooo idea what you're even talking about! hahahahahaha....

it thinks before it talks or it gets the hose again.

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Thats why Nile uses them.

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I agree, I don't really like EMGs much, at least not in standard E. I can't remember how it was one that piece of shit was tuned to B but I don't think they were that great. I would suggest a Bill Lawerence but I have a feeling it'll be crap if in A. I'd try a DiMarzio. I'm planning to get one for my 7 string.



That's kind of weird. I never thought they'd have ANYthing to do with bands like Blink 182 (besides perhaps amp choice. I'm not sure what either uses but I know that Blink 182 uses a Mesa or something. Stupid articles in guitarworld).

yeh, it's weird.... a pop punk band using such a hot pickup... he's endorsed by mesa, but he just slaves his triple recto with his defaced marshall jcm 900.
that doesnt mean that mesa is for poppy punk bullshit though... you can't judge a peice of gear by one single band that uses em'.... tom from blink is probably one of the only noticable people in pop punk that ever played the invader. and he doesnt anymore... i personally don't like the tone of invaders compared to alot of other pickups... but saying they're strictly for pussy punk shit is just ignorant... it's probably the hottest pickup duncan makes/
i'd be willing to bet more metal/heavy bands use invaders than pop punk bands.

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I don't know why xdislexicx has to say stupid shit about my post....fucking know-it-all. The Invader may sound good, but it is lacking in low-end. I know a Duncan Distortion sounds way better. And I am willing to be you could make an EMG sound good through most DECENT guitars. And by the way, What The Fuck do you know about a Warhead anyway?

And I didn't mean to use an EMG 60 as a bridge pickup.....use some common sense here xdislexicx. The reason I didn't mention PRS or Gibson pickups is I wouldn't know how they work with low tunings. I did mention Dimarzio's, but I've never used them. I bet the X2n would be good though because it looks like it resemble's the Bill Lawrence with the Big Fucking blades in it.

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everytime I read your post my IQ drops.

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anybody that posts stuff like that is bound to get made fun of, deal with it.


you said it, not me.


depends on the guitar it's in and the amp it's through, maybe if you played it in a strat with a jcm 900 like tom of course it'll sound thin because it's in a fucking strat with a thinner sounding amp.


depends on the sound you're going for.


fucking right i could, but not all emg's are created equal... if you play an emg 81 compared to an hz, two totally different pickups that arent even in the same league.

well, they explode???

i've played em'(150w combo and 300w head) and they had some of the simplest tones ever... like a boss metalzone into a big poweramp... not appealing to me at all... pretty much crap like the majority of dime's signature amps.... maybe if the price tag was lower(ha, not with dime written all over it.) then it wouldnt be such a waste or dissapointment.



oh yeh my bad because you totally specified and made good sense of everything else in your previous post... what was i thinking?


it's cool if you can't comment on them because you don't know shit about them. read your beggining statement.



but it isnt really that simple...


what a good reason, the pickups have blades so they must rock..
i really do like the x2n and bill lawrence..
but the DUNCAN dimebuckers(yet another failed peice of dime gear imo) sound like ass even though they have blades....

you should probably get that looked into by a doctor or something, it's making you get all pissy.

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Hah. Told him

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owned, good job, and BTW, th jcm 900, IMO, sounds fucking sweet, esp. when playing it with a prs custom 24

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i'm jamming through my buddy's jcm 900 alot lately and i think it's pretty damn good too... it's the 4100 100w high gain(not exactly, but it says so) dual reverb model... he's all about the punkish stuff and he has some pussy as ruby tubes in it.... but i just dime the fucker and it sounds pretty effin sweet. very plug in and play.

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i like how the amp gets distorted, but clear enough to play full chords. try playing opeth;s the drapery falls, i got almost the exact sound using that amp

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