Got my set of APC's today.. man these kick ass..
Persuader Lead Custom (bridge):
There's a whole lot of controllable bass in these. In addition, it's by far the tightest and punchiest pickup I've ever laid hands on. Combined with the fastest attack ever found in a pickup.. well the chug factor on these is unbelievable. Fun to play, you'll be amazed at the kickass lowend coming out of your speakers.
For the midrange.. it makes your tone sound like a million bucks. All the really sweet midrange is there, unbelievably thick tone, LOTS of mids.. and they left out the unpleasing midrange. Sounds almost like you've already had a pro AE tune your rig. You can say something about the sound of a pickup by using numbers like "Bass / Middle / Treble - 8 / 9 / 7".. but that doesn't reflect how pleasing the midrange is to the ears. This midrange is so sweet and cool.. sort of focused and open sounding at the same time.
The high end.. well, it's really sweet and cuts great. Pinch harmonics just fly off the fingerboard everywhere, really cool. Never harsh. Great clarity. Only thing is i feel there could actually be a bit more high end in there.. but it might be my rig, before i switched pickups i ran EH 12AX7 tubes and after i put the new one in i had already swapped them for high-gain JJ ECC83S's (which is known to be kinda dark sounding).. and changed my cable, which also is a factor. I dunno how my old pickups would sound on my rig now.
Tone pot isn't super duper effective like on some pickups.. probably because of the combination of a little dark pickup and a little dark tubes (tone pots work by chopping off the high end, and when there's nothing to chop, well it won't really work). Anyway i don't mind, i used to run it maxed anyway. But this is really cool, i can change the character of my tone from a kickass thrash tone with biting treble suited for fast chugg-chord runs (like Death for example) to a really slow headbanging super midrange heavy stoner-music-like tone (like Black Sabbath.. songs like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, War Pigs, Iron man.. you get the idea) by turning the tone pot down.
There's no noise. It's pretty amazing. No damn noise. Gain maxxed. Sitting in front of computer monitor.. no noise.
Sustain is amazing. The magnetic field on these is really weak so it doesn't prevent the strings from vibrating freely.. Great sustain.
It could use a tad more output. It is by all means a very high output humbucker, and i don't really need any more, but for some people it might not be enough. Output level is just a little bit below that of an EMG 81. But you can only get so and so much output with a weak magnetic structure.. and with stronger magnets sustain would suffer, and the noise free design of these pickups might be hard to implent with stronger magnets. Granted, i ran my master below 0.5 (kids sleeping). I'll blast it on full tomorrow and see if i still think it still could use more output. I'll also adjust the pickups closer to the strings, it seems to make a huge difference with these pickups and with no string pull you can have it really close without killing sustain.
I also have a Felony X for the neck.. haven't throughly played it, but the description is correct.. very tight and clear.. very articulate pickup, great for sweeping and soloing and whatnot. Will post review..
Google around for what other people think. Mike Gilbert from Severed Savior (which I've never really heard of) made some nice clips of it.
BTW they look just like EMG's with a different logo.
http://adderpluspickups.com/
Have to add that the customer support is unparalleled. Lester is a really nice guy, not like any other company I've ever been in touch with. Very helpful and informative, just all around a really great guy.
