software

I've never posted a message like this before, I hope I'm doing this right.

My son has a Gibson SG. He also has a fender strat-tom delong with the invader SH-8 pickup. He likes the sound he gets from his strat, and would like to come closer to that sound in his Gibson by changing the bridge pickup to the SH-8. Does anyone have any experience with this. Would the sound be similar to the strat. I am thinking of doing this for him for Christmas and would love to hear.

Thanks

I've never experienced an Invader in a Les Paul, but it would sound darker than it does in his strat most likely.

Rock On ~ Kac

Not a good idea IMHO. The invader is a dark (bassy) sounding pickup and so is the Gibson SG. Combining dark pickups with dark guitars is generally not a good idea. Dark pickups in a dark guitar sounds like someone stuffed your amp full of pillows and cotton balls and then threw a mattress on top of it. The strat is a bright sounding guitar and it compliments the invader well. There are many good pickups out there that will get you closer to that sound in a SG without making the guitar sound muddy. My personal suggestion is the Duncan Distortion (sh-6) for that guitar. It's heavy and modern like the Invader, but not a dark pickup. It's got lots of high end and metric tons of harmonics. That wouldn't be a bad choice, but it is a very cutting pickup with output as sharp as a lazer. The Invader is more midrange heavy and bassy. Another choice would be the Duncan Custom Custom. This pickup has less overall output than the distortion, but it has better clean tones than the distortion and it would probably get your son closer to the sound he wants. The highs aren't nearly as intense on this pickup and the bass is rolled off which is a good thing considering the guitar it's going in. It would be more versatile for sure. It is sometimes considered dark for a Gibson SG, but it's EQ most closely matches the invader. It's output will be much less than the Invader however. If output and distortion are what makes your son happy, go with the distortion. If the EQ of the pickup makes your son happy and he can increase gain elsewhere to approximate the same amount of distortion he likes, go with the Custom Custom.

I havent had much experience with sg's, but I always heard that they are brighter and thinner than your average mahogany guitar.

Definatly the duncan distortion. I have one the bridge position of my Short scale les paul like blues bird and it is a rockers dream for short scale guitars.

Thanks for the reply. I'm trying to understand quot;darkerquot;. What does that mean in this context?

Thanks for the reply. It's lots of great info, and hopefully it will keep my son from spending a bunch of money the wrong way. I hate to see him make an expensive experiment when he can benefit from the experience of others.

Thanks,

I'm working on understanding the meanings of darker, brighter, and thinner. Your reply is helpfull.

Darker = more bassy and less highs. Bassy (dark) sounding pickups in Bassy (dark) sounding guitars means the output will be mushy and indistinct. You will hear the note, but it won't be clear. It will sound indistinct and kind of like someone stuffed your ears with cotton. All high frequencies will be non-existant and you will only hear mids and bass. Guitar without the high frequencies is like a stereo with no tweeters and none of thos 4quot; midrange speakers that also cover the bright shimmery sounds we love. Gotta have high frequencies to have good sounding guitar IMHO. That being said, there is such a thing as too much high frequencies and not enough of everything else.

The goal is usually to seek balance. A bright guitar like a strat sounds pretty darned good with a bassy pickup like the invader in it. The dark pickup balances out the bright guitar. The bright strat also sounds good with somewhat bright strat pickups in it, but that's for a different kind of sound. They still have to be somewhat balanced. Dark or bassy guitars like the all mahogony SG are going to need a bright sounding pickup to balance out the bassy nature of the guitar itself. Nothing extremely wild, but you do need some highs for that guitar. Stay away from MOST alnico II pickups as they tend to have softer highs or nonexistant highs. Some underwound Alnico II pickups are bright and will work ok, but most will be woofy and darker than ceramics or Alnico V. Look up the tone chart supplied on this thread and check the numbers out to the right side under quot;EQquot;. Anything with highs that has a number higher than the bass should be ok. Don't go with something that has nothing but highs, but don't get something with tons of bass also.

The distortion would be a great choice really. He's loving the Invader, so clean and undistorted sound isn't a concern to him. He wants something to rule a distorted amp with.

I think Gr8Scott explained everything that needed to be explained. I do however think he is mistaken on his explanatino of the Custom Custom. From what i remember from the tone chart the CC has a huge mid spike with not a whole lot of lows or highs. I think the Distortion would be a great pick, as would be the Custom, i would even consider the JB. I personally really like the sound of Alnico 5 magnets, so naturally i think a JB would sound killer in an SG. This, coming from a guy who also has (and likes) an Invader in one of his (alder) guitars.

I'd try out the Invader in his SG. SGs are NOT thick, dark sounding guitars at all. It is true that the Invader will sound different in the SG than his Strat. However, a Distortion (or JB, or Custom, or...) will sound way more different than another Invader.

Did that make sense?

Oh yeah, nobody mentioned this yet, so... if you buy the pickup new, you get 21 days to try it out, and trade it for another if you're not happy. So, bearing this in mind, get him an Invader, and if he doesn't like how it sounds, start looking at different stuff then.