software

And the results kicked a$$! I bought a bridge and neck set of these a little over a year ago, I could only find 1 review on HC and there wasn't much here either but I bought them anyway being as I've got a soft spot for weirdo gear that hardly anybody else uses. I always liked them for their tone, clarity, and articulation, the neck pup is perfection but the bridge pickup was kinda getting to me, it just didn't have enough mids, especially upper mids and it kinda lacked balls. I found that I was always reaching for my sd-1 to use as a clean boost with these, which worked well but there's kinda that x-factor missing as opposed to plugging straight into my amp. Well I decided that a magnet swap was in order, I emailed SD to see what was in it and I got a quick and polite response telling me that it was an A5. Well it turns out theres two A5's in this thing because each of the blades is a magnet. I ended up changing the one in the coil closest to the bridge to a ceramic one. Holy crap! What a changed beast, it was like adding a set of 50lb steel balls to em. They now have more crunch, more mids, a bit more bass, which is still tighter than any other pickup I own, and the only draw back is that it gave some more highs as well, but that was no biggie, just a roll back on the treble knob to cure that. I wouldn't really want these in a bright guitar but mines a mahogany neck thru so it works well. I play mainly metal but I think that this pup could be good for other stuff that's not quite as agressive too. I wouldn't reccomend this for someone who isn't into very precise pups but then again if that were the case I wouldn't reccomend the sh-9 in the first place. But if anybody's already got one that's collecting dust this may really be worth trying, you get the tone of A5 and ceramic in a very tight, focused, and agressive sounding package. So far, so really damn good, I haven't had a chance to really crank my amp, it's too late here, but I got her breathing pretty good and I can tell this one is a winner for sure. Sorry for the long winded babble, hope it was worth the read.

I've never heard of the SH-9... when were they made?

They were made in the late 80's I believe, I think they were made for some special edition les paul. They look just like a custom shop Iommi but they are quite a different beast altogether.