TB you kind of get my idea there, I want this guitar to fulfill a specific role. I have 5 guitars of various types and each does it's job well in it's own way but I want one which can deliver more bone-crushing sound than my BC Rich Beast at high gain and yet keep the clean tone of the Les Paul when it's needed, basicly it has to go from clean to insane instantly. My black LP can do it but it just lacks that final punch at the most extreme levels hence the need for hotter pickups but said pickups need to be the best of both worlds.
Alan Entwistle, who as most of us know designs pickups, contacted me today and said his High Definition Neodymium pickups would do the job. He was given the exact design brief and he said for this specific role neodymium magnets in 16k bridge and 9k neck set up would work well. The 16 and 9 seem pretty much ball park figures but from what I can gather from research those magnets give an extremely powerful flux field to give that extra punch when needed but keep the sound quality too.
So coming from a guy with 30 years of design experience I'm going to give these a try. He also suggested briefly a couple of other mods which won't be expensive at all and may increase performance a little more if I wanted it. I'm impressed that he took the time to look into my own personal spec for a guitar and help me out. Some may say there are better quality pickups out there but as a designer he took on board the brief and went out of his way to match pickups to what I want. He could easily have recommended more expensive models but he didn't, I guess that speaks volumes.
I've learned a valuable lesson here folks, ignore power figures etc, it's the all round package that matters along with so many factors surrounding magnet types, how many magnets, coil winds, etc, that most of us are buying blind without expert advice.
Yes it's a pain having to do the research like this but not only does it get us our goal (or at least closer to it) but we also gain knowledge along the way. This has been a very interesting journey so far and when I get around to having said pickups fitted and everything sorted the end result is hopefully going to raise a few eyebrows
