CrunchLab/LiquiFire in my Alder Jem

[Tahoebrian5]

Last night I installed my new pups and thought I would share my findings since I've not heard any feedback in an alder body guitar. I have not tested it on my live rig yet and have only played it through my practice setup which consists of a Line6 pod played through a small cheap practice amp so a grain of salt is in order.

Anyway my impressions so far are...

The Crunch Lab is AWESOME! I wasn't exactly sure what well balanced meant until I heard this tone. It sounds like it has been EQ'd in a recorded mix. The bandwith seems perfectly suited to not interfere with other frequencies in the mix like bass guitars or drums while at the same time filling in the perfect freq range. The original EVO bridge always seemed harsh and a bit painful to the ears at volume. The CL in comparision is warm but not unsuited to metal and not harsh at all. Also seems more capable of bringing out the dynamics of playing style.

The Liquifire. I'm not 100% sold on this pup yet. It seems a bit thin and maybe lacking bottom end. I keep trying to adjust the pickup height higher on the low string side but I'm at about 1/16 away right now and don't want to go any higher for string pull reasons. It has a lot of clarity which should be great for fast chops but also seems a bit unforgiving. I'm hoping I like it more through my live rig (Mesa RK). I'm a bit surprised cause the sound clips I heard sounded stellar with plenty of lows. It could be that it is not well suited to the brighter tone of alder (vs basswood) hence the percieved lack of low end, or maybe it just needs a real tube amp to shine.

Anyway that's my $0.02 for now. I'll update this after band practice next week.

[cornstar70]

I'm going to put a pair of these in my RG570. I'm really excited about the CL cuz i've heard nothing but good things about And the sound samples i've heard sound great.

[littlephil]

I've got a Liquifire in my Purpleheart custom RG, and it sounds nothing like any demo of it at all. Its probably because the purpleheart is such a bright wood, I cant really even explain the sound, I have nothing to compare it to. Its good though!

[Tahoebrian5]

Follow up after playing through my Mesa setut

Disregard every thing I said in my previous post... These pickups are not a good match for the jem/mesa setup. I tweaked knobs for hours and could not get it to sound good. I'm going to use the return policy and now I have to decide what to trade out for.

I'm thinking maybe the breeds or the evo2's because that seems to be what most people put in Jems. Anyone have any suggestions? Also thinking maybe just go with a paf pro for the neck??

[LuredMaul]

evo2/PafPro will be great and a logical step away from a Harsh Evo setup.

Same basic tones sans the Lazer beam.

[JF1890]

Hi, I install a liquifire in ESP M-II, this guitar is made of alder wood, the result was not very friendly but also I have the liquifire in a rg 550 of basswood and the result is much better.

[moonlight]

Ya that's right, all there is to guitar tone it pups and wood.