Schecter John Browne signature?

[Hoss632]

Loving everything about it, color, specs. Can't wait to hear it. Shape wise it's like a cross between a reaper and the C-1 shapes. I bet the bevel will be very comfortable.

 

[OldMate]

Yeah the description don't help that much, instead of explaining the eq curve, the articulation, the mids and whatnot, it's just a "it fucking crushes" kinda thing.
But yeah, just like Emperor said they ARE cool pickups, those designed by Tom Anderson (Superrock and Monstertone), by Dan Armstrong (Z Plus), and Schecter own designs (the others), they all are great sounding.

Which makes the fact that people swap them for the flavour of the month even funnier.

Man, a representation of the EQ would go a mile in improving everyone's understanding of Schecter's pickups. What would be even better is a Keith Merrow-Style pickup comparison with all the models playing the same riffs timestamped, or maybe some DIs, but I know that's wishful thinking...

After researching for ages, I picked a couple of pickup sets that are my go-tos and I stick with 'em. Those SD videos from Merrow really helped me figure out what I was gonna give a go. Trying new pickups can be a pretty costly endeavour, so it's hard to justify taking a chance on something you don't know anything about when you already have good and safe options, with proven results you like.

People probably gut the Schecter pickups just based on a negative bias, based on the general acceptance that a lot of production guitars with home-brand pickups aren't gonna sound like what they want. Heaps of midrange-and-up guitars come with great pickups now (and have for years), but even then, you can't guarantee it's the right fit for whoever buys that guitar. I put my safe set of Duncans in my USA PRS weeks after getting it because the stock stuff didn't have the bite I wanted, but my MIJ Schecter still has the stock pups in it and it rips so hard!

Anyway, I digress. I'm really looking forward to seeing/hearing/playing these new sigs. I've been thinking about picking up my first 8 for a while, and this might be just the thing! Confident that John would've made sure the pickups have plenty of bite in em.

 

[Chri]

Hoooooooo boy I need to ignore the bi-yearly desire to get an 8-string just for me to learn half an after the burial song and like 9 seconds of Archspire. This shall pass.

Fucking same

 

[Emperor Guillotine]

People probably gut the Schecter pickups just based on a negative bias, based on the general acceptance that a lot of production guitars with home-brand pickups aren't gonna sound like what they want.

Nailed it.

Current marketing for pickups is weird. It has consumers (especially younger ones) adamantly convinced that aftermarket pickups from companies that solely manufacture pickups (such as Duncan or BKP) are superior to the in-house pickups offered as a stock option from guitar companies. These pickup manufactures do one thing, and they do it well.

With that said, our import guitar options that we receive here in the USA did help drive that mentality for quite a few years. I remember the years when players on forums (even on this forum) would purchase an Ibanez and immediately expect that they would have to swap out the generic, in-house "IBZ-branded" pickups. It was just a given, and they would have a planned pickup set to swap in, ready to go.

Back at the turn of the century into 2000 up until only a few years ago, all of the Ibanez import series from any of the Asian factories, and even a huge chunk of the Japanese-made Prestine line, all came stock with generic, in-house "IBZ-branded" pickups that Ibanez claimed were "Designed By Duncan" or "Designed By Dimarzio" (which we can't prove nor disprove) and then were simply slapped in during the assembly phase. They flat-out were not good pickups.

Nowadays, almost every single Ibanez import model on their lineup comes stock with Dimarzios, Fishmans, Duncans, or BKPs.

As another example, back in the early 2000s up until 2014/2015, a lot of the Korean-made Schecter Diamond Series import models came loaded with generic, in-house "Schecter-branded" pickups from China or Korea that were simply slapped in during the assembly phase. They flat-out were not good pickups. But they also weren't (persay) "Schecter's pickups". They were probably just whatever was around for loading into production-line imports en masse.

Nowadays, the vast majority of Schecter Diamond Series import models come stock with Duncans, EMGs, Fishmans, or Schecter USA pickups.

But the Schecter USA pickups can't really be compared to this because they weren't made to be a default option that came loaded stock in models. Schecter developed their USA pickups with the intent of selling the pickups individually (or as sets) on the boutique market in the same way that Duncan and BKP sell their own pickups. And it's only until recently that we are now seeing these new, custom-voiced sets that are developed in conjunction with a brand new guitar model such as the Solstice/Equinox set in the Aaron Marshall signature guitars and the Colossus/Chaosbreaker set in the John Browne signature guitars. (And even then, we do not know yet if Schecter plans to make these pickups available to purchase individually or as sets outside of their home guitars.)

but my MIJ Schecter still has the stock pups in it and it rips so hard!

Funny you mention that. Pretty much all of the stock Schecter Japan pickups are based on Tom Anderson's pickup designs, which is why they all use those oversized, 1/4" flat pole pieces and often times have the more rectangular-shaped bobbins with rounded edges. (And since Schecter Japan is their own independent operation outside of Schecter here in the USA, they can get away with it.)

If you grab any Schecter Japan model with a generic, in-house "Schecter Japan" humbucker in the bridge position, then that humbucker is some later iteration based on the original Super Rock that Anderson designed. It's a Super Rock II, Super Rock III, or Super Rock J. (Each iteration has gotten a little more watered-down over time as Schecter Japan keeps recycling the pickups and changing up whether they are sourced from China or made at home in Japan.) You can easily find out which one it is based on the shape of the bobbins and/or any sticker/marking on the underside of the pickup frame if you pop it out of the guitar.

 

[Zado]

Man, a representation of the EQ would go a mile in improving everyone's understanding of Schecter's pickups. What would be even better is a Keith Merrow-Style pickup comparison with all the models playing the same riffs timestamped, or maybe some DIs, but I know that's wishful thinking...

After researching for ages, I picked a couple of pickup sets that are my go-tos and I stick with 'em. Those SD videos from Merrow really helped me figure out what I was gonna give a go. Trying new pickups can be a pretty costly endeavour, so it's hard to justify taking a chance on something you don't know anything about when you already have good and safe options, with proven results you like.

People probably gut the Schecter pickups just based on a negative bias, based on the general acceptance that a lot of production guitars with home-brand pickups aren't gonna sound like what they want. Heaps of midrange-and-up guitars come with great pickups now (and have for years), but even then, you can't guarantee it's the right fit for whoever buys that guitar. I put my safe set of Duncans in my USA PRS weeks after getting it because the stock stuff didn't have the bite I wanted, but my MIJ Schecter still has the stock pups in it and it rips so hard!

Anyway, I digress. I'm really looking forward to seeing/hearing/playing these new sigs. I've been thinking about picking up my first 8 for a while, and this might be just the thing! Confident that John would've made sure the pickups have plenty of bite in em.

Well honestly there WAS an EQ scheme in their site, no idea why it got deleted, was quite well done. Maybe thinks got messy when too many pickups were added to the site, which isn't made that good honestly. And yeah, they have plenty of artists that could properly demo the whole line, would be quite amazing.

 

[Zado]

Funny you mention that. Pretty much all of the stock Schecter Japan pickups are based on Tom Anderson's pickup designs, which is why they all use those oversized, 1/4" flat pole pieces and often times have the more rectangular-shaped bobbins with rounded edges.

More than just "based", Tom Anderson himself was asked to design a new Superrock pickup for the japanese production. It ended quite well, though the USA Superrock imho sounds better than the Japanese one, which is imho a lil too hot at times

 

[ExMachina]

Take this to the pickups don't matter thread.

 

[Zado]

Take this to the pickups don't matter thread.

Well they don't as much as many think (or as much as winders want you to think) honestly. I mean, of course there's a noticable difference between, dunno, a Duncan SSL-1 and an Invader, but between pickups with close enough outputs, nothing dramatic. I've seen players being obsessed with pickups magnets (rough cast, unoriented etc), cables, hunting mids, tube brands, while less considering real variables, speakers and cabs for example.

 

[ExMachina]

Well they don't as much as many think (or as much as winders want you to think) honestly. I mean, of course there's a noticable difference between, dunno, a Duncan SSL-1 and an Invader, but between pickups with close enough outputs, nothing dramatic. I've seen players being obsessed with pickups magnets (rough cast, unoriented etc), cables, hunting mids, tube brands, while less considering real variables, speakers and cabs for example.

I agree with you, I meant it more as a joke though. Don't want to derail the thread. We need to focus on all of us saying we're going to buy one and then only 4 of us a actually doing so.

 

[Emperor Guillotine]

And yeah, they have plenty of artists that could properly demo the whole line, would be quite amazing.

*cough* Browne *cough*

More than just "based", Tom Anderson himself was asked to design a new Superrock pickup for the japanese production. It ended quite well, though the USA Superrock imho sounds better than the Japanese one, which is imho a lil too hot at times

The Japanese II, III, and Super Rock J definitely have different output levels than the original, as well as different EQ curves if you slap them up in a visual analyzer.

From my meager experience though, the II and III (which are both great as far as generic, in-house, stock pickups go) have also been pretty fairly inconsistent, which is how I stumbled upon learning that the pickups were manufactured in different areas (like China, instead of Japan at some point) before some type of uniformity was established for the additional components that Schecter Japan was sourcing for builds.

The current iteration (the J) definitely is solid and definitely is the closest though; which I guess is the one that Anderson actually had a hand in designing. Authenticity and all that, ya know?

I've seen players being obsessed with pickups magnets (rough cast, unoriented etc), cables, hunting mids, tube brands, while less considering real variables, speakers and cabs for example.

Hey, man...I went down that rabbit hole. Rough-cast, unoriented, staggered magnets, stacked coils, side-to-side coils, scatterwound, side-by-side winding, space (air) or no space between the coils and the frame, inversion, flipping pickups to place the slugs as the outer coil instead of the inner coil, flipping pickups to place the screw heads (or bolt heads) as the inner coil instead of the outer coil, etc.

Ah...good times... Good times, indeed... What a damn rabbit hole.

That stuff really doesn't matter as much as other things (or as much as pickup manufacturers want consumers to believe), especially when you start cranking up distortion/saturation, which washes out a lot of a pickup's characteristics and nuances. All that really matters is the types of magnets (ceramic, A2, A4, A5, A8, hybrid, etc.), the number of magnets, and the orientation of the magnets. Everything else is just fluff that you can essentially change or compensate for based on how you dial in the rest of your rig, mainly your amp of choice.

 

[Mot90DaD]

Looks stunning, I'm really interested what the pickups sounds like!

@John_Strychnine are those the pickups you already using in your latest riffhard stuff?

I guess I will buy myself the sevenstring-version if I will ever be able to play the whole opiate-song - you are really killing me with that hammer on sections...

 

[John_Strychnine]

Looks stunning, I'm really interested what the pickups sounds like!

@John_Strychnine are those the pickups you already using in your latest riffhard stuff?

I guess I will buy myself the sevenstring-version if I will ever be able to play the whole opiate-song - you are really killing me with that hammer on sections...

Those pickups are all of In Stasis minus Lavos and Cardinal Red

 

[BlueTrident]

Those pickups are all of In Stasis minus Lavos and Cardinal Red
Didn’t you also use them on tour as well? I noticed that the pickups weren’t the usual purple BKPs that were in the Qatsis when you played in Nottingham

 

[Vegetta]

Tao 6
Tao 7
Tao 8

Up on the Schecter site now.

 

[Kyle Jordan]

^That Tao-8 really looks excellent.

 

[ExMachina]

Are these actually shipping now,.I'm so tempted if the boss tells me it's okay.

 

[Vegetta]

Are these actually shipping now,.I'm so tempted if the boss tells me it's okay.

Do we have the same boss

 

[Chri]

Are these actually shipping now,.I'm so tempted if the boss tells me it's okay.

I could have sworn when I checked Zzounds yesterday it said “order now and get it by Jan. 29th” or something like that. Now it just has a generic preorder option. Either it was a mistake and these are a ways off, or maybe they had one en route that got scooped up right away.

I’d call them, but I’m at work right now. Just busy enough not to be able to walk away and make a frivolous phone call, but not too busy not to post on SSO.

 

[BTS]

Nice! grats Browne!

 

[Taylord]

Congrats Browne! Looking forward to play throughs and video content around them.