Versatility? You played all Van Halen riffs on a pickup made for Eddy, all with distortion. No cleans, no tone button changes, no fingerpicking etc. I liked your playing, I liked the comparison between the pickups in an EVH distortion context.. but those 2 pickups do way more than you showed. Great personality, nice playing.. bad word choice.
I love how versatile it is!, you can definitely go from VH to VH seamlessly! 🤣🤣🤣 love your videos man! Thanks for putting all this great information up! 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
I think that using VH riffs was the correct call, as I believe the 78 is a reference to 1978, the year Van Halen 1 came out. (I know, thank you captain obvious)
@@schmoemi3386 It is. It's basically a hot PAF. The JB is not going to be much different. Maybe slightly hotter. The Frankie pickup on the Wolfgang and Striped Series is ~15K the 78 is ~9k.
There was nothing versatile here. It was 5 Van Halen riffs, so that alone makes it not versatile. Then you add the fact that the 78 was designed to sound like Eddie's pickups, and the JB was not make it a ridiculous comparison with no versatility whatsoever. Maybe he should try 5 completely different songs and with different Amp settings, then maybe you'll both understand the definition.
"During the video I've seen a lot of changing, in the way yous feel about me, and in the way I feel about yous. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!" ~ Rocky Balboa
I'm hearing bigger low mids in the J.B. with a little more clarity in the '78. In and audience I might not pick that up. Having recently rekindled my romance with the DiMarzio Super Distortion, I have to insist you try one. I use it all the time.....in my Telecaster. Talk about versatility - not joking now, it makes that guitar do ANYTHING.
I have both the JB and I have a Duncan Distortion model. Great great pickups. I love them both but I was looking for something different and settled on a pickup that has Alnico III's. JB has Alnico V's and the 78 has Alnico II. For me, that's the ultimate way to know what kind of tone you're getting...look at the magnets used. The Duncan Distortion is Ceramic. Great Video!
SUHR thornebucker Pete Thorn signature model. = bar none. The 78 is the correct direction for sure and is great also. Also another really great one is made by Pariah pickups. You'll find it.
it's as if you turned the treble knob up a couple notches on the 78...so another way to get this tone I guess would be a higher pot value like from 500K to 1 meg...or an eq pedal or treble boost, or just a few notches of the treble on the amp ....
Awesome! 😂 And even awesomer since I'm desperately waiting for my 7/8 S-Style order to be finished, that has a single '78 included and will have a Schaller Lockmeister and an EVH D-Tuna installed when it's here. So it's clearly inspired by the most versatilist guitar in human history, although I'm not playing a huge variety of styles. Thank you very much for all those videos! 😊
I mean the most versatile comparison between these two versatile pickups ever! Literally and verserally! Nice job, I’ll be ordering 6 of each to make sure I get the most versatile range of the both JBs and the 78s for extreme, maximum versatility!
I have a 78 (old custom shop one) in the bridge of my Charvel San Dimas and it sounds great for everything, clean to distorted. I used to have a coil split but the clean was so good I took it out.
I love the JB, but have gotten into lower output pickups. So my far the duncan alnico II pro has been one of my favorites, but I’m really interested in trying out the ‘78 as well.
Funny tongue in cheek video. I have the '78s in a Gibson Custom SG and I really like them. They sound very punchy and full, yet clear. I know they were inspired by Eddie Van Halen's pickup, but I hope folks know you don't have to just use the '78s for Van Halen stuff. They certainly do that well, but they work really well for lots of styles.
Great comparison! There are definitely some use cases for the thicker sound of the JB... a power trio where you need to fill some sonic space... if you mostly play lead lines like Beck did... if you want to beef up a thin sounding guitar. For an all-purpose guitar, though, I'd opt for the more focused sound of the 78.
For combination in a HSS strat I prefer Humbuckers with lower impedance (59 or 78). I had a JB in the bridge position, but the loudness jump from sc to hb was always too drastic. Plus the JB sounds very middy, while 59-style humbuckers sound very transparent, a bit like a single coil, but not so shrill.
i recommend the seymour duncan stra bro 90 for maple board strats at the bridge. it's a p 90 in a single coil size, lots of low mids and bass great for distortion no fizz whatsoever. i also recommend adding a tele configuration so that the bridge and the neck pickups can work together. enjoy!
I would love to hear this pickup on something other than Van Halen to better ascertain its versitiveness. But what you’re playing sounds great and I dig your style.
Sound very good. best move I made was buying a Charvel without the Floyd style bridge. I can change tuning at will, without any hassle. I play the crap out of that guitar for some reason. I think it has a full shred in the bridge. I still love my guitar with the JB. The '78 is great sounding pickup.The body mounted pickups seem to do a thing as well. Fun video!
From what I have played between passive and active ive had the Pegasus(passive) and I have fishman moderns Id say they are the most versatile because the can go passive with pushpull on both the volume and tone I've just found that they have the most to offer especially if you were to get them customized to the sound you want they're pricey but worth it and you can actually get a charging pack so you don't gotta worry about the battery life. but yes out of those two the 78 had a tighter sound were jb was warmer in my opinion.
I have a warmoth soloist body in the house soaking up Tung oil. Pickups will be Duncan RTM / Jazz. I truly feel that this will be versitilious maximus.
I don;r need as much versatilty . For instance I don't play much shoe-gaze, and pretty much no cow-punk att all. Is there a Seymoure Duncan 77 or 76? Or something else that is ALMOST as vesatile?
I have a similarly versatile set of warmoth builds. One with a JB alnico 2 and one with a PAF Pro. JB2 is maximum smoothness, and the PAF Pro is actually (not even joking) one of the most versatile pickups ever. Volume on 10 and it's a hot PAF, roll down to 8 for tele and down to 6 for a strat sound.
All Joking aside it was good to hear the difference. But there was one flaw in the comparison. It seems that the amp gain wasn’t changed. I set up an amp for the guitar I’m plugging into it. The 78 has less output so you might wan’t to increase the amp gain a bit to where it sounds similar to the gain with the JB or just set them both where you think each sounds best.
I put a78 in my strat and really like it, except for the weak low end compared to the 59. Put a Pariah Pasadena White and not looking back. Very similar tone with a little more bass.
I'd add a single coil in the middle - HSH & a 5-way & a P/P Tone pot for 7 way switching. That would be more versatile. BTW I have both JB/Jazz & 78 set. Both work well.
The '78 only works right in an ash body where the wood was harvested in 1978 and was routed on July 8th. I mean everyone realizes that right? I guess that wouldn't be very versatile than, well, yeah, still.
As the owner of both a vintage (1987) JB and a newish 2021 '78 HB, my experience is that the JB really pushes the amp and the '78 works with the amp. The sound differences are subtle in the samples here but very noticeable when playing the different pickups through the same amp/settings. If you need your stock JCM800 to move into the super-saturated '80's tone zone, the JB is the way to go. If you're looking for a PUP that works great with a lot of amps, check out the '78.
I'd love to see you do a blind test between the Seymour Duncan '78, Slash, Green Magic, Alnico II Pro, High Voltage, and the Seth Lover humbuckers to see if you can hear any versatility distinction between them. I'm a big fan of VersatilHity so this distinction is important!
At first I hated the jb, then I did a nice upgrade, 50’s wiring, Duncan pots, vintage sozo cap. This thing sounds awesome. Ohms at 18.4 which is high but it shreds
