Originally Posted by
jhale667
The 59/Custom Hybrid is a medium output bridge pickup, with a tight bass, a rich midrange, and crisp, but not piercing treble. It is a harmonically rich pickup, thanks to its mis-matched coil winds, and sounds particularly amazing with some dirt. With a resistance of 11.5KOhms the 59/Custom Hybrid is a very dynamic pickup, responding nicely to a players touch. Natural and artificial harmonics pop out with ease with this pickup.
Distorted, rhythm playing sounds great with the 59/Custom Hybrid. The tight bass response, and rich mid-range offers a great tight crunch, while still retaining a full woody tone. Lead work at the low end of the fretboard really cuts through the mix, and pick attack and angle can clearly be heard and used to its full potential. Things may get a little too shrill for some higher up the fretboard, but blending the 59/Custom Hybrid with a suitable neck pickups reduces the high end, and still retains some of the bridge pickup’s great tone.
Switch to a clean tone and the 59/Custom Hybrid provides a dynamic range in which to really express yourself. Play softly and a beautiful warm tone is present, dig in hard and everything gets brighter and more focussed. Hit the strings really hard and things start to crunch just enough to give you some edge to your tone without it being overdriven. If you find that the clean tone of the 59/Custom Hybrid is a bit too bright and gritty it sounds great combined with a neck humbucker. A great thick rhythm tone which never gets to muddy can be found here. It’s also useful for clean leads at the lower end of the fretboard.
Splitting to the Custom slug coil, and the inside coil of the neck humbucker yields great strat-like tones with some nice twang. This works nicely with clean and slightly overdriven tones. It might also suit some country players.