Slant 6 Humbucker For Guitar

I put the Slant 6s in a thinline partscaster, just because (coincidentally, playing them through a Carr Slant 6 amp). They have a nice “chewiness” to them with a very distinct upper mid bite that is great for aggressive playing, but can add a sweetness when pulling back. Kind of a filtertron/full-range sound halfway between single coil and humbucker. The neck pup hits a nice place and sounds different enough from anything else I have to fill its own niche. On this particular setup, the bridge pickup is way too harsh with its upper-mid frequency to be of much use on anything I play. Blending with the neck pup in middle switch position tames that a bit. I mostly like them because they don’t sound like anything else I have.

Dylan made me a bass version of this pickup and it sounds phenomenal! Paired with a custom P-bass it brings another range of tones to my 4 string bass. While the Alnico 5 magnet was good, we ended up changing it for a ceramic 8 To boost the signal a bit. And this is something that sets Dylan apart from your average boutique pickup maker, he's willing to work with you to get the tone you're looking for!

I told Dylan to give me Alnico VIII magnets on my set of these, and I know he didn't try them out before he sent them to me. If he had, I'm certain he would have discovered what I did: these sound like Filtertrons! They are much too quiet to be a direct comparison, but they are clear, clear, CLEAR.

They will overdrive and distort, but fuzz is a strange animal with the Slant 6. It takes a lot to make these fuzzy and it opens up some corners of tone most don't see often. Try dialing the fuzz back to where it's just an accent to the notes, and you'll see something of what I'm saying here. The difference being: the Slant 6 will make this obscure region much easier to explore. Mine, at least, do this and I blame the overwrought magnets for this marvelous trick.

All this said, I went into the Slant 6 experience thinking it's a humbucker. Strictly speaking it is, but I advise everyone to apply them like single coils. They are noiseless without being choked off. They aren't speaking to you through grinding teeth like a typical humbucker. I have it in mind to install these in an HSH guitar soon with a lipstick pickup in the middle. Basically, this arrangement is an SSS format minus 2/5 of the noise. Trying to pull this off with a Gretch would take $7k while I can get this done on Partscaster wages.

I will admit that I haven't gotten what I expected from the Slant 6 pickups. As I said, I approached these like humbuckers when I bought them. That is not their role. These are some of the best, maybe the very finest, noiseless single coils pickups you can find. Dylan protests these are wide-range humbucker models, but my experience, to his credit, goes beyond that.

So how do these sound? These are Rockabilly clear. Very composed. I'd advise keeping the tone dialed back a bit. Seeing how I used 500k pots, 250k pots might be a better way to manage the high end when swapping them out. These are bright, but their lower output keeps them from going outright shrill. Not one hint of mud can be pushed through these things. I struggle to find a bluesy tone from them, but I tend to think of greater volume without breakup when I do. Allow these things to talk, not shout, and they are just as blue as you could ask. Getting the Slant 6 to higher volumes will be comparable to a Stratocaster. It can be done, and done well, but don't confuse these with Seymour Duncan Invaders despite the aggressive appearance. These are for an experienced player who wants his single coils shut up, or for a less experienced player who's going to hamb-fist their way around an amp for a while. They will happily oblige the expert, and be very forgiving to the novice.