Death Valley - Clear, bright, high output rail humbucker set

Regular price: £88.50
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Solderless setup with all required wiring available here.

Neck position -

The neck pickup metal and hard rock has been waiting for.

This pickup is like nothing you've ever used, seen, or heard before. Completely tearing down the design of a traditional humbucker, we've recreated a neck humbucker which delivers the aggression, clarity, snap and output that a typical neck humbucker just cannot deliver.

Wound with huge coils of 41 AWG wire (but still fits any humbucker mount), this pickup is wound with thick wire, giving a bright and clear treble response and wound with enough turns to keep up with the output with any bridge pickup you can throw at it. Tonally it sounds about half way between a Telecaster bridge and P90, giving you a slightly fatter Tele bridge tone - definitely not a tone that's ever been found in the neck position before! Now when you drop tune and play with huge levels of gain, you have two usable pickups in your guitar.

The bass is thick and punchy, with such aggression that it can play riffs that any other neck humbucker would turn into mud which would rival a Glastonbury festival. Roll off some volume/gain and it's got a great vintage P90 neck tone with a certain snap that is very uncharacteristic of humbuckers. Because it's wound with such a great volume of wire it's got an absolutely beautiful split tone too - not weak and weedy like most split humbuckers (especially in the neck position)

Bridge position -

Possibly the hottest passive pickup in existence. Utilising extremely overwound coils of thick 43 AWG wire with a massive ceramic block magnet, this pickup will beat a preamp into submission with little effort. Absolutely perfect for single channel amps where a wide variety of tones are available with the volume control.

This pickup is blisteringly hot, but because of the coil design, it's not dark or muddy at all. The thick wire, ceramic magnet and asymmetrical winds give so much treble response that would normally be lost in this level of winding, making this pickup remarkably versatile. Splitting to the hotter coil gives as much output as a Tele bridge - no weak P90 tones to be found here! The asymmetrical winds open up the mid range, keeping it from being overly congested and overbearing, as well as giving the pickup a 3D quality with a superb level of clarity.

This pickup is phenomenal in standard and drop D tuning. The EQ of the pickup resembles that of a hotter PAF, making it one of the only pickups that is capable of colossal gain without a ridiculous mid hump that is commonly found in pickups of this output level. Match it with a vintage style amp and it'll deliver all the gain you could possibly want without compromising your tone with solid state clipping pedals.

Specifications (neck/bridge):

Resistance (Ohms): 7.4k/17.5k
Magnet: custom alnico 5/custom ceramic
Spacing: blades make this suitable for any spacing
Lead wire: 4 conductor + shield
Base plate: short legged nickel silver
Wax potted

Supplied with mounting screws and springs.

Customer Reviews

Based on 3 reviews Write a review

Death Valley Humbucker Set

I fitted the Death Valley humbucker set to my Charvel Star and they're great!

The bridge pickup is really good, I was a bit worried it might be too hot but it's not (though you can definitely feel you have a lot of power under your fingers), and it's also really versatile- it cleans up incredibly well on the volume knob (especially with a treble bleed cap on it). Really clear-sounding, too- just a really good, hot-but-versatile bridge pickup which has a really nice EQ.

The neck pickup is just brilliant. I tend to prefer the tone of a PAF in the neck, but sometimes that's not powerful enough depending on what's in the bridge, but neck humbuckers seem to get far too dark if they're overwound even slightly (at least they do for me!). The Death Valley neck sounds really open and clear even though it's fairly hot, but you can also feel that you've got more power under your fingers as well. It probably doesn't sound exactly like a low output PAF, but it sounds incredibly close considering how hot it is (and far closer than more standard design humbuckers which are a lot less hot!). Again, like the bridge, it's really versatile on the volume knob. The description is bang-on on the website- it's hilarious how you can also use it almost like a second bridge pickup for rhythm riffs as well, I'm not sure I've used any other neck pickup where you can do that!

Really happy with them, they're great pickups- thoroughly recommended!

Death Valley or die!

Read the pickup description.

It is 75% accurate only because the wizards at Alegree did not anticipate a madman to wire these bad boys like the wizard named Jimmy Page would. Let me fill you in..

Split coil tones of the two pickups are excellent, but have you ever heard a p90 neck in series with a tele bridge? Once you do you won't ever wanna leave your amp's clean channel.

In phase reverse mode, the middle position between the two split coils in pure acoustic guitar with a feedback cover on.

Now the real thing to be aware aside of using 500k pots is to use a 50s wiring for no treble loss - especially on the neck pickup, that thing is going dark super fast on a 60s wiring where treble is lost on rolling down the volume. I have it 50s style now, and this set covers from SRV stratty blues to some heavy metal chuggs - this is no meme, this bridge rivals motherbuckers in heat, especially when you split the neck and series switch into the bridge, that is 1 alnico V single pickup into two ceramics totalling 20 kOhms of insanity. This set is that ridiculously hot, it made my rehearsal amp outloud the drummer - it's a 15 watt Laney.

A last thing to make clear. Do not go series switch between the full set. I do not know if my rendition of My Heart Will Go On was that passionate during practice, but this whole set at full swing in series is LOUD. It will outloud your master volume, your whole band and might even - like in my case - wipe out one speaker on your 212.

Death Valley Poke

I was looking for a set of pickups for my very dark sounding Les Paul studio. I loved the darkness of the sound, and I didn't want to lose that, but I wanted some extra 'poke' on top. I read about these Death Valley pickups and they seemed to fit the bill. I tried them, and found It wasn't hype. These Death Valley pickups added the focus I needed to the darkness I love. Now my Les Paul is proudly equipped with these Death Valleys, and it destroys!

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