Rex Rocker
Well-known member
To sum it up: It's not what I expected.
I got the Suhr Aldrich today to drop in my Gibson Les Paul Tribute. I had a JB in it that I liked, but there was room for improvement. I thought it was a bit thin on that particular guitar compared to my other two. That Les Paul is really tight and aggressive-sounding. It has a Maple neck a lightweight chambered body, and an aluminum bridge and tailpiece. But most importantly, the bridge pickup is closer to the bridge itself than on my other two guitars. I did like the JB in there, honestly, so there were some qualities that I wanted to keep. I just wanted something slightly more adequate for that particular guitar.
So I did my research and found the Aldrich. It's 17.5K and it runs on A5. Suhr calls the magnet "Alnico 5 Special" (more on that later), but given the specs, I expected it to be sort of a hotter, fatter JB. Well, it is fatter for sure. But it's certainly not hotter at all. That really caught me off guard.
It has a really cool thing going on in the lows where it's super throaty. I feel that's like that's one defining feature of the pickup. The mids are less cloudy than the JB, and the high-end is slightly more active and open too. It feels more attacky and aggressive and throatier and fuller. So is it bassier and trebler than the JB? Well, yeah, but it's by no means similar to the Custom. It sounds more like an opened up JB than it resembles anything from the Custom family. If I really had to say, though, the EQ is sorta like you took a JB and nudged it just a tad towards the EQ of the Custom 5. But luckily, not a lot, since I don't like the C5. The Aldirch, though, is its own thing. It has a very defined identity, I feel, that to me sounds reminiscent of elements of the JB, but that you wouldn't mistake for a 1:1 clone.
But the output is surprisingly less than the JB! It's very close to what the AT-1 is in another guitar, except the AT-1 has the airbucker thing, and I don't think the Aldrich runs on any of that sort of wizardry. I read conflicting reviews online on wether it was actually hotter or not before I got it. Some said it isn't, some say it is. Logic would have me believe that it must be, but now I know for sure it isn't. It might have to do with that "special" Alnico 5.
Not gonna lie, that turned me off at first, but the more I kept comparing it to my LTD with the Antiquity JB, the more I liked it once I raised the gain a little to compensate for the weaker output. It's different while still having some traits that I like about the JB like the upper mid aggression. The Aldrich sounds more lively and less confused in the core mids, but that might also be coming from that guitar which, honestly, is a tone monster and makes everything sound so immediate and tight. Plus the upside is since I recently started using the EVH model on my HX Stomp, I have more room to play with the gain knob higher up with a lower output pickup.
So I'll keep playing it to let it sink in before I take a decision. But at least, I'm glad I tried a pickup I have been wanting to for ages.
I got the Suhr Aldrich today to drop in my Gibson Les Paul Tribute. I had a JB in it that I liked, but there was room for improvement. I thought it was a bit thin on that particular guitar compared to my other two. That Les Paul is really tight and aggressive-sounding. It has a Maple neck a lightweight chambered body, and an aluminum bridge and tailpiece. But most importantly, the bridge pickup is closer to the bridge itself than on my other two guitars. I did like the JB in there, honestly, so there were some qualities that I wanted to keep. I just wanted something slightly more adequate for that particular guitar.
So I did my research and found the Aldrich. It's 17.5K and it runs on A5. Suhr calls the magnet "Alnico 5 Special" (more on that later), but given the specs, I expected it to be sort of a hotter, fatter JB. Well, it is fatter for sure. But it's certainly not hotter at all. That really caught me off guard.
It has a really cool thing going on in the lows where it's super throaty. I feel that's like that's one defining feature of the pickup. The mids are less cloudy than the JB, and the high-end is slightly more active and open too. It feels more attacky and aggressive and throatier and fuller. So is it bassier and trebler than the JB? Well, yeah, but it's by no means similar to the Custom. It sounds more like an opened up JB than it resembles anything from the Custom family. If I really had to say, though, the EQ is sorta like you took a JB and nudged it just a tad towards the EQ of the Custom 5. But luckily, not a lot, since I don't like the C5. The Aldirch, though, is its own thing. It has a very defined identity, I feel, that to me sounds reminiscent of elements of the JB, but that you wouldn't mistake for a 1:1 clone.
But the output is surprisingly less than the JB! It's very close to what the AT-1 is in another guitar, except the AT-1 has the airbucker thing, and I don't think the Aldrich runs on any of that sort of wizardry. I read conflicting reviews online on wether it was actually hotter or not before I got it. Some said it isn't, some say it is. Logic would have me believe that it must be, but now I know for sure it isn't. It might have to do with that "special" Alnico 5.
Not gonna lie, that turned me off at first, but the more I kept comparing it to my LTD with the Antiquity JB, the more I liked it once I raised the gain a little to compensate for the weaker output. It's different while still having some traits that I like about the JB like the upper mid aggression. The Aldrich sounds more lively and less confused in the core mids, but that might also be coming from that guitar which, honestly, is a tone monster and makes everything sound so immediate and tight. Plus the upside is since I recently started using the EVH model on my HX Stomp, I have more room to play with the gain knob higher up with a lower output pickup.
So I'll keep playing it to let it sink in before I take a decision. But at least, I'm glad I tried a pickup I have been wanting to for ages.
