Sonic titan versus teh pickups

[slomatic]

Given the endless uses of the titan, i was wondering what you folk have noticed regarding pickups and the titan. I used mine with mega high output warpig humbuckers, and found that at the bridge it could sound a tad bright. I swapped to a lower, though still pretty heavy pu in the bridge, and now use the titan in the middle position between the bridge and a p90 in the neck. Its a whole other beast this way, far fatter and with an almost fuzz like tone on the higher notes. Really cool. What have you guys found, what works well?

[Richard Groff]

I just gave the Titan a run through yesterday with an SG sporting Fralin vintage output PAFs. The sound was great, but I kinda felt like the output was a little too much. I have to experiment a bit more to see if I'm going to get it to work out enough to pedalboard it. I'm still waiting for my CF Doomidrive to come in to compare to.

I'm not a big fan of high output pups in general, so I guess I'd recommend trying some lower output HBs to go with vintage style effects if you find them too sizzly.

[skybone]

I was always a big fan of the "Hot PAF" style pickup, with an output ranging from 10-12k. Warm, but not too hot. I found that mixed quite well with a hot amp and a hotter pedal, while retaining the string definition and overall tone. The danger with going too hot with things (pickups/pedals/pre-amp gain) is that your tone will turn into a serious wall of mush very, very quickly.

Hayden @ Bulldog made me some Alnico V pickups, at around 15-16k, for my Iceman, and combined with my Titan and Matamp, they just sounded awesome. Running the guitar's tone on full, the Titan imparted a much brighter, more aggressive tone than running it through the amp direct (Volume at full pelt), which kind of fitted in what we were doing. As a three piece (guitar/bass/drums), it lifted the guitar up, and left more tonal space for the bass & drums which they needed, while still sounding fat and huge. Another great "side effect" of this, was that the guitar could slide into OTT feedback at any given moment... for that "seriously pushed to the edge" tone. That, and pinched harmonics just seemed to leap out of the guitar if you looked at it. Well, I liked it anyway...

I predominantly use the bridge pickup, which always sounds a bit brighter anyway, but for what I was using it for, the tone fitted in perfectly. The danger was that if I dialled in a bassier tone, I would have been competing with the bass, so the guitar needed to be lifted up to let the bass "breathe" (especially when Jay was doing his Geezer Butler style fills), and then the whole sonic palate would have just turned into a turgid mush.

Pickups used:
Tokai LP: Bare Knuckle Emerald's (10k neck, 12k bridge)
Iceman: Bulldog "Hot A5" (10-12k neck, 16k bridge)

David: for an example of the "competing with the bass frequencies", listen to our first demo, then listen to the 2nd. With the guitar tones being "lifted", the bass is more prominent. That and the fact that Jay was using his Ezekiel and Ric 4003 on the 2nd!

[thesjkexperience]

I am using low/medium output vintage style Strat pickups (Formvar in the 6.2 - 6.4 range) and I was told the Titan would be way too bright. Turns out it works well into a 18 watt 6V6 combo amp! While nothing matches the tone of my Swart on 11 or my Vic 20112 (w/blue) on 10 (of 12) with a Rooster in front of it, the Titan is a great solution for times you cant wind it up.

The best thing is the Titan doesn't blink when you blast a Varioboost or Rooster into it. My old OCD and KoT just folded up and mushed out My Tim worked pretty well, but the size of that thing is silly! So, my Timmy works ok too, but the sound is SO grainy verses the Titan it is going up for sale.

My only complaint/improvement would be that a two knob tone control like the Tim works great for dialing into any situation. It has a bass cut pre-gain stage, and a treble cut post gain stage. You can kinda do this with the Titan by doing a dance between the Tone (bias) and Drive levels, so I am not saying the Titan sucks, but it would be cool to try out a Titan with a similar (tone stack?) configuration to the Tim/Timmy.

[dorfmeister]

How does it do with some fairly low output single coil pickups?

[1bottlerocket]

How does it do with some fairly low output single coil pickups?

That is pretty much all I have in my S-Style guitars and for me, it works great.

[skybone]

The Titan works really well with low output PAF style humbuckers, and needless to say it sounds superb with them, so I'd expect it to sound great with low output single coils too.

FWIW: Low output pickups & a Titan kind of capture that classic 70's rock, "everything on 11" tone, where higher output pickups & a Titan turn it up to 11, then set a rocket under it's arse for a laugh. Definitely a more modern, higher gain type of sound, but still with that "vintagey" component (if you know what I mean).

[Tricalibur]

I use BKP Warpigs with my Titan as well, but I also have a Pig-90 (High output P-90) in the middle of my guitar which I use for a slightly more vintage vibe. I agree it can sound a little bright and thin when used with the bridge pup solely, but by backing off the gain and mixing in some of the amps preamp gain it tends to thicken up nicely.