In the spirit of testing the Tonerider Octane humbucker I've only installed the humbucker... no other pickups, no coil splits, tone knbos or jiggery pokery... just the humbucker and a volume knob, near as pure as you can get it.
This pickup delivers what it promises, it is aggressive (in a good way)
Power chords are full but don't lose any clarity with high gain amps and pedals where others I've played tend to get a little muddy, There's still a very nice balance between the lows and highs while not completely scooping the mids (mids are the instruments voice)
Up the dusty end of the neck is not somewhere I'd normally be in the bridge position but I found a very nice 'fullness' to the pickup here. In a mix with other guitars high notes up past the halfway point can sound shrill and gutless but this seems to have a presence about it, a warmth if you will.
I think it's worth mentioning the clean tones as well, as a high gain pickup the clean tones can get overlooked but I think instead of dribbling on I'll let the video speak for itself here.
Summary... I rate it, so much so that I'm going to leave it in this guitar. If you're looking for something to play dirty, dirty riffs, something for a drop tuned guitar or just a very well rounded bridge pickup for rock/metal I think you'd be hard pressed to find something else this good for this price.
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