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Musicman Luke 2 sounds pretty good.

I like Floyd's and own several guitars with them, but there is no chance I'd prefer a Floyd to the Vintage Tremolo that Music Man has going on.
 
Love the sounds you are getting.

I cherish all my EBMMs, but if I could keep only one, it would be a tough call because they each excel at different things. However, for overall sound and versatility, it would have to be a Luke II! I love the EMG single coils especially.
 
I have Luke's I, II and LIII, and I have to say, the Luke II is my favourite. If I could buy another Luke right now, I'd go for another Luke II.
 
sanderhermans said:
What is the difference between the 1 and 2 models?
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The Luke 1 has different single coils, SA57s (the Luke II has SLVs)
It has a Floyd Rose and locking nut, with standard Schaller tuners.
It has no tone control.
The neck is slightly slimmer (at least on mine anyway). I had read that the Luke 1 neck was pretty much the same profile as Luke's Valley Arts Robot, whereas the Luke II neck profile was more like a 63 Strat which Luke owned. Not sure if that's official or not, but it makes sense..
 
Night Goat said:
I never could get EMG's to play nice with my amps (dirty old marshalls) so I was pleased when the Luke II I got a while ago came with Lundgren pickups! Now my Luke can get as filthy as I want it to ;)
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It's true that the EMGs are an acquired taste. Fortunately, I acquired that taste the first time I heard Luke playing his EMG equipped guitars. That sound still hits the spot for me every time.

I mentioned above that the Luke's 1 & 2 have different single coils, well they sound markedly different. The SA57s are very open and punchy sounding, great for cleans and Nile Rodgers funky type stuff, whereas the SLVs have a much more overwound, vintage type sound, better for Overdriven rhythm stuff.
 
I think there are all kinds of misunderstandings of EMGs, like they are metal pickups, too clean and so on. The best is to try and see how it sounds like. I'm super-happy with the Luke II pickups myself, versatile, bluesy, could crank metal if needed, or jazz.
 
ksandvik said:
I think there are all kinds of misunderstandings of EMGs, like they are metal pickups, too clean and so on. The best is to try and see how it sounds like. I'm super-happy with the Luke II pickups myself, versatile, bluesy, could crank metal if needed, or jazz.
Click to expand...

That's true, I notice that all major pickup manufacturers make many variations of pickups, lots of different voicings, but EMG are the only brand that get wholly dismissed 'as a brand' with alarming regularity. You don't get people online saying, " Oh I don't like Fender pickups", or whatever other brand. It's a misconception that seems rife on online forums.
 
I have a Luke II and at first the pickups were not at all to my liking. Other people sounded very good, but I did not. Well, I gave it some time and I messed with my usual amp settings. I even bought replacement pickups, but I did not install them. I was able to find my sound with these EMG pickups after all. Now, I am glad that I kept them in and left the guitar original.
I really like how I sound with this guitar now.
 
I happen to like EMGs as well. My Parker and my Strat have them.

But like anything, they're not for everyone.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I used to have lots of EMG pickups, I've gone through maybe 6-7 humbuckers and 3-4 single coils. Fiddles with voltage mods and everything. But as I went from an agressive trebly Slayer-sound to a dirtier, uncompressed heavier tone I had to get rid of them because they just wouldnt work with my new gear.

Except for the SA single coil in the neck position, that sounded fantastic through a heavy fuzz pedal!
 
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