EX-1 What has your tone experience been in stock condition?

[Maxxas]

Hello Everyone.

As expressed in the title. What has your experience been, specifically the humbucking bridge position. Comes across a little too squishy and mellow compared to my other humbucking guitars. (And that's not a bad thing, if you're going for a certain type of tone) I realize that can come from a number of things, type of Pots in the circuit, having a tone circuit etc. I've made sure the battery is fresh and my pickup height is sufficient.
It is usable, but it's on the edge for me. It still seems to be the case with the TBX engaged. I tend to use the TBX Circuit for single coil tones.
I guess I'm looking for a slightly tighter & different gain tone, if that makes sense. As I'm typing this, I'm realizing that it might be a good idea to determine the type of magnet used in the stock pickup.

I'm considering swapping out the Bridge Single Coil Pickup for a Hot Rail or JB jr. I'd consider others that don't involve routing the guitar.
Which leads to a couple more questions. Does anyone have any experience with a hot rail or jb jr. in this guitar?
Did you find the stock humbucking tone to be similar to my experience?
I'm open to any suggestions or thoughts on the matter.

[aliensporebomb]

What I found is tonally the stock pickups sounded okay but they were somewhat noisy especially when doing higher gain stuff - so the pickups were swapped. My EX-2 I have an EMG SA at the neck position and at the bridge an EMG 89. The 89 is set that if you pull up on the volume knob it becomes an SA single coil. With the volume in down position it is the full humbucking 89 dual coil mode and I also have a FAT boost control which is a mid boost. The guitar is now pretty versatile. I still feel like it was a bit of a sacrilege to have the bridge position routed a little for that humbucker but it is what it is. It's definitely set up for me now but some people don't like EMGs. When this all went down my old band was recording what was going to be our first album and I needed something that would be quiet and they sure fit the bill for that especially since the studio we were in wasn't 100% electronically quiet either. For a 35 year old guitar it's doing pretty well. The EX-1 has the same electronics. I did keep the original pickups but I doubt I'll ever look at having them reinstalled - it's just if I ever sell it I'll include them. I had a guy named Dean Rollie do the work, but any competent luthier could do this work if you need to swap to different pickups. If I was doing this again, I'd try and do a dual single coil type humbucker for the bridge position that could be split.