Funkgod, thanks for the thought and worth checking but mine is a real realist from Thomann, all boxed and everything. I will probably be selling it on here soonish.
In fact I tried taking one of the Shadow pickups out of the bridge over the weekend, leaving just one, and it sounded great. Kind of like somewhere between the realist and the shadow but with much better balance. I left one element in the E string side of the bridge, no EQ needed apart from a slight mid cut around 800Hz, nice balance across strings. The only thing I need to get used to is a slight increase in 'punch' at the start of the notes. Not a bad thing really
thanks for all the feedback