Recently my band scored a BKP endorsement and we've fitted out the remainder of our guitars that didn't have BKP's with a few different models. My other guitarist has this LTD viper 400 that is actually a fantastic guitar and it had an EMG81/85 set. It records really well but I thought that with the right set of passives it would be even better, we chose to try blackhawks in it to try and retain some of the characteristics of the EMG's that worked in that particular guitar. This is pretty much a copy/paste of what i sent back to BKP Ben about my thoughts:
After I installed them I did play on the guitar for an hour. They replaced an EMG 81-85 set in an ESP baritone viper and I used a 550k volume pot, 3-way selector and a coil split switch. The guitar has a maple set neck, rosewood board, lightweight mahogany body and it's 27" scale with a TOM bridge.
My impressions were:
-Voicing is absolutely spot on for anything heavy. The mids sit just in the right spot. There is enough low mids to create girth without mud, there is enough high mids for attack, grind and clarity but there is no honky characteristics that I found the painkiller and aftermath can exhibit on occasion. The highs seem to roll off similar to a C-pig so the treble response is sharp but not harsh, the highs are quite rounded.
-The dynamics of the pickup confused me. For one single notes have lots of girth and thickness and saturate like an active pickup, I've never heard this in a passive before. However when big open chords are played there is still good string to string separation and the notes don't smear together like with all the current active designs and every blade pickup I've tried. The blackhawks actually sound quite open, more open than aftermaths i think but retain all the punch of a more compressed pickup.
-The blackhawks are quite high output. This makes the coil splits absolutely unreal. I managed to coax some really cool stratty tones out of them and I think that the splits will really come in handy in a studio situation for cleaner passages.
-String to string balance is fantastic. low notes really pop out and have great attack, high notes aren't harsh at all.
In comparison to the EMG's the difference was night and day. Way more organic, less dry sounding. more balanced mids, fuller lows, more open highs, fuller low mids and most of all way more clarity. Output wise they seem to be quite similar but it's always hard to judge when comparing a passive to an active.
Overall super impressed with this pickup and I wish I'd tried it sooner. They are really unique and I dig them a lot. Now I'll have to get some of my own!
I only took one pic and the guitar was super dirty when I did because i had to fix a few other things while I had it. For the record I mostly use aftermaths in my guitars with a nailbomb neck
