Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: Roho on December 14, 2007, 05:01:52 PM
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Ok, fellas, I'm truly starting to come around to Bare Knuckle PuPs. I'm almost ready to swallow the price for them (almost $300 after conversion and shipment), but you truly get what you pay for. My brother's Les Paul with the Mules sounds absolutely lovely and organic. What I like in the Mules is that when distorted is isn't fizzy. I also like how they pop when clean.
As some know, I play Teles (I own 2). I just recently upgraded one with Fender Texas Specials and all new pots and wiring. Sounds great! For my second Tele, I want great tone, but I want it to sound a little different than the Texas Specials. I've been reading the descriptions of the Tele pickups and I can say I want almost all the ones I read. So maybe the easiest thing to do, like so many have done, is to describe what I want and see what you all or Tim suggests.
I play through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amp, 40 watts tube or valve depending on location. I want that organic tone of the Mules, but I can't figure out if I want low output or high output with the pickups. I know I don't want to go with the Brown Sugars because the description sounds a lot like my Texas Specials, unless it can get me the tone of ZZ Top's song of the same title. Is the Brown Sugar moniker from the Stones' Brown Sugar or ZZ Top's? I play Blues, but I like my Blues raunchy which is why I went with the Texas Specials. I don't want overly Twangy in my sound. What I want is a pickup that sounds big, organic and can clean up nicely when backing off the volume, which sounds like the Piledriver. Jimmy Page also has that tone I like. I especially hear it on the DVD How the West was Won from 2003 on the performance of The Ocean. Can I get a tone like that through a Tele? Maybe that's the way to describe it, a Tele that sounds close to a Les Paul? I was going to put the Fender Nocaster pickups in it which sounds a lot like the Blackguards.
Another thing, I don't want the change from the guitars to be real drastic. I want them to be similar yet different. I want some consitency in tone. I wonder if the Texas Specials and the Brown Sugars would give that. After all, it is two different brands.
Can you guys flesh out more descriptions from me to help me narrow it down? As we all know it is hard to describe what one hears in one's head to other people. If only I could be articulate.
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Narrowing:
Big, organic, good clean, can handle Blues and Rock
Now that I think about it, the whole 1973 Madison Square Garden performance How the West was Won or The Song Remains the Same movie, is ripe with that tone.
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Ordered me a set of BK's while your at it.
I would say pm Tim.
I've been tweaking the knobs in the middle position on my Paul to get the tone of The Ocean.
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Thought I'd run it by the BKPers first as Tim is probably a busy chap.
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Pip,pip...cheerio!
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I dare say I'm in a Barney Rubble over this pickup non-sense, ole boy. (ok, my pathetic use of c--kney) Now, pass the pisser.
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Pip,pip...cheerio!
I dare say I'm in a Barney Rubble over this pickup non-sense, ole boy. (ok, my pathetic use of c--kney) Now, pass the pisser.
Where's Mary Poppins? Dick Van Dyke is in da house....
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Chimchimney, chimchimney, chim, chim cherie!
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I would say ask Tim, that's a very specific sound you might be after in a Tele. By the way Mary Poppins was Cajun...who else could fly with an umbrella ?
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Mary Poppins or should I say, Julie Andrews was my first boyhood crush.
She was hot as Mary Poppins.
Ok, let's stay on subject.
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Thought maybe listing some of my favorite guitar players might help:
Eric Clapton- of all the videos I own of him, my favorite tone is from the 24 Nights DVD ('91 era Clapton)
Billy Gibbons- The first three ZZ Top albums
Slash- always has great tone
Stevie Ray Vaughan- of course
Gary Moore- love the pop he has in his Pauls
Jimmy Page- already mentioned
Joe Satriani- From The Extremist album to present
Robben Ford- has a singing tone to his guitar
Jimi Hendrix
John Mayer
Warren Haynes
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Oh, I just thought.
Is there a Tele pickup that is a version of the Mules?
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Hmm, low-output wise the Country Boys are very clean and round sounding. Still dirty up nicely. Might be analogous to the Mules (low output and suitable for anything) The Piledriver set it big and loud, still sounds like a tele, but BIGGER. Will easily drive an amp into overdrive.
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Roho, we have a a 62' reissue custom Tele, with Blackguard pickups. If you ever decide to come to Gulfport, I can bring it and let you try it. Cheers!
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Badger- I think I let the Country Boy name confuse me. When I hear that name, I think Nashville. But if it is analogous to the Mules, it now has my attention.
Lulu- Gulfport! Do you not have an MP3 of the PuPs? Can you describe the tone?
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I have the Piledriver with a Slowhand strat neck in one tele, Brown Sugar with an old Silvertone PAF mini-humbucker in another and the 55 Flatpole Black Guard set in another. I've also tried the Yardbirds, Boss and Country Boy sets. For what you are looking for, I would get the Flatpole Black Goard set. The neck is a little fatter sound than the regular tele neck (more like a strat), and the bridge is like a nice 50's tele sound. The Brown Sugar bridge nails the Keith Richards tone, so this might not be what you want (though I like it). The Boss set is very Roy Buchananish so gives nice clear drive. The Country Boys have the typical tele tone that people think of. I don't have a set of Yardbirds because they sound just like my 62 tele's original pickups (which is actually a great compliment, as I think they have a superb tone).
Which leaves the Piledriver. I have been playing this a lot because the tone is great when you drive it. I think it really works with the Slowhand neck, but then again I don't have many teles with the original neck pickups! I can get everything from Since I've Been Loving You to SRV's Tin Pan Alley from them. Since I've never tried a set of Fender Texas Tele pickups, I can't say in what way these are different, other than to say that you can clean them up by backing off the volume without losing any tone (I am using the 50's switching with neck, bridge and bridge with treble rolloff, and deluxe vintage capacitors).
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Sorry no MP3 yet. The alder body, and rosewood neck were a change in the equation of what the Blackguards were original set in( swamp ash, and maple......I think??.. ). Their tone is more early Page than Buchanan, they don't have the Tele spank, and they are not too strat either, very very hard to describe Roho, it has a four way switch, and .015 jensen caps, the electronics is all Rs Guitarworks. By the way it was Phil " is good to be the " King, who turned my attention to the Blackguards. Cheers!
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That's funny, because I was going to buy Fender's Nocaster pickups which when I read the Black Guards, it's like reading about the Nocasters. Thanks, PhilKing.
Also, I would like to stay around the same DC as the Texas Specials or lower, not more. Texas Specials are bridge 10.5k and neck 9.5k The Nocasters are bridge 7.72k and neck 7.9k. The Black Guards don't have this information.
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To have the pickup cover engraved, is that extra $ ?
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Yep :)
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Black Guards show 5k on the neck & 7k on the bridge.
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You could just put The Mule in the Neck position and find some good tele pickup who fits you in the bridge
well then you have to modify the pickguard and the guitarbody for the humbucker to fit
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I can only recount personal experience of Country Boys- great early classic Tele tone.They certainly crank it out when required but as I have not tried all the others, my input is not of a lot of help. If you check back through the players section there are some clips of my guitar that Steve did. There is also one I posted some while back.