Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: Cary on August 06, 2009, 10:43:03 AM
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Hi
If the Irish Tour is an overwound single coil, does that mean that when the volume is turned down it will start to sound something similar to the mothers milk set or or the two sets quite distinct in what they offer? Is anyone able to upload some good AB clips of these two sets?
Thanks Cary
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Hi, can't offer you any clips, but that is the assumption I made when I bought the ITs - and they do behave nicely with use of the volume and tone.
However, I would be interested to hear such AB clips myself (either to confirm my assumption, or start "new strat GAS" so I can buy some MMs as well :lol:)
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I wouldn't call 6.3k overwound! - that is correct .k for early 1960s pick ups.
But the extra turns of wire mean more mid range even when you turn the volume down, so the tone is going to be different between MM's and ITs.
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But the extra turns of wire mean more mid range even when you turn the volume down, so the tone is going to be different between MM's and ITs.
Yep, that's what I now suspect 18 months on (and that my original assumption was wrong!), which is why I'd like to hear the difference to see if I'm missing something/enough to get me interested in another geetar...
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Hi I have got one Irish tour in one guitar and recently purchased another with 2 mothers milk in. THe guitars are very different but I would say the pickups are very different as well. Personally I am not conviced you can get mother milk tones with a irish tour at low volume. Other people may have had more success though.
They are both great pickups but for me Mother milk would have to be the favourite.
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I know Andy hates them :wink: , but maybe a treble bleed cap on the volume control would help the ITs sound a bit more like lower-output pickups when the volume's turned down?
I haven't tried it, just an idea.
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tried a rosewood board strat with mothers milks last night and the tone was glorious. its the mythical woody strat tone. it was amazing to play clean - never reached for the overdrive once.
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You're not helping me at all, gwem :lol:
(Several times I've nearly bought MMs anyway and taken my ITs out... just to see what happens.)
And Philly's right: treble-bleed caps, YUK!! :lol:
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You're not helping me at all, gwem :lol:
(Several times I've nearly bought MMs anyway and taken my ITs out... just to see what happens.)
And Philly's right: treble-bleed caps, YUK!! :lol:
buy another strat? ;)
this forum has turned me from a strat non-understander, to a strat fan in the space of a few years.
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I went out looking for a strat last weekend, but came away with an SG :roll:
I do have an old JV strat with a basswood body (it has my main strat's Texas Specials in) - so it could be a recipient of the ITs... but conventional wisdom appears to be that basswood needs Apaches? I don't love my JV enough to spend on her directly so it never happened... But if I was really buying for my main strat... :lol:
Cary - sounds to me like, although you've got no AB clips, you've got your answer: distinctive sounds. When I ordered mine, it was a compromise choice - pure woody strat tone of MMs or the slightly extra push, but still "vintage", from the ITs.
Don't let me put you off ITs - at the time, I needed the slightly extra push more, so that's what I chose...
I've since got into teles - and two teles with blackguards do the slightly extra push job rather well, so I'm starting to crave the "pure woody strat tone"... the ITs give me a very good approximation, but I've got that "maybe the grass is greener elsewhere" craving going on at the moment :lol:
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Actually, I was just thinking - Tim's apparently working on a new 62 set.
If I was you (or possibly I might even be doing it myself by the sound of it!) I'd be asking him about those if I was dithering between MMs and ITs...
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Mother's Milks didn't work as well as Apaches in my JV - the midrange of the basswood drowned the flavour of the MMs - I bought a MIM Classic 60s in the Sound Control liquidation (£125 due to a broken nut, a missing tuner and a snapped trem arm and a few chips) - It weighs a ton compared to the JV and am not sure its all that resonant but it has really brought the Milks to life.
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Actually, I was just thinking - Tim's apparently working on a new 62 set.
If I was you (or possibly I might even be doing it myself by the sound of it!) I'd be asking him about those if I was dithering between MMs and ITs...
Yeah, the new '62 set must be worthy of consideration!
Just thinking about it, I potentially have 4 or 5 Strats to buy pickups for, if I ever get round to assembling all these Warmoth bits.... already have VHII/IT/IT for one, I was thinking maybe Emerald/MM/MM for another, maybe Sultans for the R. Cray Strat - perhaps I should get the '62s instead....
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IT's Gritty and fat.
Mothers Milk woody and lean
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Well, I've got home from work and re-assured myself.
The ITs might well be "fat" in comparison to MMs (I don't really know, to be honest), but my ITs sound plenty stratty and clear for my liking. And actually, if I had "leaner", it would be nice sometimes, but I'd be hankering after more mids most of the time :D
We're back down to DEFCON 3 (GASCON?) from DEFCON 2 on the GAS-o-meter here in Tooting :lol:
You had me going there for a while with that earlier post gwem :D
tried a rosewood board strat with mothers milks last night and the tone was glorious. its the mythical woody strat tone.
EDIT: I know I'll end up with them in a guitar one day - but it's no emergency "must have" :lol:
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I've got a set of the custom '62 pickups waiting to go into my '62 ReIssue strat. They're going in this Sunday and I'll pick the guitar back up from my luthier the following weekend. I know a week is a long time to wait, but I'll be posting with my experiences just as soon as I get it back. The guitar needs a full setup and such like, hence the trip to the luthier. My post on a very similar subject line:
http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=18234.0
I was toying between the Apache set and the Mother's Milk set. After talking to Tim he suggested the custom '62 set. Very glad I spoke to him!
Simon
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i don't know if i would say the mother's milks have a 'lean' tone: the notes are well rounded and land on the ears well. the sound seems to hang in the air after a note as rung out. its ideal for emotional playing, and working really well with a rosewood board. the mids are woody and characterful, but aren't prominent. Overall the frequencies are very balanced. the neutral eq works well with an amp, since its ideal to dial in a funky tone, hank marvin sort of sound, reggae or whatever. the tone is rich enough not to need drive, but if you want edgy blues with a touch of drive then this works very well. hard rock would be a possibility, but i'm not sure i'd want to go heavier (then again, maybe with a base plate).
frankly i'm tempted by a set of mother's milks. my slowhands are great for the heavier side of things i normally play - and they clearly sound very stratty, but with fat thickness - they beg to be overdriven and made to play dramatic leads.
but the mothers milks gave the amazing typical strat tone we heard on 100s of recordings. they are balanced and mild, but with enough balls there if you need it. i never normally play clean, but i could have played clean all day on that mother's milk strat.
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AGGHH! Shut up gwem!! :lol:
Actually though, I've just been experimenting with my amp models. My favourites have been "set in stone" for quite some time now, but my new SG has been sounding very middy on some of them. I've just been dialling off 2 or 3 on the mids (this is a JTM45 type model) - and it's sounding much better to my ears, and... the strat is sounding heavenly :D
(Still, like you, tempted by Mother's Milks :roll:)
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Actually though, I've just been experimenting with my amp models. My favourites have been "set in stone" for quite some time now, but my new SG has been sounding very middy on some of them.
You're always going to get that difference with single-coils versus humbuckers, though, aren't you? I mess about with the preset tones on my Pod XT and some of them sound great with SCs and horrific with HBs - and vice versa. And there are some which only work with P-90s.
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Kind of, yes, I agree, and especially on the XT (I didn't know you had one!). But on my tonelab I'm getting more of the just cooking sounds I want, and I've managed to build some patches where I can plug any guitar in and get that guitar's character. Some patches just won't work for certain guitars though. It's mainly my Dano... all my BKP equiped guitars can make a reasonable fist of most of my favourite patches - the Dano is just a shrill b1tch unless I set an amp up for her specifically :lol:
But that isn't quite what I meant in this case - I was adjusting the patch (I've saved it now, I was so impressed!) for the strat, as an experiment, and it gave me a more "woody mythical etc" tone... and then I thought "I wonder...".
So I plugged the SG in and it sounded equally heavenly. I predict the Mule'd Tokai will also benefit, the tele's might not push into overdrive as much as they did, but the MQ'd Explorer might suffer a bit through this patch now (it's the fattest/hottest guitar I have).
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Kind of, yes, I agree, and especially on the XT (I didn't know you had one!).
'Fraid so. I don't hate it as much as some seem to, it's OK really.
Most of the time I play unplugged(!), so I've got a reasonably finely-turned ear for the acoustic differences between electric guitars.... not sure if that's a useful thing or not. :?
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Hi Guys,
Thanks for all the interest and input, its been incredibly helpful. Its good to hear a range of different ideas, but there is definitely a theme there - sounds like the MM and IT deliver distinct sounds and a decision will need to be made between the 2!! I am still moving between them, one week MM, one week ITs!! Its good to know about the impending 62's too as sounds like another option there - thanks for that.
Best wishes Cary
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Just in case you haven't spotted this in seconds out:
http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=18449.0 (http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=18449.0)
Might swing things? :lol:
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Andy mothers milk for me have got to be the yardbirds of tele caster pickup. Absolutly superb from a woody sweet right up to a great overdriven rock tone. I have tried some irish tours and slowhands they are both nice but for me mothers milk just blow them away.
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Now that is a good reference for me - and I had indeed been wondering whether yardbirds on teles equated with mother's milks on strats.
Before I'd got the yardbirds, it wouldn't have helped me, because I was kind of expecting a thin/bright thing from them. But I was VERY pleasantly surprised to find that although I could get thin/bright if I wanted, they're complete all-rounders, very sweet but still able to rock.
Interestingly, putting it that way, for me it means that I've got the right strat pickups in Irish Tours - that's a relief :lol:
It would be nice to have a second strat with MMs, but given I have the yardbirds tele for all-rounder single-coil duties, songwriting, general guitar parts on recordings, etc... I want my strat to be like it is - slightly harder, still sweet, but more of a kick to it :)
I guess that way of looking at it might help you as well, Cary?