Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: bcjames on November 17, 2005, 03:42:16 PM
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Hey all.
Up at Music Live I was fortunate enough to walk by the BKP stand and stop to have a look.
I'm not sure who I spoke to there, but the member of staff spent a good 10mins with me, just talking about the pickups, what might work for me etc, before letting me try some out. Its great to get service like that. The demo rig was awesome, and ofcourse the pickups were good enough for me to buy one on merit of that trial alone.
Some not very good pics:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/bcjames/lpandorange.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/bcjames/mulebackwards.jpg)
They were installed by a reputably guitar tech here in Cardiff, but he put it in backwards :? Anyway, he did a great job of it, and it still sounds incredible, so i'm in no rush to sort it untill my next string change in a couple of weeks.
This really bought my Gibson to life. Im slowly, as student loan permits :P, going to swap all my guitars over to BKPs, as I have never heard anything better.
Thanks again BKP!
James
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Damn, thats a nice guitar!
What type of Les Paul is it?
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Sweet. Nice LP too.
BKP's get you like that, you buy one or a set, and then you're hooked... :wink:
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Its a Classic. Not my main LP, my other one has some Gibson pickups still in there now, but I think this is my prefered one by far now!
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Its a Classic. Not my main LP, my other one has some Gibson pickups still in there now, but I think this is my prefered one by far now!
Yeah, how do you find the Classic? I have a studio, it's ok - putting new pickups (VHII) in it improved my opinion of it no end. I'm lusting after a more tradtitionally finished (i.e. sunburst) LP, and the classics seem to have come down to a fairly reasonable price. Any thoughts?
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My other one is a very early 90s one, before the greeny inlays. The quality is up with the Historics on it. This one is a 2004, its easily on par with a standard. The inlay colour doesnt bother me, and seen as I'd change the pickups in any Gibson, i'd rather get the cheaper Classic and spend the saving over a standard on pickups.
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what do you think of the mules? what kind of stuff do you play? i guess you're into the blues/rock vibe given your setup
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Yeah just like you said. I like quite heavy rock, the Rocker Oranges have quite a lot of gain, but I like a lot of lower gain stuff too. The guy I spoke to at music live recomended these as I said I like quite a high gain lead tone, then roll the volume back a bit on the guitar for a rhythtm sound, and further still for a cleanish/blusey one. I normally find a pickup is good for high/med/low, but not all, but this really does clean up nicely, and can easily easily handle some gain. Hence the DS1 atop the amp there.
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What are DS-1s like for boosting an allready overdriven tone? At the minute I'm using a TS7 with gain all the way down and level all the way up. Can get a bit muddy though..
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I don't really like it. It was all I could afford at the time when I needed a boost pedal, and it was only £30.
Id like a TS or maybe a SD1 when funds allow.
That said, some of my friends use this pedal to really really great effect. Its a bit of a marmite job, you either dig the sound or you dont.
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yeah, my laney was sounding pretty nice with the ds1 as a boost
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i've tried a ds1 through a marshall tsl, it just sort of sounds like instant steve vai (i.e. good, but trebly)
an sd-1 is instant zakk, IMO- i like that tone much better...
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i've tried a ds1 through a marshall tsl, it just sort of sounds like instant steve vai (i.e. good, but trebly)
an sd-1 is instant zakk, IMO- i like that tone much better...
Yeah thats how I'd describe it, its quite a smooth distortion, rather than a more organic sounding OD that i'd like.
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I know this is getting really off the orginal point - but what would you guys reccommend to just purely boost the gain of an overdriven JCM800, whilst not losing ANY of the character? Ben (twilightodyssey) reccommended to me the HBE Big D as THE ONE. I'm thinking more along the lines of a keeley SD-1 (Played a jcm800 with a keeley sd-1 at BKP stand at MusicLive, and it sounded great, and didn't eem to mess with the character of the amp that much - and that little bit it did was probably in a good way). I guess i kinda just answered my own question but does anybody have any better ideas?
Sweet Les Paul! shame about the pickguard holes! Why did you decide to take it off? I prefer the look of without i think. Shame they arent like *clip-on* or something like that to allow you to take them off without leaving holes!
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^yeah, i'm thinking about getting a keeley sd-1 to boost my new amp(probably engl savage or savage se), since i liked the boss sd-1's tone through a marshall, and keeley modded it can only sound better...
do you like zakk wylde's tone? cos that's basically what the (stock at least) sd-1 sounds like, boosting a marshall...
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The BKP demo rig was a non-Gibson Les Paul, and a ZW sig Marshall, with a Keeley SD1 between them. I really liked it, its more thunderous than the DS.
Theres countless 'boost' pedals out there, all slightly different. Its hard to draw to conclusion on a single one.
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That Les Paul was a Morgan guitar...very nice it was too! Glad you Like The Mule!
Hayden
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To chime in on the pedal arena...
The BigD is miles away from an SD1, DS1, Badmonkey, for what it does. I tried all 4 with an LP and a Laney LC30II, and the BigD was the most transparent of all, sounding amp-like as well, and it was super silent (with respect to hiss). Having said that, it is too loud (which is not bad), and i find myself with buzzing ears frequently as i approach the amp for tweaking... the Gotoh pups are squealing like pigs with the BigD on.