Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: alendon on March 09, 2010, 10:22:28 AM
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Hi folks
going to treat my us standard tele (alder body,rosewood board) to a set of bk's tele pu's.
Looking for trad tele tones (with a little more roundness) + a bit more grind with a tube screamer when needed.
I was considering the brown sugars or country boys.
I'm running into a Marshall jvm2 half stack using the plexiish channel (clean orange for those in the know!)
as always your comments are greatly appreciated :D
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Hi, although I love the name, I've not looked into Brown Sugars too much myself (I plumped straight for Blackguard 50s for Maple/Maple and Yardbirds for 60s Alder/Rosewood!).
However, I have heard Brown Sugars recommended for "Jimmy Page in Led Zeppelin" tele tones. So I've got the feeling you're barking up the right tree on this.
From the clips I've heard, if you'd said "more roundness" without mentioning a pickup name, I'd have gone "Country Boys!" without even thinking :lol:
Do consider the Blackguard 50s though - I have a feeling you might like those as well. I've only have my BG sets in maple/maple, but I understand others have them in alder/rosewood and are getting what they want :D
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Do consider the Blackguard 50s though - I have a feeling you might like those as well. I've only have my BG sets in maple/maple, but I understand others have them in alder/rosewood and are getting what they want :D
Someone mentioned my name ?-)
I don't know if I'd label my BGF50s as "round" :mrgreen: - they are first and before all very raw sounding pups, even on an alber/rosewood Tele. But still, the bridge is usable even without rolling off the trebles, and the neck has amazingly beautiful woody, wooly, fluid, warm yet very clear tones. And both are as "trad" Tele sounding as possible - and do early Page tones with much authority. Do anything from blues to 50's rock'n'roll to classic rock to early hard rock to punk-rock, in fact. Just awesome. But "rounded", err... no.
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I am facing pretty much the same decision - did you get the Brown Sugars ?
Anyone else ???
Cheers,
Andy
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The brown sugar bridge is instant Keith - through a valve amp with a cruchy tone you will nail the tone the pickup is named after (or the opening tones to Start Me Up). It is quite a raw tone, but it mates up really nicely with the mini humbucker I have in the neck.
For rounded tones (I'm thinking Jimmy Page or Dave Gilmour [from his original solo album]), the Yardbirds come to mind. They nail the tone that my 62 tele pickups give.
I always associate Country Boys with the twangier tele tones.
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Thanks - hmm - maybe it's Yardbird I want then... I play a fair bit of Pink FLoyd and Led Zep as well as blues...
It's ridiculously difficult to decide which to go for !!!!
Cheers,
Andy
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hi, i can't see brown sugars being more rounded than the bg50's as they're alnico v but overwound.had the same
dilemma myself when choosing.roundness would steer me also to country boys or yardbirds.the country boys can rock,theres an excellent clip on the players section after a long rythymn where there's a lovely solo.baldes track
also shows off the yardbirds(AIV) well but it's mostly clean.
the blackguards do it all, full of character overdriven, here's my attempt,pick up full out, no treble roll off, as it comes out of the amp
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Sounds great - is that the BG50s ? If so, I may be swinging right round again and back to the BG50s - just been reading *all* the tele threads - there does seem to be a consensus for the BG50s for generally everything !!!
Cheers,
Andy
(Still confused)
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it's the BG50's flatpole, unerdulterated,through an engl screamer with a little delay, unmixed , recorded with a tascam field recorder.
i too chose them after the overwhelming thumbs up given on all the tele threads, i went through loads of them and
of course roy fultons superb demo/sticky.this didn't feature the neck pup much though.the opening of the solo on
my clip is pure neck.
i've another clip of the neck clean in players section(telestroking)
this is a great set clean, crunch or overdriven, i don't find them too 'sharp' despite having a maple board and a bright amp.
full of character
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sounds like you want a hard rocking tele set, but very much with the ability to have the full traditional twang and so on of a lightly driven/clean tele?
if i'm right, i'd take the BG50s
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Umm - pretty much :-)
It's looking like the Flat BG50s are the way to go - it's really hard to argue with the overwhelmingly positive opinions from virtually everyone about the BG50s....
I'll be playing them with a rosewood board (Warmoth neck/MIM body) and through a Marshall or a home-made single-ended EL84 British-voiced valve amp...
Thanks everyone...
Cheers,
Andy
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I think the BG50's flatpole are one of the best telepickups. They're dynamic and have enough juice to drive an amp and still retain that fat, round telesound. Kind of raw on the bridge, but hey that what Tele's are for. I use a strat for the bell-type of tones.
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Well - just ordered the BG flat 50s after the advice here and speaking with Tim.... :D
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Congratulations. Hope you find your tone with them. I think you will. All BKP have some magic about them...
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Thought I ought to add an update: nice ! I'm liking them a lot...
Cheers,
Andy
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Thought I ought to add an update: nice ! I'm liking them a lot...
Thanks for sharing. I'm sorry I missed your questions on this thread else I would have told you to get a 4way switch too - it's a great mod, and works really fine with the BFG50s...
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Thanks - I did get a 4-way switch anyway ! As you say - it works really well - I really love it....
Cheers,
Andy
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:D
Nice to hear it's worked out. I've been very pre-occupied with strats for a while, but I recently got my Baja with Blackguards out and plugged it in - WOW! What have I been missing! :lol:
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Thanks - I did get a 4-way switch anyway ! As you say - it works really well - I really love it....
8)
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Yeah - I'm very glad I went for Blackguards - they are exactly the sound I wanted (in fact even more so - if that makes sense :-) ).
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Yep, that makes sense to me (and I'm guessing to other Blackguard owners as well). I didn't really know what the sound I wanted was, I wasn't even sure that it was possible, mebbe it was this mythical "tele" sound I'd gathered from various records over the years... but the moment I plugged the guitar in after fitting them it was... yeah, that's it... :D
I've just experienced a similar thing fitting Apaches to a Roadworn 50s strat. They weren't the obvious pickup choice for me, but they just seemed the obvious set to get for that particular guitar. And when I plugged it in it was "where have you been all my life!!... and why wasn't I looking for you?" :lol:
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Yep, that makes sense to me (and I'm guessing to other Blackguard owners as well). I didn't really know what the sound I wanted was, I wasn't even sure that it was possible, mebbe it was this mythical "tele" sound I'd gathered from various records over the years... but the moment I plugged the guitar in after fitting them it was... yeah, that's it... :D
Yeps, "that's it" - and "even more" :lol:
@forestcaver: FWIW, take some time fiddling with pups height - yeah, kinda painfull for the neck but it's really worth the pain, as there are quite a few different sweet spots to be found.
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Thanks - I really do need to spend some time fiddling with it - I have spent most of the time making it playable (it's a parts-tele-caster) rather than playing with the pickup height (and then playing it) - I got them very quickly to where they made a nice sound and didnt adjust it any more - I really should experiment :-)
Thanks all - they really are something special ! (They're pretty expensive but definitely worth it - I'd buy them again in an instant).
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Glad you're happy with the BG50's. They are awesome.