Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: xylophoneichel on February 10, 2011, 11:42:22 PM
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Hey guys!
I got my new Gibson Explorer for two weeks now and I love how it looks, I love how it feels and I quite like how it sounds, but don't love it.
So I'm thinking of changing the pups, but instead of putting again EMGs in one of my guitars I want to try something new and that's why I'm here, obviously.
I'm a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of different available BKS humbuckers, so I really hope you guys can help me.
As I said the guitar is a Gibson Explorer, mahogany body, glued mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard.
I mainly play 80s like stuff: Hard Rock, Rock, Heay Metal, Thrash Metal, with the main focus on Thrash.
AC/DC, Motörhead, Judas Priest, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, to mention some bands.
The guitar will nearly without exception be used for rhythms and mostly played in standard, maybe sometimes half-step-down or dropped C tuning.
So the bridge pick up will be played highly distorted and should deliver a very punchy, in-your-face sound with lots of attack in the mid/treble region.
I would also like to use the neck pick up for cleans only, so this one should be able to deliver a full, warm clean tone.
Right now I'm thinking of combining a Miracle Man or a ceramic Nailbomb on the bridge with a Black Dog on the neck, but I'm not really sure if that's the right combination for me.
I really hope you can help me and sorry for my horrible grammar, I'm from Germany and I sucked in English class back in the day.
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Im sure there are people on here that will give you much better advice on which pickups to get than i can, but i thought I'd just let you know that your English is pretty spot on!
The miracle man sounds like a good starting point for your bridge.
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The Miracle Man or the Ceramic Warpig.
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Miracle Man in the bridge and Mississippi queen in the neck!
I play pretty much exactly what you play with a mahogany RGA and have the above pickup combo and it works extremely well.
I also use the neck exclusively for cleans and some lead tones and it is without the doubt my favourite non active neck pickup for this purpose
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Thanks for that tip, I most likely gonne use the MM/P90-MQ combination, but I have one last question:
If I use two so different pick ups, isn't there going to be a huge difference in volume?
I really hate it when the neck pick up is far louder than the bridge one, which happens with my EMG 81/85 equipped guitar. I can't even use the middle position of the three-way-toggle, because the neck pup is so much louder that it barely makes any difference in just using the neck alone.
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painkiller
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painkiller
+1
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I have a Warpig/MQ combo in an Explorer and they blend really well. The MQ's have more output then you might think.
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the MQ balances perfectly well with the miracle man in my guitar. Theres no volume/output jump at all despite the 9k difference
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I like that someone else uses neck for cleans. Like yourself, all mahogany, Gibson V though. The Holy Diver in my neck has been one of the best things thats ever happened to my guitar. Beautiful cleans even through a high gain amp (volume knob down). Granted, its a little edgy even then, and bass strings can be trouble zone, but Medieval cleans to melt the heart.
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but Medieval cleans to melt the heart.
This is what im currently loving about my MQ neck.
I shall hopefully be posting a clip of my new song up later today to show this off!
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I shall hopefully be posting a clip of my new song up later today to show this off!
I would really appreciate that.
I have to say I'm not entirely convinced by the sound examples of the MQ that were uploaded at the "Players" section.
As far as I can tell from the clip on the main page (there seems to be no other examples around here?) the Stockholm goes for more into the direction I want my cleans to sound like, but its really hard to tell based on a 10 sec. sound clip.
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I shall hopefully be posting a clip of my new song up later today to show this off!
I would really appreciate that.
I have to say I'm not entirely convinced by the sound examples of the MQ that were uploaded at the "Players" section.
As far as I can tell from the clip on the main page (there seems to be no other examples around here?) the Stockholm goes for more into the direction I want my cleans to sound like, but its really hard to tell based on a 10 sec. sound clip.
If you search my posts i think i have uploaded a few clean clips of the MQ
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painkiller
+1,000,000
Miracle Man or C-Pig will be very dark in Mahogany. Painkiller rips in Mahogany.
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Interestingly enough - just for the heck of it I contacted BKP support and they recommended me either a cold sweat set or a c-bomb set. hmm
The C-bomb would be thicker while the CS set would have more mids.
painkiller
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The CS bridge doesn't have much by way of mids.
It is one of the most 'scooped' BKPs, perhaps second to the Miracle Man.
If you want strong mids, go for the Painkiller, A-Bomb, or Aftermath.
The Rebel Yell has great high mids and a tight bottom end, making it a good choice for Explorers.
I think the Cold Sweat could be nice, but you should expect it to sound scooped rather than middy. Explorers aren't especially middy guitars so it's not like putting a CS in an SG, where the scoop really helps due to the mid hump in SGs.