Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: Richie on May 27, 2012, 04:38:02 PM
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Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum but been a Bare Knuckle user for ages. Having gradually developed my style of playing into what I would tentatively describe as "post-metal" (I'll go into more detail shortly), I've recently decided it's time for a change of pickups. Although I definitely want to stick with Bare Knuckles, I'm not sure exactly what I'm after, so any advice from you guys would be appreciated.
First off, I'm definitely not a shredder. When I say "post-metal", I refer to generally more slow and deliberate heavy riff-oriented playing like Isis, Tool, Porcupine Tree, or perhaps more recent Mastodon or the odd bit by Opeth. Generally drop-tuned, very punchy high-gain tones. At the same time I'm a big lover of really open, vintage single-coil cleans like those you find on records by John Frusciante, Jeff Buckley, Mogwai or Explosions In The Sky, particularly neck pickup tones.
At the moment my setup is, and has been for quite some time now, a 2002 Gibson SG special (one of the rarer ones with the ebony fretboard and "crescent moon" inlays), which has a BK RiffRaff in the bridge (wired straight humbucker, 1 vol/ 1 tone), and a Lace Dually gold/gold in the neck (which I've wired with a stacked spin-a-split volume pot to get truer strat tones from it). The first pedal the guitar hits is a Made By Mike Saltbooster+ (modded LPB1 clone) which is always on just giving a slight boost. All my gain I get from various pedals, the most "metal" one being a T-Rex Bloody Mary. My amp is a '72 Selmer Treble 'N' Bass 50R SV, which obviously isn't a high gain amp but it gives incredible deep cleans and handles dirt pedals tremendously. Think a kind of Marshall/ Vox/ Hiwatt hybrid.
While I really like the overall tone of the RiffRaff, I don't feel like it has enough "shove" for the kinds of heavier tones I'm after now, and with more complex chords some of the nuance tends to get a bit lost with the gain up. The Lace Dually just kind of alternates between being a mediocre PAF or mediocre strat single coil clone, not much life to it, so ideally I'd like a humbucker there that splits really well and gives a lovely woody strat neck tone while being able to keep up with whatever I have in the bridge.
That's the sitch anyway, sorry for the essay, just figured it'd help to give as much info as I can so as to get the best advice!
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Maybe you should have a look at the new Black Hawk pickup. It's supposed to work well for metal as well as other styles. I don't know if it can pull off some single-like tones though. The VHII neck is often described as having a single coil like quality to its tone and somewhere in the players section there's a clip of a Nailbomb neck (or set) in parallel that gives a quite convincing strat-like tone.
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Yeah I looked at the demo vid for the Black Hawks, I don't think they're a million miles from what I'm after but it's whether they can be split effectively for the single coil tones that I'm worried about. Plus, part of me isn't really keen on the look of them. Then again the Lace Dually isn't exactly pretty either and I've been putting up with that for years...
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the riff raff is the clearest sounding humbucker I've ever played, specially on complex chords under high gain
I'm not sure what to recommend :?
a higher output bucker will hardly sound clearer on chords, and the lower output models have softer sounding magnets
maybe you could mod your amp or try other pedals
speakers and tubes matter as well
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SG: RiffRaff + booster.
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Well... I think I recommend the Cold Sweat bridge and VHII neck for that.
The VHII splits amazingly and sounds very clear and the Cold sweat should be very close to what your looking for for the metal sounds. It won't sound like a proper single coil when split because of the ceramic magnet but you could think of it the othe way round and say "hey... I've got the most unique sounding single coil anyone has heard".
I've never tried to could split a ceramic pickup but the the more I think about it now the more it interests me.
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Cheers to Telerocker there for summing up the setup I already have and want to change. :P
Eric, it's not so much a clarity issue I have with the RiffRaff, maybe I've worded it wrong. See most of the time the guitar is tuned to drop B so, really I'm mainly looking for something with heftier bass response and more power overall. If I can retain the kind of clarity I have though it'd be a real bonus.
As for valves, speakers etc, the amp's got all original Mullards and Brimars in the preamp and Groove Tubes EL34Ms in the power section. It gets run through a Zilla Modern 2x12 fitted with Celestion Rock Driver Pros (bit of a weird model I managed to get cheap, made in England in the 90s for Hughes & Kettner, 80w but similar tonally to a V30). I had actually considered modding the amp though; there's footswitchable reverb on one of the channels that I never use (I have a digital reverb pedal already), which is driven by its own ecc83, so I could probably remove the spring tank and turn it into an extra gain stage somehow.
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Well... I think I recommend the Cold Sweat bridge and VHII neck for that.
The VHII splits amazingly and sounds very clear and the Cold sweat should be very close to what your looking for for the metal sounds. It won't sound like a proper single coil when split because of the ceramic magnet but you could think of it the othe way round and say "hey... I've got the most unique sounding single coil anyone has heard".
I've never tried to could split a ceramic pickup but the the more I think about it now the more it interests me.
I had actually just been looking at Cold Sweats! I don't see why you couldn't split them, I've seen Telecaster bridge pickups that had a ceramic bar magnet and the bridge pickup in my other guitar (Fender Jaguar, Vintage Vibe JG90) has a ceramic magnet in it too. I never actually heard the tele in question but I'm happy with the sound of the Jaguar.
It's food for thought anyway, cheers. :)
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Sorry I just overlooked that one. A bit toooo fast. I would not look in the vintagehotrange cause SG and alnico mediumoutput pickups are usually not a happy couple. I think you might want to consider the ceramic Nailbomb.
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That seems to be a common problem with the Gibson SG. They don't gel with the medium pickups. I wonder could anybody from BKP chime in on this. Interesting to hear their views. :o
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Oh really? In my mind the reference material for a vintage hot pickup would be a Gibson T-Top or similar so I would've expected them to be decent bedfellows with SGs. Why don't they get along exactly?
I actually emailed Tim ages ago proposing a similar brief but while I was playing stuff more akin to Soundgarden and Alice In Chains. He recommended a calibrated Holydiver set for that but I never got round to getting them, and my rig and playing style have both changed since so I don't know if they would still suit...
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I'm a bit confused by Tim's HD recommendation. It's midranged focussed and has a warm topend. Maybe. compared to the Nailbomb. leaner bass had something to do with it.
Here's a quote from Tim himself
''I always recommend trying to keep the output low on SG's as medium output pickups mud out with all that mahogany, hence my Riff Raff suggestion.A high gainer like a Warpig sounds good and so does a Miracle Man as both have more than enough power to really drive through timber.Funnily enough I fitted a Stormy Monday to a friends SG and that sounded really nice too......quite a surprise but it chunked up really well into an overdriven Marshall.
The ones to avoid are the medium output humbuckers as they simply seem to add to the bottom end of the mahogany.So I wouldn't bother with VHII,Emerald, Crawler or even a Nailbomb as that's got a big bass response too even though it's quite high gain.''
I wouldn't totally dismiss it but my experience of SG's is the bottom end blooms up quite a bit with certain pickups and the Nailbomb has a lot of bottom and mid range both inherent in an SG.Some SGs will take a Nailbomb perfectly well if they're very bright but on the whole I've found that sub DC8.5K humbuckers sound fantastic,Alnico V powered humbuckers in particular the closer you get to DC8.5K so in this instance if a customer wanted a Mule I'd go with AV over AIV.A Stormy Monday, because the wind is lower and the tone more open, sounds great with AIV.
At the other end of the scale, the high gainers like Miracle Man which is ceramic powered work well as the magnet controls the bass response or Warpig are excellent.Both of these are wound with a very fine gauge wire which keeps the coil size small.........the smaller coil footprint under the strings keeps the tone more focused.
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I think the Holydiver recommendation was based mainly on me wanting the neck pickup to ape John Frusciante's tone when split. I can't rightly remember now, this was literally years ago and it'd take forever to find it, if I haven't already deleted it. Though it may also have had something to do with, and one thing you have to keep in mind is that like I said, this particular SG has an ebony fretboard so it's got a fair bit more snap and bite to it than a regular SG.
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Have you considered trying a humbucker-sized P90 in the neck? If you're after a classic single-coil tone you're always going to struggle with a split humbucker because the coils are so small. I think you'd find the Mississippi Queen to be an excellent choice for all of the sounds you've described.
As for the bridge spot I would actually recommend the Nailbomb, despite the fact it's normally advised against for an SG. The Riff Raff you already have would be closest to the T-top you described, but if you are after more low end and power without moving away from that more classic midrange voicing, the Nailbomb fits the bill perfectly. You could also consider the Rebel Yell - it has a brighter, leaner sound than the Nailbomb (they are very closely related in spec), though still noticeably meatier than the Riff Raff.
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Would the Rebel Yell not be a tad too bright in the SG?
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I still think you shouldn't mess with the riff raff
the rockdriver isn't as clear as the celestion higher level line by far
you don't need necessarily v30's
classic 80's and g12h's sound pretty clear, for example
greenbacks a little smoother
if you want a tighter low end from the guitar, best experience I had was with a 1980 maxon 6 band equalizer (same as the ibanez version)
an old mxr would do
I used it as a mid booster and cutting a bit of the lower bass (in front of the amp, right after the wah)
if you don't go wild on the boosted frequencies, it will retain all the clarity and keep your low end controlled
tried the slightly scooped setting like Adam Jones too, and sounds pretty good too, quite crunchy and open
lots of possible settings with different results and won't grind your midrange like a tube screamer would do
tubes can make quite noticeable difference, even if you have good ones already
some sound more aggressive and dry, others are round but gainy and compressed, others are soft but clear
I like the compression of rft's in the preamp
shuguangs sound great, but are too gainy and sometimes noisy
JJ's are supposedly higher gain, but tend to sound clean and darkish
electro-harmonix and sovtek are quite well balanced but lack character
in the power, the svetlana winged C was the clearest EL34 I tried
the shuguangs sound a bit darker and are quite compressed (in a good way, if that's what you want)
I really don't think you should swap that pickup, at least until you improve all the other variables
my first though was nailbomb too, considering the bands you mentioned, but not for your guitar
anyway, the riff raff is still much clearer on distorted chords, although they have somewhat similar voicings (cutting edge, flat paf-like mids, punchy bass)
the nailbomb is a lot more aggressive and low mid heavy
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I really don't think you should swap that pickup, at least until you improve all the other variables
I hope that word was used for lack of a better one!
As it stands, I'm quite happy with the sound from the speakers, though they were a stand-in purchase for a set of early 70s G12H blackbacks that are currently sat on a shelf in my bedroom 'cause my brother decided to play bass through them and buggered them. Never got round to getting them fixed (I know I really should). I don't know where you get that the Rockdrivers aren't very clear though 'cause that's the quality I find to be best in them, and I much prefer the headroom they give than speakers with lower power handling. Eventually I'll get the blackbacks fixed and A/B them (or more likely just through all 4 speakers in a 4x12) but really I feel I was lucky to get hold of the Rockdrivers when I did.
In terms of tubes, I've tried all sorts in the preamp and just settled back into using the originals that the amp came with because nothing else was nearly as complex and pleasant to my ear. The amp came with JJs in the power section, personally I found them to add an unpleasant harshness. All upper mids. The Groove Tubes have proven a good all rounder in every amp I've used them in but I'll admit I've never tried Svetlanas or Shuguangs so perhaps I'll look into those.
I've tried EQ pedals in the past but steered away from them, having been through a few and come up against serious noise issues with all of them.
Again, it isn't an issue of clarity as such, I'd just like something that can throw down harder and put more low end out there. General consensus seems to be leaning toward Nailbombs at the moment, and I have to say I'm intrigued by the idea.
Have you considered trying a humbucker-sized P90 in the neck? If you're after a classic single-coil tone you're always going to struggle with a split humbucker because the coils are so small. I think you'd find the Mississippi Queen to be an excellent choice for all of the sounds you've described.
Would a P90 not be a bit too fat for the type of tones I'm after? I'm talking really spangly Fender-type cleans. I've got a P90 in another guitar and that struggles somewhat to get that glassy character, y'know? Might be worth thinking about though...
I feel like I've started quite a discussion here, it's given me a lot to think about before jumping into a purchase! I'm grateful for that too - most other forums I've been on you'll get like one or two people posting just with the same simply answer that they read somewhere else. Much prefer to chew the fat with people who know what they're talking about before making decision. :)
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Would the Rebel Yell not be a tad too bright in the SG?
Certainly not any brighter than a Riff Raff.
I don't think it's got any more weight in the bass than a Riff Raff, though, but the extra power might help give the "meatier" sound Nolly suggested. The most noticeable feature of the Rebel Yell is that upper mids thing it has going on - not sure if that's quite what Richie is after?
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Well, a fair few people had recommended the Nailbomb and an Alnico bridge model just popped up on ebay quite cheap so I thought "sod it" pulled the trigger. Worst comes to worst, I'll just put the RiffRaff back in and put the Nailbomb back on ebay. I'll post again once I've got it and let everyone know what I think. :)
It's an uncovered black one with aged coils, by the way. Should look pretty classy!
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I really don't think you should swap that pickup, at least until you improve all the other variables
I hope that word was used for lack of a better one!
As it stands, I'm quite happy with the sound from the speakers, though they were a stand-in purchase for a set of early 70s G12H blackbacks that are currently sat on a shelf in my bedroom 'cause my brother decided to play bass through them and buggered them. Never got round to getting them fixed (I know I really should). I don't know where you get that the Rockdrivers aren't very clear though 'cause that's the quality I find to be best in them, and I much prefer the headroom they give than speakers with lower power handling. Eventually I'll get the blackbacks fixed and A/B them (or more likely just through all 4 speakers in a 4x12) but really I feel I was lucky to get hold of the Rockdrivers when I did.
In terms of tubes, I've tried all sorts in the preamp and just settled back into using the originals that the amp came with because nothing else was nearly as complex and pleasant to my ear. The amp came with JJs in the power section, personally I found them to add an unpleasant harshness. All upper mids. The Groove Tubes have proven a good all rounder in every amp I've used them in but I'll admit I've never tried Svetlanas or Shuguangs so perhaps I'll look into those.
I've tried EQ pedals in the past but steered away from them, having been through a few and come up against serious noise issues with all of them.
Again, it isn't an issue of clarity as such, I'd just like something that can throw down harder and put more low end out there. General consensus seems to be leaning toward Nailbombs at the moment, and I have to say I'm intrigued by the idea.
Have you considered trying a humbucker-sized P90 in the neck? If you're after a classic single-coil tone you're always going to struggle with a split humbucker because the coils are so small. I think you'd find the Mississippi Queen to be an excellent choice for all of the sounds you've described.
Would a P90 not be a bit too fat for the type of tones I'm after? I'm talking really spangly Fender-type cleans. I've got a P90 in another guitar and that struggles somewhat to get that glassy character, y'know? Might be worth thinking about though...
I feel like I've started quite a discussion here, it's given me a lot to think about before jumping into a purchase! I'm grateful for that too - most other forums I've been on you'll get like one or two people posting just with the same simply answer that they read somewhere else. Much prefer to chew the fat with people who know what they're talking about before making decision. :)
by improving, I meant towards your objectives
a pair of celestion black shadows and a proper eq would do that easily (just an example)
punchier low mids, clearer mids from the speakers, tighter low end from the eq
yeah, boosting with equalizers can make things pretty noisy
the more frequencies you push, more noisy it gets, so I had to go easy on settings
I use a hush pedal, so it wasn't a big deal
with the riff raff (in a 70's les paul custom) I just boosted the mids a bit and cut some bass out
the noise was barely audible, unless I went overkill on settings
but, yes the nailbomb will deliver the extra oomph, without losing all the toneprint of the riff raff, but might compromise clarity (compared to the riff raff), for such low tuning and guitar combination
might be worth the experience even if you don't like it (didn't work for me in the les paul custom exactly cause I need the chords clarity under gain and greater dynamics)
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Well, a fair few people had recommended the Nailbomb and an Alnico bridge model just popped up on ebay quite cheap so I thought "sod it" pulled the trigger. Worst comes to worst, I'll just put the RiffRaff back in and put the Nailbomb back on ebay. I'll post again once I've got it and let everyone know what I think. :)
It's an uncovered black one with aged coils, by the way. Should look pretty classy!
nice! :D
never lose an oportunity with BKPs
you'll always end up buying more guitars for them
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Well, a fair few people had recommended the Nailbomb and an Alnico bridge model just popped up on ebay quite cheap so I thought "sod it" pulled the trigger. Worst comes to worst, I'll just put the RiffRaff back in and put the Nailbomb back on ebay. I'll post again once I've got it and let everyone know what I think. :)
It's an uncovered black one with aged coils, by the way. Should look pretty classy!
nice! :D
never lose an oportunity with BKPs
you'll always end up buying more guitars for them
Haha, cheers, tru dat. I'm actually planning on putting some money down soon on '78 Les Paul Custom my ex has. The last time it was out of its case was when I cleaned and set it up for her in Christmas 2009, so I figure if she's not using then I'll be damned if I don't go for it. It's got some early 80s Dimarzios in it I think, definitely not the originals, but either way they're outta there when that thing's mine. 8)
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Sounds like a good situation then, I'll be interested to hear how the Nailbomb works for you.
As far as the P90 neck goes, yes it's going to be a bit girthier than your average Fender-y single coil sound. Personally I find that tone more usable than a split humbucker though, which tend to be somewhat anaemic to my ears.
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Disappointing news - the seller decided to wait until the next day to let me know that the pickup is in fact 52mm spaced, not 50mm. While I'm assured it wouldn't make a massive difference I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to this sort of thing and as such cancelled and got a refund. Nailbombs are gonna have to wait I think. :(
At least now though I'm set on what I'm after and I think I would've done better to get them in a calibrated set anyways, so as and when funds permit, that's what's happening. Cheers to everyone for their input. :)
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isn't your stock bridge around 51mm?
the stock 490t is 52mm
a 50mm bkp is actually 49.2mm, I think
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I was under the impression that the wider spacing was for trem bridges etc? The RiffRaff I have is 50mm anyways and that's spaced perfectly for my bridge so I'd rather keep things that way if I can.