Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: johndou on July 08, 2014, 09:54:31 AM
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People of the forum... a question from the gallery, if someone would be so kind as to help me in the right direction here.
I've decided to install BKPs into a recently acquired PRS Mushok.
The biggest problem so far... has been to make up my mind. Initially I veered towards a Warpig. Then went on to Aftermath. Then Nailbomb. Then Painkiller. In short, I'm still undecided.
I've searched around on this forum, and there seems to be a number of pickups suggestions for this guitar that seem to gravitate either towards the Black Dog or the Painkiller.
Kind of hesitant to tell people, "I'm looking for band X's sound", because there are many, many other variables that contribute to my favourite guitar sounds (and there are many of them) - the players, amps and rooms probably more so than the pickups themselves.
Keeping that in mind... I like heavy music, but I dislike the sterile overgained square wave signals that litter modern 'heavy' recordings. I don't like the sound bands get from their Axe FX's... probably less to do with the Axe FXs than the tonal preferences of the players themselves (no offense to Misha or his signature model if he's reading this). I've played with active EMGs for long enough to know that I don't like the lack of dynamics of that particular pickup.
So... what I'm looking for... something that sounds good in a baritone, but is still conscious of the fact that the guitar is inherently a midrange instrument. One man's 'heavy' might be scooped, mine is high gain sounds with that kind of throaty mid grind... think Lateralus-era Tool or Yob's Illusion of Motion album.
I've narrowed it down to two choices...
a) The Black Dog, because it's more midrange heavy than the pickups voiced towards more modern tones. The pickup sound much more present to me on the modern metal BKP demos.
b) Not an obvious choice for heavy stuff, but the Rebel Yell. the demos has a rhythm guitar on there, not downtuned or anything (the Rebel yell Heavy demo), but it GRINDS in the midrange like nothing else. A potential problem with this pickup... will it be suitable for a baritone? Am I going to lose the essence of this thing with a baritone kept in dropped A and a bit more gain?
So there... I'd be very appreciative of your inputs.
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Both choices are very good for a baritone guitar due to the tight low end that both the BD and RY have. Given that a baritone has a lot of natural output due to the increased string mass and lower pitch I would go with the lower output pickup, i.e. the Black Dog.
Cheers Stephan
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I would also consider the Emerald bridge pickup as an alternative to the Rebel Yell.
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Thank you for the replies!
Well, if both of them do well in a baritone... and I do use my neck PU for rhythms as well... maybe I should get a matched pair - BD in the bridge and RY in the neck.
Do you think these two are matched well-enough for that?
Will definitely check out the Emerald as well.