Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: darkandrew on August 17, 2014, 02:34:15 PM
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I'm after a pickup set to go in my Fender Showmaster (Basswood body, Maple set-neck, 25" / 24 fret Rosewood fretboard, Fender floating trem (ie. Not Floyd Rose), 5 way "Ibanez Style" switching) and I'm looking for something a bit heavier than the Mules and Rebel Yells that I have in my other guitars. The sound I'm leaning toward is something that might be categorized as Gothic/Death Metal (ie. Nefilim, Paradise Lost, etc).
eg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3IDP0xEDuU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocj4D1fnYaI
(from about 11 minutes in ... prog goth?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5xkzzQTWCE
I'm thinking Alnico Nailbomb, what do you think?
I should add that I currently have a Crawler set in there which, although being extremely versatile and surprising hot, has too much "roar" and not enough "bite" to be completely comfortable in this genre.
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Here is the nailbomb bridge in basswood, maple neck and rosewood board, tuned to Eb.
Heavily distorted boss ds -1x
blackstar ht studio20.
It sounds pretty close to me.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4zRVPaGQmzI
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Nailbomb has massive bite and hair. It's a really gritty, grimy, impolite, and huge sounding pickup. I'd think of it more as a thrash sort of a tone, like the Sepultura namesake. With the right amp, you'd probably get in the ballpark of what you want. Just be aware that there isn't so much bottom, which makes it suitable in a LP style guitar.
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Just be aware that there isn't so much bottom, which makes it suitable in a LP style guitar.
That's what I was worried about; as well as the bite, I'm also after a fair amount of "chunk". Although as MTS says above, his clip with the Nailbomb in a similar guitar is pretty much in the ball-park of what I'm looking for. What would recommend then in terms of a Nailbomb with a fuller bottom (?!).
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What are you running for an amp?
The Bare Knuckle guys recommended the A-Bomb for my Les Paul Standard but for my superstrat, (Floyd Rose / Maple neck / Soft maple and Poplar body) they recommended either a Holy Diver set or a Juggerset. What does the guitar sound like unplugged?
For my superstrat I put in a Juggerset. It's smoother and less raunchy than the Nailbomb and it will behave when you play nice but it can get pretty ferocious when necessary.
Ben told me that he thought a Nailbomb would be too thin in the bottom for a superstrat like my guitar but then again, the amp is just as important as the guitar. I don't think it's possible to run out of bottom with a Dual Recto.
For you, I'm almost tempted to suggest a Warpig in the bridge? Email BKP and see what they say. I'm guessing with that guitar, you'll hear Juggs, Holy Diver, Warpig, or maybe even Aftermath suggested. From what you're saying, a Holy Diver would probably be closest but with death metal, aftermath, juggernaut, or warpig comes to mind.
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I find the growl on the holy diver to be less gravelly and more finer than the nailbomb. Both are equally aggressive but the nailbomb has a more open rumbly growl as opossed to the tight snarl of the diver.
Its interesting to hear that the nb may loose some bottom in a super strat. It's definitely one of the basiest I own, the crawler being thickest.
But then I own all the same guitar types for all my bkps so I coukd not offer advice outside of those.
Also I believe I had my EQ set to 12 o'clock across the board for the vids I did and recorded on my phone so bass may be lacking because of those reasons.
T
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I find the growl on the holy diver to be less gravelly and more finer than the nailbomb. Both are equally aggressive but the nailbomb has a more open rumbly growl as opossed to the tight snarl of the diver.
Its interesting to hear that the nb may loose some bottom in a super strat. It's definitely one of the basiest I own, the crawler being thickest.
But then I own all the same guitar types for all my bkps so I coukd not offer advice outside of those.
Also I believe I had my EQ set to 12 o'clock across the board for the vids I did and recorded on my phone so bass may be lacking because of those reasons.
T
That was Ben that recommended against a Nailbomb in my Super Strat and that was his first recommendation for my Les Paul Standard.
When I have recorded, I find that the Juggerbridge has more bass in my super strat than the Nailbomb has in the Les Paul but part of that may be a string guage thing as well.
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the crawler being thickest.
The current Crawler is certainly quite "thick", that's one of the reasons it's in there. I used to have a Seymour Duncan Custom 5 in there - an extremely scooped pickup with loads of bottom but despite its huge bottom end, its lack of low mids actually made it sound surprisingly thin in this guitar. As has been stated earlier, although your clip sounds great I still have a nagging worry that the Nailbomb will also not have enough gut churning low mids and bottom end to balance its bite in this guitar. Conversely, I would expect the Warpig to have all the bottom end and low mids but not enough bite.
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Glad I could help with whichever you choose good sir.
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Glad I could help with whichever you choose good sir.
Yes, thanks for your help on this one. I had a good listen to it with the Crawlers in this evening and there really isn't anything even close to a bottom end coming out of the bridge pickup - it's all mids, so I'm still not sure if the Nailbombs are the answer, although I'm sure one day I'll get a set for one of my ESP Eclipses.
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Crawler bridge is supposed to be PHAT! The Juggernaut bridge is pretty huge sounding but some of that is the super strat I have it in, which has a bottom end to it. You seriously may want to consider an A Pig (for more mids) or a C Pig (for tighter lows and more cut in the hights).
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I suppose I could take advantage of its inherent tightness; put some "11s" on it and tune it down to D to give it some more low end grunt, then consider dropping in some Nailbombs, Aftermaths or Jugs?
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Heavier strings sound beefier for sure. The light top heavy bottom ones are great because you can still do bends for leads but they're nice and tight for percussive rhythm playing.
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Heavier strings sound beefier for sure. The light top heavy bottom ones are great because you can still do bends for leads but they're nice and tight for percussive rhythm playing.
That's what I use and the Nailbomb set in my Explorer sounds great in DGFCAD
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I'm sure i've seen that the guys from Paradise Lost use/have used aftermaths and black hawks and fields of nefilim used nailbombs.
I think an alnico black hawk set would be perfect. Its very aggressive and so is the nailbomb just in different ways.
The black hawk sounds like an active pickup but a little fuller and less tight. The nailbomb is raw with great string to string clarity and I think it has a ot of bottom end and is just on the warmer side.
I havent listened to any thing paradise lost have done in a while but if you want some thing which cuts with lots of bottom end for adding ambient fx on with such as reverbs, delays etc itll be perfect (the black hawk)
Ever played actives though and like them? It is like an active but not quite hard to explain without trying them your self. I like them
If you check the review thread ive reviewed both.
I must say im considering actives emg's again for my les paul had I gone for the black hawks first on my instincts before (Rather than the stock, duncan, di marzios and painkiller/cold sweat) I might not have had to but such is life! I like actives and passives both have their place.......
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I'm sure i've seen that the guys from Paradise Lost use/have used aftermaths and black hawks and fields of nefilim used nailbombs.
Ever played actives though and like them?
I know that Andy James who's been playing guitar with Fields of the Nephilim for a year or so now uses an EMG 57/66 set, which I happen to have in one my Eclipses. They're pretty good - quite balanced (the bridge isn't overly tight and has some nice warm mid range while the neck is pretty bright and very useable), medium hot (on a par with a Crawler or Rebel Yell) and can be quite aggressive if you want them to be but I'm still trying to find the right pickups for this Showmaster. It's a far better guitar than it probably should be for a Korean Fender and definitely worth keeping hold of but the tonal characteristics of the basswood body and maple neck just overpower all the lower frequencies.
I've always fancied a Nailbomb set, and still do, but I share the same concerns as some of the advice given on here that it wouldn't have enough low end for this particular guitar. As a reference point, can anyone give a direct comparison of the bottom end (lows and low mids) of an alnico Nailbomb and a Crawler bridge pickup?
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Maybe you should get an explorer and drop a Nailbomb in it?
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A-bomb is sweet in my Explorer. :cheesy:
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Maybe you should get an explorer and drop a Nailbomb in it?
I have another Korean Fender that doesn't get much use these days - a Telecaster Custom FMT, which is basically a twin humbucker equipped guitar with a solid mahogany body (with a figured maple vaneer), a mahogany set neck, rosewood fretboard (25.5" scale) and fixed bridge. Spec-wise not a million miles away from an Explorer, the main difference is the string-through-body setup instead of Gibson's TOM bridge and tailstop. Tone-wise it's very full, deep and very warm. So far the only pickups that I've found to work in it are the original Fender Atomics which are in themselves the brightest, harshest pickups I have and totally unusable in anything else. Do you think this guitar is better suited to a Nailbomb set than the basswood Showmaster?
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That guitar might even be better suited to a Rebel Yell or Painkiller set.
Not sure on the Nailbomb. I have an A-Bomb with matching neck in a Epiphone Korina Explorer with the black poly finish; it is quite a dark sounding guitar acoustically and the extra mids of the A-Bomb lift it a bit. It was too dark for the A-Pig I had in it before. Sounds fine now but I only play metal and hardcore on it. It doesn't have a maple top obviously but I'd say it's probably on balance similar to your guitar with the korina being maybe slightly brighter than mahogany. It also has a metal pickguard, which might have brightened it a bit compared to how it was with the Warpigs.
(http://i.imgur.com/qn6KP71l.jpg)
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Maybe you should get an explorer and drop a Nailbomb in it?
I have another Korean Fender that doesn't get much use these days - a Telecaster Custom FMT, which is basically a twin humbucker equipped guitar with a solid mahogany body (with a figured maple vaneer), a mahogany set neck, rosewood fretboard (25.5" scale) and fixed bridge. Spec-wise not a million miles away from an Explorer, the main difference is the string-through-body setup instead of Gibson's TOM bridge and tailstop. Tone-wise it's very full, deep and very warm. So far the only pickups that I've found to work in it are the original Fender Atomics which are in themselves the brightest, harshest pickups I have and totally unusable in anything else. Do you think this guitar is better suited to a Nailbomb set than the basswood Showmaster?
Far better. Like Agent Orange said, the Rebel Yell and Painkiller are also great options and possibly even more appropriate, depending on what you're going for.
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Is Korina darker than mahohny?
I have a Abomb in my Jackson RR and it is no way dark, but i dont mind actually. :)
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People say that korina is a bit brighter than mahogany but from what I can tell they are roughly the same.
Korina is a bit lighter apparently, but again my Explorer seems to be very heavy anyway
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Well, I've just ordered my Nailbombs - not 100% sure yet which guitar they're going in, most likely one of the Eclipses but I might give them a go in the Showmaster as well at some point just to see if they work in there.
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Well my Nailbombs arrived and I installed them in one of my Eclipses and here are my first impressions after an hour or two of playing them;
My first thoughts were that they weren't as aggressive and in your face as I was expecting, so I raised the bridge pickup to within 3mm or so of the bottom E and tried playing it again. This brought the volume up a bit but still left the pickup sounding less full than I had anticipated, in fact I would rate my Rebel Yells as sounding fuller and louder. After playing a bit more I realised that they are extremely dynamic and by far the least compressed pickup that I have, meaning that if I want that mean aggressive tone that I was expecting then that's how I need to play -mean and aggressive, really laying into the guitar.
Anybody got any specific Nailbomb tips?
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This might also be a function of sustain.
I find the Nailbombs aren't quite as dependent on playing style as you describe, but that might be due to the big, dark sustain in my Explorer with the Tonepros bridge and all that wood. The metal pickguard might also have some effect.
I don't remember it sounding at all laid back in my SG though. In fact it sounded so aggressive in the mids that I had to swap it out because it was a one-trick pony.
I think the Nailbombs just sound really different in different guitars
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This might also be a function of sustain.
I find the Nailbombs aren't quite as dependent on playing style as you describe, but that might be due to the big, dark sustain in my Explorer with the Tonepros bridge and all that wood. The metal pickguard might also have some effect.
I don't remember it sounding at all laid back in my SG though. In fact it sounded so aggressive in the mids that I had to swap it out because it was a one-trick pony.
I think the Nailbombs just sound really different in different guitars
I suppose the RY's enhanced mids and presence help flesh it out in a way that the NB's frequency curve doesn't, however they do make up for it with a fairly unique top end which on high gain gives the tone that characteristic "hairyness" and at low gain gives it an unexpectedly funky edge. I would also add that from the quick test recording I put together yesterday, the NB seems to sit better in the mix for rhythm parts than the Rebel Yell.
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Well my Nailbombs arrived and I installed them in one of my Eclipses and here are my first impressions after an hour or two of playing them;
My first thoughts were that they weren't as aggressive and in your face as I was expecting, so I raised the bridge pickup to within 3mm or so of the bottom E and tried playing it again. This brought the volume up a bit but still left the pickup sounding less full than I had anticipated, in fact I would rate my Rebel Yells as sounding fuller and louder. After playing a bit more I realised that they are extremely dynamic and by far the least compressed pickup that I have, meaning that if I want that mean aggressive tone that I was expecting then that's how I need to play -mean and aggressive, really laying into the guitar.
Anybody got any specific Nailbomb tips?
Heh. I replace the Rebel Yell bridge in my LP with an A-Bomb in the same guitar so I can comment on this.
Rebel Yell = more upper mid impact, more presence, clearer / less present bottom end, noticeably less output. The tone is more 'consonant' and clearer overall. Sounds like a crunchy chainsaw with a delicious bite in the extreme highs.
A-Bomb = Warmer, fuller, with surprisingly more output. About 20% more, I would say. The sound is more raw, dissonant, and pissed off. More saturated too. There is more impact in the treble with less in the upper mids and harmonics, which is part of the reason it is warmer. The A-Bomb, like with every BKP, does actually require some force from the player to sound aggressive. This is what is meant by 'dynamic' and it is a good thing. Any high end instrument benefits from a multiplicity of colours that a player can use at his / her own discretion. If you want a heavy sound, make one.
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I have come full-circle on this one today;
On first playing the Nailbombs I thought "Yeah, that sounds really good. Just what I wanted!", then playing with them a bit more I began to question whether they really were "Just what I wanted" (hence the doubtful tone of my previous post) then I moved the bridge pickup one turn closer to the strings and it all suddenly filled out. Next, to be really sure, I even did some side-by-side recording with the Rebel Yells in my other Eclipse so that I could do a proper comparison. OK, so what's the verdict? Output wise (in terms of peak volume) there's nothing in it but the NB bridge sounds fuller in the bottom end and has that trademark raspy attack where as the RY is busier in the upper mids. Which do I prefer? For 90% of the stuff I play, the Nailbomb will be the better choice. Now, as for the neck - this is a bit trickier. I remember reading that the RY neck was designed to be something of a compromise between a VHii neck and Cold Sweat neck, possessing the best bits of both - which it pretty much does, making it a great pickup for cleans and strat-like leads. The NB neck on the other hand, is harsh, aggressive and better suited for crunching rhythm than leads, however it does also clean up quite nicely (especially when coil split) for something a bit more funky.
So, in last 24 hours I started off loving the Nailbombs, then had doubts about them and then went back to loving them again (especially the bridge) - the turning point came with that one extra turn of the screw. The question now is that since I have the Nailbombs will I still use the Rebel Yells? Only time will tell.
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I find that the Nailbomb neck is well suited to noisy metallic lead playing rather than the more fluid leads that sound better on the Cold Sweat. The NB bridge is really a rhythm pickup, and the NB neck covers some of the ground that might otherwise be covered by playing leads on the bridge pickup.
This is just my take on it based on the limited attempts I've made at playing leads on my Explorer and comparisons to my SG. I'm not a good lead player so I don't do it too often
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I have an A-Bomb, Rebel Yell, and Juggernaut. I use / love all of them. :)
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I find that the Nailbomb neck is well suited to noisy metallic lead playing rather than the more fluid leads ... the NB neck covers some of the ground that might otherwise be covered by playing leads on the bridge pickup.
A good point; actually thinking of the NB neck like a second bridge pickup makes a lot of sense, especially on this particular guitar where the 24 fret fretboard pushes the neck pickup into a more central position.
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I've had a RY set and NB set, though in a Les Paul, and whilst I liked both, the NB bridge was a clear winner. In the end, I now have the NB bridge paired with the RY neck and it is just right. Love that combination.
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I now have the NB bridge paired with the RY neck and it is just right. Love that combination.
I wouldn't be surprised if I end up with combination too, and return the 2nd Eclipse back to its original configuration of EMG 57/66s.
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I've had a RY set and NB set, though in a Les Paul, and whilst I liked both, the NB bridge was a clear winner. In the end, I now have the NB bridge paired with the RY neck and it is just right. Love that combination.
It really does work well, doesn't it? I like having the extra push from the bridge pickup and the more open / dynamic neck pickup. It makes for a very versatile guitar.
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I've had a RY set and NB set, though in a Les Paul, and whilst I liked both, the NB bridge was a clear winner. In the end, I now have the NB bridge paired with the RY neck and it is just right. Love that combination.
It really does work well, doesn't it? I like having the extra push from the bridge pickup and the more open / dynamic neck pickup. It makes for a very versatile guitar.
Absolutely, I think it's a really great combination. Somewhat surprised more people don't use the RY neck.
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Well, if you want a Les Paul that sounds like a Les Paul, the RY neck delivers. I guess if someone wants to convert a LP to a metal machine, then they would want a more modern neck pickup but I honestly think that would take away from the 'mojo' that makes the Les Paul model so cool in the first place. The A-Bomb is great because of the versatility. It's hot enough to do thrash through a modern high gain head, but through more vintage amps, the guitar is still an R&R machine. In my mind, this is important, ESPECIALLY if a LP is not your only guitar.
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Completely agree :smiley:
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Update: The Nailbombs are now in the Showmaster, and what a difference! In the Eclipse they appeared to lack body in the mids but in the Showmaster they raw, growl and bark all at the same time - they've definitely found their aggression! Next trick will be to try them tuned down to D-standard.