Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: celticelk on October 23, 2014, 04:06:35 PM
-
I've got a 7-string Tele coming in (Spanish cedar body and neck, maple fretboard), and I'd like to take it in a roots direction. It's currently routed for a pair of humbuckers, so I'm thinking of putting a custom P90 in the neck (Vintage Vibe) and a covered BKP humbucker with a mini-switch for splitting in the bridge. (There's a also a piezo system, so that's a bunch of usable tones.) My default choice would be the Mule - is there something else I should be considering?
-
Well thing is that the Mule does not split that brilliantly. It is usable, sure, but the thing is that low output humbuckers can easily sound very weak and thin when you take half of them out. Also I would like to know more abou the P90 you eye, cause those can easily be rather strong in output (but very open so they are brilliant) which might overpower the mule depending on what it is.
So a two part recomendation: If you go Mule I would look into series / parallel rather than splitting. That also provides SCish tones but it keeps more power and stays humcancelling. Really good sound. Alternativly you might want to look at the Vintage hot range, especially the Abraxas. That is somewhat of a hotter mule, so you get that PAF DNA with beefed up mids, more power, slightly mellower highend and better splittability. One step up from that would be the Crawler which splits brilliantly and loves bright guitars. It is listed as contemporary, but is really vintage hot imho. That is even fuller, warmer, has an insane growl, sounds great clean, and splits best out of all the BKPs.
-
Thanks! Anyone else? Someone in another forum recommended a Black Dog or Emerald - thoughts on those compared to the Abraxas for this application?
-
How bright is the natural voice of your guitar. Cedar is supposed to give a warm tone, but the maple fretboard adds snap.
-
How bright is the natural voice of your guitar. Cedar is supposed to give a warm tone, but the maple fretboard adds snap.
I'll have a better idea when it gets here. (Yes, I'm choosing replacement pickups for a guitar I don't have yet. In my defense, its current set is the same SD Pegasus/Sentient combo I have in my LP7, and I know what that's capable of.) Spanish cedar isn't really a cedar - it's in the same botanical family as African mahogany. Reframing the question as "what bridge humbucker would you pair with a neck P90 in an ebony-board LP?" might inspire some additional opinions.
-
Abraxas pairs nice with the neck-90. It has the same vibe as a Mule, just with more mids, a little less topend and a tad more compression. It will split better than the Mule.