Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: richardjmorgan on February 24, 2015, 01:20:59 PM
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Soooooo a while ago I picked up a Greco Les Paul Custom copy (details here: https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=31904.msg408609#msg408609 (https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=31904.msg408609#msg408609)) with a set of Mules in it.
I only just recently got a chance to give it a go with my usual setup (C# std. tuning, 5150 mk1 boosted with a Boss SD-1, Orange PPC412) and I am pretty ruddy impressed. The other guitar I use for this stuff is a Gibson V with EMGs (81/85).
Now, there are some things I love about the LP/Mules – everything's definitely warmer and fuller than with the V which, given that I'm predominately the Rhythm Guy, serves to fill out our band sound quite nicely. Compared to the V though, I feel they're lacking a certain something when it comes to fast palm muting (of which we have a fair bit) – they don't have the bite, or attack, or whatever you want to call it, that the EMGs have, which leaves things sounding maybe not as punchy as I'd ideally like.
So here's the thing: do I need a different pickup (I'm thinking bridge for now) – one that retains the warmth and heft of the Mule, but with a bit more of an edge to it, à la the EMGs? Or are these two properties mutually exclusive and I'm going to have to compromise? Or do I just need to adjust my playing style or EQing or something to get the best out of the Mules?
Errr here's a soundcloud link if you'd like to hear the sort of stuff I'll be using it for: https://soundcloud.com/the-quarry/sets/we-the-disease (https://soundcloud.com/the-quarry/sets/we-the-disease). Although ideally, I'd basically want it to sound like the guitar sound Bill Steer and Colin Richardson got on Heartwork.
Any advice gratefully received, chaps.
(Obviously the follow-on question to this is what to stick in the V to warm/beef it up without losing the punchiness of the EMGs. Warm beef my flying V, people.)
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In my opininion you are asking a bit much IMHO PAF's and EMG's are at the opposite end of the scale!
Having experimented with a lot of different pickups in my Les Paul I can recommend you two bridge pickups.....
The emerald bridge IMO is like a mule with more energy.....'power' is misleading. Through a cranked hi gain amp it can hang with high output pickups. It's funny because it was great but playing in standard tuning at all times it needed a little more bottom end BUT my friend who plays in drop D used it and it sounded mega and he was really impressed.
I've just put a set of alnico black hawks in my les paul custom and i'd say they are like EMG's but better. Active qualities but thicker and juicier...
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In my opininion you are asking a bit much IMHO PAF's and EMG's are at the opposite end of the scale
Haha, I thought this might be the case! I guess I'm aiming for the middle of that scale, then.
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IMO Emeralds are a slight step up and work really well with low tunings.
Are those guys who mentioned from Carcass? Haven;t really listened to them properly but in my les paul the piankiller worked really well for an arch enemy type sound
Any way Emeralds would be a step up as I say but black hawks would be an improvement on EMG
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I loved the ceramic nailbomb in my '73 lp custom
sounded much warmer than I would expect
it has a quite broad and balanced frequency range and although it has the BKP tightness, it has a full low end and nice compression instead of the dry response of pups like the painkiller or aftermath
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I like the suggestion from Jimmy, since you're dropping the tuning quite a bit. So Emeralds, or maybe even Rebel Yells.
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I'd go with an Emerald. You have the EMG thing covered already so although the Black Hawks may be better than the EMG pups, you'd still end up with two guitars doing much the same thing. The Emeralds will give you a lot of what you like in the Mules but with a good bit more punch. They're super tight and can take shed loads of gain, suit low tunings well and yet retain their PAF character.
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Cheers for the input, everyone!
Are those guys who mentioned from Carcass? Haven;t really listened to them properly but in my les paul the piankiller worked really well for an arch enemy type sound
Sorta. Bill Steer's their guitarist; Colin Richardson was producer on Heartwork, one of the two albums they did with Michael Amott from Arch Enemy on second guitar. Accounts vary as to how much of Amott's actually on the recordings though.
Now, I see that the Nailbomb's described as "The perfect synergy of old-school and modern rock tones". Could this be the solution I'm looking for? Or am I totally barking up the wrong tree?
I know the consensus seems to be leaning towards the Emerald, so please don't think I'm ignoring the advice so far; I just wonder whether it's different enough from the Mule to justify the change.
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No, you're not wrong. I've only tried the alnico Nailbomb myself but I found that it does have elements of what you mention. It retains a surprisingly open sound so in that respect it is still PAF-like in the same way you might describe Mules and Emeralds, however, I think that's where the similarity ends. The Mule is the quintessential PAF pickup while an Emerald has more power and more bit while still being clearly PAF in nature. The Nailbomb is far more modern. It's tight, very aggressive and 'hairy'. I've always felt that in a guitar like a Les Paul with a lot of 'body' to it and the depth of mahogany, it would be really good as such a guitar would tame the aggressive upper mids so I've always been tempted to return to an A-Bomb now I own a Les Paul. Unfortunately when I tried it, it was in a maple neck-thru superstrat, which was entirely the wrong choice and I ended up sending it back but it may well be what you're after. In your case I'd go with the ceramic option anyway. The only note of caution I'd sound is that despite the upper mids, it's a rather darker sounding pickup than Mules or Emeralds and you are playing in quite a low tuning but those with direct experience of a C-Bomb will be able to clarify this point.
If you want something from the contemporary section that is ceramic, I'd look at Cold Sweats. These pickups REALLY suit Les Pauls, they handle lower tunings well and still have some of the PAF feel about them without the overt aggression of a Nailbomb. It's more modern in tone than the Emerald but not as much as a Nailbomb and it's brighter than a Nailbomb but not as bright as an Emerald. It could be an ideal balance for you.
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Richardjmorgan, on that case I can share my experience with Ceramic Nailbomb in very similar guitar to your.
Generally speaking I wouldn`t recommend Nailbomb for lower tunings.
I have Dean Cadillac (mahogany body and neck with rosewood board) and Ceramic Nailbomb in it paired with Cold Sweat. As CBomb is wonderful rhythm pickup it doesn`t cope with lower tunings very well. It looses a bit of definition and clarity, cannot keep up with lower tunings in my opinion, gets a bit muddy and gets lost a bit in the mix.
I tried it with C# drop tuning and once I was hitting power chords on lower strings I was getting a bit lost. My other guitar player in the band has EMG 81/85 combo.
That`s my experience.
Wonderful rhythm pickup but don`t quite like it in lower tunings.
Emerald or Black Dog?
Black Dog seems to be perfect for lower tunings in LP style guitars and apparently deliver crushing metal tones while retaining vintage vibe.
BLACK DOG for you! check the other thread here about black dog.
https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=32361.0
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Further to what Lucas says I'm very pro nailbomb but I would not use it for drop tunings especially in a les paul.
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Yeah I was going to suggest the Emerald or Rebel Yell.
I have the alnico Nailbomb in D standard and find it is fine for what I do, but I don't do any of that tight chugga chugga stuff with it. It manages stuff like the palm-muted riffing in old Celtic Frost songs well but I haven't done anything more demanding that that. Most of what I play is fast power chords and a little Discharge/Doom style palm-muting which is fine
Rebel Yell has a great rep for tightness
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bill kelliher of mastodon has a bridge holy diver in the '78 cream les paul custom (maple neck) he's been using in the last album tours
I think that guitar is tuned 1 step down, but the lower string is dropped to A
edit: seems like he used that in every song of the once more 'round the sun album
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Further to what Lucas says I'm very pro nailbomb but I would not use it for drop tunings especially in a les paul.
have you got the same experience?
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Further to what Lucas says I'm very pro nailbomb but I would not use it for drop tunings especially in a les paul.
have you got the same experience?
In a word yes!
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Naturally I bow to the greater experience of those with Nailbombs in Les Pauls. I did wonder if it would be a bit dark in those tunings. In that case I would suggest either Emeralds or Cold Sweats from my last post but I would add to that the Black Dog as I think that's a really good shout. Any of those three should be fine.
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Further to what Lucas says I'm very pro nailbomb but I would not use it for drop tunings especially in a les paul.
have you got the same experience?
In a word yes!
I haven't tried the A-Bomb below Eb standard / Drop C# so I can't comment on this, but I've had the Rebel Yell bridge as low as Drop B with fairly heavy strings and it sounds incredible!!
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My standard tuning is Eb, and one step down, Nailbomb souds great and huge. I especially love it with overdrive, but with full bad azz hi gain it is great as well.
But once for couple of songs (e.g 'Diary of Jane' Breaking Benjamin - yes, changed tuning from original) I drop E string to C#, Nailbomb becomes muddy, not that precise and gets lost somewhere.
as recently there`s so much rave about Black Dog, I`m really curious how that pickup would perform.
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This demo has always made me really want a Black Dog as it just sounds huge and significantly he refers to it as having a 'darkness' about it rather than the brightness some people are referring to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaqEET376-I
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But once for couple of songs (e.g 'Diary of Jane' Breaking Benjamin - yes, changed tuning from original) I drop E string to C#, Nailbomb becomes muddy, not that precise and gets lost somewhere.
I'm really not surprised by this. Rebel Yell and Painkiller are both bright pickups that handle lower tunings extremely well.
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I tuned my Voodoo Les Paul with an Alnico NB down to C standard for a while (with a .13-.59 string set). Great sound, not muddy. One thing I noticed is that you do realise that the NB only has moderate output and that I felt helps with keeping things clear and organic (not overly compressed) as well.
I was, as a side note, also suprised at how well the Voodoo LesPaul managed the low-tuning, considering it is a Gibson scale guitar.
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My standard tuning is Eb, and one step down, Nailbomb souds great and huge. I especially love it with overdrive, but with full bad azz hi gain it is great as well.
But once for couple of songs (e.g 'Diary of Jane' Breaking Benjamin - yes, changed tuning from original) I drop E string to C#, Nailbomb becomes muddy, not that precise and gets lost somewhere.
Sounds like you are dropping down a whole step with the same strings. Probably the reduced string tension is half of the problem.
I use a 52 for D but for C# it is too light
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This can be a problem but as the strings get heavier, they contribute more output and 'beefiness' to the tone which is why a pickup like the Rebel Yell bridge benefits so much from heavier strings.
For instance, my A-Bomb equipped LP has 10 - 46s on it while the Rebel Yell equipped Godin LG has 10 - 52 LT / HB on it. The fatter strings give greater output and heft to the tone which causes the output of the that pickup to be comparable to the LP with the A-Bomb and thinner strings.
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My standard tuning is Eb, and one step down, Nailbomb souds great and huge. I especially love it with overdrive, but with full bad azz hi gain it is great as well.
But once for couple of songs (e.g 'Diary of Jane' Breaking Benjamin - yes, changed tuning from original) I drop E string to C#, Nailbomb becomes muddy, not that precise and gets lost somewhere.
Sounds like you are dropping down a whole step with the same strings. Probably the reduced string tension is half of the problem.
I use a 52 for D but for C# it is too light
I use Ernie Ball Cobalts 9-46 (mixed set)
Basically Im not saying NB is a bad pickup, I really enjoy it but not for lower tunings in my opinion.
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Hmmm. I'm running a 56 on the bottom string, so could this mean the Nailbomb's back on the menu?
I'm a little wary of ceramic magnets as I've always found them to sound a bit shrill and brittle, tbh. But maybe I just haven't been playing about with the right ones.
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The Cold Sweat certainly isn't shrill and brittle and I still think that might be a good option but if you want a brighter, alnico Nailbomb, you should be looking at the Rebel Yell as an option as it's based on the Nailbomb anyway but I think would give you a better option for lower tunings if you want a more modern pickup. For more vintage options, I still think the Emerald and Black Dog might be your best bet.
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You also keep in mind, that ceramic NB is not the best pickup for cleans and soloing. As it`s great rhythm pickup, cleans and leads are just 'ok'. But I think you`re not really concerned about them anyway.
by the way, is Black Dog really 'VINTAGE' sounding or it can be rather called 'something in-between' vintage and modern?
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I use Ernie Ball Cobalts 9-46 (mixed set)
Basically Im not saying NB is a bad pickup, I really enjoy it but not for lower tunings in my opinion.
You are never going to get a tight sound tuning a 46 down to D or C# - I've had some people tell me that 52s are light, but that's because they are heavy string guys. In D a 52 feels like a 46 in E.
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by the way, is Black Dog really 'VINTAGE' sounding or it can be rather called 'something in-between' vintage and modern?
IT nails the Led Zep thing, soooo it's more vintage really, but the extra low mids could have other uses in some metal styles i would guess.
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The BD is defnitely "in between, or even closer to modern". It does Led Zep and Guns'n'Roses soloing very nicely, but feed it gain and it becomes much more modern sounding.
The "vintage hot" solution if you want more "vintage" would be the VHII.
For the OP I think he shouldn't worry, the Nailbomb is a good and versatile choice. It reminds me a lot of Dream Theater (Six degrees of Inner Turbulence through to Black Clouds/Silver Linings). If he wanted more or the solo vibe from Carcass/Arch Enemy, the Miracle Man/Juggernaut do that better.
BD - big, PAF sound that has a lot of mids and is very warm. Best of both worlds. Sounds a lot like the "doubled studio sound of EMGs", i.e. wall of sound.
NB - thinner, raspier and more aggressive, but also tighter and IMO has a great old-school touch to it when not boosted. It will probably be the furthest away from the Carcass rhythm sound though.
MM - Huge metal sound, will definitely handle the lower tunings, but not "vintage". Has really great palm mutes as well. It should be easy to get that Carcass sound with an LP out of it.