Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: HEadoftheAges on December 01, 2015, 08:14:27 PM
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Hey again, everyone. This is a follow-up to my last question regarding my Monson nomad. What is everyone's opinion on the subject of Alnico 5 Nailbombs in a guitar with a 25" (PRS-style) scale Mahogany neck-through/Sapele-body guitar with an Ebony Fretboard and a walnut top? Would they be a bit too muddy, or do the A-bombs work well with darker tonewoods? The fellows at BK recommend the C-bomb, although i fancy a warmer, more organic distortion.
Regards,
Alec
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A-Bomb sounds great with my Les Paul. It's a really hairy, pissed off sounding pickup with a nice cut in the highs. It has lows but they're tight and dry. I would not characterize it as a low mid heavy pickup like a Juggernaut.
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the explorer has nailbombs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVQI1_Kyxok
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The A-Bomb is very tight, with a healthy amount of hairy upper mids. I tried one in a maple neck-thru and it was horrible because it needed a darker guitar to tame the hairy upper mids. It was better in a PRS Custom 24 but still VERY aggressive and angry sounding. I always got the impression it would be better in a Les Paul guitar or something else that was a bit darker.
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I have the A-Bomb in my Explorer these days and it is quite nice there. It was too abrasive in my SG Standard, which is a brighter guitar with a strong mids emphasis.
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Which is exactly my point. The more mids are naturally present in a guitar, especially upper mids, the worse the A-Bomb will be. It needs a darker guitar like a Les Paul or Explorer to tame those hairy upper mids. I've never tried it in such a guitar myself but my experience of it in my old Jackson and PRS means it comes as no surprise to find it perfectly well suited to your Explorer.
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It seems as if a calibrated set of Alnico 5 Nailbombs is just what the doctor ordered. Thanks, guys!
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The A-Bomb is very tight, with a healthy amount of hairy upper mids. I tried one in a maple neck-thru and it was horrible because it needed a darker guitar to tame the hairy upper mids. It was better in a PRS Custom 24 but still VERY aggressive and angry sounding. I always got the impression it would be better in a Les Paul guitar or something else that was a bit darker.
It's a ferocious pickup, especially through a modern, high gain head.
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The other guitarist in my band (Kosmodemonic - www.kosmodemonic.bandcamp.com, if you fancy checking us out) uses a maple-neck-through/alder-bodied ESP E-II Arrow with a Floyd Rose that is fitted with a set of A-bombs, and it sounds ferocious.
- Alec
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I'm genuinely surprised, unless of course you just happen to like an insane amount of aggressive upper mids. When I had one in my Jackson Soloist, which is also maple neck-thru and alder wings, even my son, who LOVES heavy and aggressive tones, came through to tell me how awful it sounded! Your guitar should work better with an A-Bomb but it will still be extremely hairy and aggressive as there's enough on there to keep things bright. Probably not a combination to use with a V30 speaker :grin:
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I'm genuinely surprised, unless of course you just happen to like an insane amount of aggressive upper mids. When I had one in my Jackson Soloist, which is also maple neck-thru and alder wings, even my son, who LOVES heavy and aggressive tones, came through to tell me how awful it sounded! Your guitar should work better with an A-Bomb but it will still be extremely hairy and aggressive as there's enough on there to keep things bright. Probably not a combination to use with a V30 speaker :grin:
There is a certain magic to his tone; it makes me crippingly jealous. I play a similarly "wooded" and "floyded" ESP Elite Horizon III in this particular band, and the Seymour Duncan Custom 5/Jazz combination it has in it simply does not keep up as far as overall edge and "girth" of the Nailbomb are concerned. I managed to play it through my trusty Orange Rockerverb 100 mkII, and the real surprise was how good and warm they sounded through the clean channel. I am more interested in how it sounds clean (that is actually my measuring stick as far as judging high output pickups and amplification goes), as i tend to play a lot of post-punk/jazz oriented material for my other project.
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I'm genuinely surprised, unless of course you just happen to like an insane amount of aggressive upper mids. When I had one in my Jackson Soloist, which is also maple neck-thru and alder wings, even my son, who LOVES heavy and aggressive tones, came through to tell me how awful it sounded! Your guitar should work better with an A-Bomb but it will still be extremely hairy and aggressive as there's enough on there to keep things bright. Probably not a combination to use with a V30 speaker :grin:
Yeah I had the same issue ... I was also running through a tubescreamer into fresh V30s so I'm sure that didn't help any but I noticed the same issue running in to my old Peavey Bandit as well
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I'm genuinely surprised, unless of course you just happen to like an insane amount of aggressive upper mids. When I had one in my Jackson Soloist, which is also maple neck-thru and alder wings, even my son, who LOVES heavy and aggressive tones, came through to tell me how awful it sounded! Your guitar should work better with an A-Bomb but it will still be extremely hairy and aggressive as there's enough on there to keep things bright. Probably not a combination to use with a V30 speaker :grin:
Yeah I had the same issue ... I was also running through a tubescreamer into fresh V30s so I'm sure that didn't help any but I noticed the same issue running in to my old Peavey Bandit as well
You can definitely have too much of a good thing.
An A-Bomb in a Les Paul through a Dual Rectifier into a 1 x 12 with a Celestion c90 really works. that's a bright, upper mid focused pickup in a rig that is dark on top of dark. I suspect that setup would work even with a v30 loaded 4 x 12 although I'd be tempted to mix v30s with c90s in that particular setup.
Super bright and tight pickups do a lot to liven up incredibly dark and low mid focused axes but sometimes that's not what the player is looking for. Many non-traditional setups can work depending on what the player needs for any given situation.
For examples, a bright sounding guitar with bright sounding pickups can work through an incredibly dark rig. Or conversely, a dark guitar with dark pickups (Les Paul / Seymour Duncan Custom Custom) can work with an incredibly bright amp (Marshall).
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Although the a-bomb should work just fine, I gotta say that the c-bomb actually sounds warmer and more balanced, in my experience with nailbombs in my Les Paul custom
The c-bomb sounded hotter and more compressed, but LESS aggressive and abrasive
A lot has changed in my rig between 2009 (when I had a-bomb) to 2015., but that was my immediate impression even after playing only vintage output models for the last 5 years
The bkp team advice makes total sense to me
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Although the a-bomb should work just fine, I gotta say that the c-bomb actually sounds warmer and more balanced, in my experience with nailbombs in my Les Paul custom
The c-bomb sounded hotter and more compressed, but LESS aggressive and abrasive
A lot has changed in my rig between 2009 (when I had a-bomb) to 2015., but that was my immediate impression even after playing only vintage output models for the last 5 years
The bkp team advice makes total sense to me
Hmm...thanks! How does the ceramic nailbomb stack up as far as clean tones are concerned?
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The C-Bomb is generally the safe option if you are worried about things getting too middy.
Comparison video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2kvQkpz5sM
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The C-Bomb is generally the safe option if you are worried about things getting too middy.
Comparison video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2kvQkpz5sM
My only concern would be a tone that sounds too "scooped", processed, and/or shrill.
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Well I think you can hear in the video that the difference if fairly small. The C-bomb lacks some of the mid range of the A-bomb but I wouldn't call that 'scooped' in the way that the Cold Sweat and Miracle Man are scooped. BKP produce a lot of ceramic pickups and out of the range at least two of them - the Painkiller and the Aftermath - have very strong mids. In general where there is the option of ceramic and alnico magnets (i.e., the Nailbomb, Black Hawk, and Warpig) the ceramic will have less mids than the alnico but depending on the guitar that can be a good thing. In the BKP range the more scooped ceramic options are often recommended for guitars with bright sounding neck materials like maple or ebony, and I think that is why the ceramic magnet was recommended to you
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The only bkp that sounds scooped is the neck nailbomb
The c-bomb is very well balanced
Even the MM and CS that have a little less mids still have great cleans
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I would have to agree with Eric here. I generally prefer middy pickups but I've owned both the Miracle Man and Cold Sweat and neither sounded anything like as scooped as I'd expected, though obviously the guitar they're in and the amp you use are big factors in this.