Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: Kotsos81 on December 11, 2017, 11:59:04 AM
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Hello! First post here!
I am interested in the Miracle Man and the Warpig sets since they are my favorite BK pickups sound-wise (from what I've heard in YouTube videos and audio clips) and they can support the types of music that I play (mainly 80s-90s metal, modern metal, hard rock) - some of them really good as far as I can tell, some of them reasonably well.
The guitars I am going to put in these pickups are 25.5" scale superstrats with the following features:
- The first one has neck-thru construction, maple neck, ebony fretboard, mahogany wings, maple top, and hardtail bridge w/ string-thru body.
- The other has bolt-on construction, 3-pc maple/bubinga neck, ebony fretboard, mahogany wings, maple top, and hardtail bridge w/ string-thru body.
As you can see, besides the type of the neck-body joint (thru vs. bolt-on), the guitars are almost identical specs-wise. From what I have read in this forum, I formed the opinion that I should put the Warpigs in the first one (the neck-thru, where mainly the maple neck "dictates" the tone) and the MM pickups in the other (the bolt-on with the mahogany body), but I am not 100% that I understood the interplay of these pickups with the guitar type, the woods and in general the factors that "shape" the tone. So, I would like to ask you, do you agree with this plan?
Also, a related question: The Warpig has both an A5 and a ceramic version. Which one should I go for, based on the aforementioned guitar specs, the A-pig or the C-pig?
Of course, before I order the pickups, I will send an e-mail to BPK. However, it will be good to be informed prior to my contact with the company - and especially learning from the experience of other forum members.
Thank you for your advices!
PS1: The A-pig vs. C-pig question is based on the fact that I never understood fully the logic behind matching an A5 or a ceramic pickup with alder or maple or mahogany or whatever. For instance, mahogany has prominent mids as its main tonal characteristic - at least in comparison to other tone woods. As a consequence, some people prefer to put in guitars with mahogany body pickups with emphasized mids, to highlight this feature of the guitar, while others tend to use pickups with scooped mids or, if you'd like, emphasized highs and lows in some extent, in order to balance the sound - I guess that then the whole TMB Eq'ing would rely solely on the amp. Also, a single-cut, LP-style guitar with a mahogany body or an SG with a mahogany body is different from a FR-equipped superstrat with a mahogany body, even when all other specs, except from the scale (24.75" vs. 25.5"), are the same, just to complicate the things a little bit more.
PS2: As a side note, I am a happy owner of an alder body, set-thru maple neck, ebony fretboard, non-locking tremolo guitar equipped with an A-bomb at the bridge and a VHII at the neck and I am very satisfied with the sound - A-bomb can sound a little bright (it contributes to that the amp - Tubemeister 36 -, which has high presence), but nothing that cannot be dialled via the TMB EQ settings.
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Personally if you like the clips of those pickups I would go as follows:
Miracle Man for the neck-through
A-Pig for the bolt-on
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Thank you for your reply Dave!
I had the feeling that MM can work wonders in a mahogany-body guitar but might be a little bright in a maple neck-thru guitar, while the A-pig might sound "over-bassy" in the former guitar but "sing" in the latter one. Obviously, I was confused.
I recall that you have posted comments for those PUs in the past since you own both of them. If my memory serves me, one of them I think it was placed in a SG (which is a different kind of beast) and the other in a maple neck-thru guitar, and I remember that you said that always works well in such guitars - but I might not remember correctly.
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No both of them are in SGs.
Maple neck-through guitars are just notoriously finicky with BKPs and people have had a lot of success with the Miracle Man in all kinds of finicky guitars, including Jackson Soloists and SGs like my Standard. If you like the idea of these pickups the neck-through would be the obvious candidate for the MM.
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OK then, good to know! Thank you for the provided info!