Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: Antlein on March 18, 2022, 10:18:50 AM
-
Hello everybody!
I am considering changing a bridge pickup in one of my guitars and I am thinking of picking something from the Bare Knuckle catalogue.
The guitar is ESP LTD Eclipse '87 PW (6 strings), and it has a mahogany body and a three-piece maple neck. It came with a Seymour Duncan JB in a bridge position. I do like the mid-range of the JB, but it has that trebly ice-picky top end which I'm not a big fan of, and palm muting on lower strings sounds a bit muddy. The new bridge pickup should be tighter and without that sharp ice-picky high end, and maybe a bit beefier. I generally prefer a bit brighter tone, but without sounding harsh, thin or mid-scooped. I'm also leaning towards a ceramic magnet because I'm used to EMG 81 and Seymour Duncan SH5 in my other guitars (which are ceramic pickups).
I'm using that guitar in drop C#/drop C tuning and I'm using modern high gain sound (EVH 5150 50W Stealth and Neural DSP's Archetype: Gojira). I'm mainly playing modern metal (more in a metalcore territory, not djent), although I do like a hint of a vintage 80s sound (meaning Eddie Van Halen's "brown sound"/Zakk Wylde's tone on No More Tears album, etc). I play both rhythm and lead.
One pickup that caught my attention right now is Painkiller, but I've read that it can sound too bright/harsh and thin in a wrong guitar or tuning. The problem is, I don't know if my guitar is naturally bright or dark.
So I'm looking for some advice on which Bare Knuckle pickup would suit me the best based on this description.