Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: nick_24589 on November 25, 2006, 06:33:21 PM
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hey guys i know everyone is helpful on here so hopefully someone can help! i got adivised for the nailmbomb(bridge) and mississippi queen(bridge) combo but at the guitar college i go to, i got told to go for seamore duncan or dimazro pick ups. i got told that the pickups wouldnt ever sound 'properly clean', when i want to get a by-passed clean sound, is this true? i was wondering if anyone has either of these pickups and can tell me if you can get a true clean sound from your guitar still and if they are definatley worth the money. i have also been told if i fit these in to my guitar, the 5 way pick up selector switch will become usless. is this true :? i appreciate the help as i really want some new pick ups for christmas, thanks everyone! :D
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they are 150% worth the money!!
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Sounds like someone is propogating Duncan/Dimarzio propoganda. I don't own either of those pickups (BKPs) but the ones are do own are amazing and worth every penny. The 5 way switch thing is a real gem of misinformation. It will work fine as long as it's wired, if not it won't. You just have to order the pickups with 4 condutor wire and not 2. I have the 5 way wired on my MM/Trilogy/MM fitted Ibanez and all is well. :twisted: :twisted:
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who told you to go for DM or SD at the college, out of interest?
if it's one of the fellow students, I'd take it with a pinch of salt.
if it's one of the teachers/lecturers, I'd take it with a pinch of salt.
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Here's the choice:
By BKPs - get astounding definition, pure tone - clean or wound up - spend a little bit more on something that will leave you smiling months later when you elicit a new tone
By SD or (esp) DiMarzio - get mush, get indefinition - spend a lot of money on something a bit better than stock pickups.
Whoever told you that is a moron - unfortunately its a common feature amongst so many guitarists - so hear for yourself - try and demo them at a dealer who has some in a guitar for you to play.
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What guitar do you have, and what pickups does it have at the moment? If it's two humbuckers connected to a 5-way switch, you won't be able to get exactly the same wiring options, because the Mississippi Queen is a single-coil (but you could get a tapped version, which would give different options).
The thing about not getting clean sounds is just nonsense. The MQ will give you great cleans and so will the NB as far as I know, especially with a coil-split option.
As for Duncans or DiMarzios, they may or may not suit you better than the NB/MQ combo - it all depends on the actual models you choose. All three companies have big ranges of pickups.
One thing's certain, if you pick the right BK pickups for you, they'll be at least as good - and almost certainly better - than anything from another manufacturer.
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This sounds suspiciously like someone tring to whack the ole hornet's nest, but what the heck, I'll bite ...
What a load of cr@p. If you are looking for a pickup to play dead clean, a Nailbomb is probably not the right pickups. However, in any category, at any price, BKs bury DiMarzio and Duncans.
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^ yeah... i guess it depends whether the guys at college recommended a specific dimarzio or duncan or not... if they recommended a duncan jazz or something, then obviously it's a more clean-voiced pickup...
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:D If your after nothing but clean sounds then dont go for a Nailbomb. What type of music are you playing ? What type of guitar do you have that your thinking of putting BK`s in ?
As for the "Get A set of Duncans/DiMarzio`s" forget it !!
I use to use DiMarzio`s all the time. I`ve removed all of `em from my guitars & got BK`s fitted instead. Dont waste your money on Duncans/DiMarzio.
:D 8)
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just ONE little remark about 'clean' and BKP. a friend of mine put a set of warpigs in his les paul, and that axe has a better clean now for JAZZ than his stock L5. The amp he uses is by the way a mesa mark4.
ps: i'd buy BKP any time of the week. the customersupport is just well... words can't describe how great it is. just to let you know ;) and the sound...
well. the first time I put in a dimarzio, i was knocked of my feet! WOW a wall of sound. lots of thickness in my les paul, clearity, and playing was never as easy.
THEN i put a set of nailbombs in that SAME axe. where was all my thickness?were was all my tone? apparantly I'd forgotten how to play. how to make TONE. BKP makes me PLAY instead of just squeezing out notes and pretending it is music. its always a pleasure now to play with them. they make me play the best I can, otherwise i dont get the sound I want.
in other words:
dimarzio/SD=instant tone, no development of YOUR tone.
BKP: no instant tone. you have to work for it.
for ME, as a musician, thats what I want. but for others it might not be what they want. but I guess those people are rare.
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A pickup is a pickup. You do not have to work pickups. They are not like women. BKPs are only more like "your tone" because you can get them customized and are just awesome.
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I dissagree. I think Orpheo is right. The clarity and precision of a BK is one of the most distinctive and valuable things about them. BUT you better play well or precisely the same thing that shows every note and every nuance in playing shows every mistake.
Its a small one of the reasons I like them. Seperates the wheat from the chaff.
If youre a good enough player that you didnt notice that, then cool (so am I, lets start a club :lol: ) but I've heard people switch to BKs and they went form sounding like they were playing well with an inarticulate, muddy tone, to playing badly with a fantastic one.
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I think to clarify this point I'd say that BKPs allow your own style and tone to show through more readily than other brands which tend to smear over it with a thick layer of plastic sounding gloop.
but at the guitar college i go to, i got told to go for seamore duncan or dimazro pick ups. i got told that the pickups wouldnt ever sound 'properly clean', when i want to get a by-passed clean sound, is this true?
i have also been told if i fit these in to my guitar, the 5 way pick up selector switch will become usless.
Who exactly told you this? The cleaner?
(no offence meant to cleaners of course, I'm sure there are some who are great guitar players :) )
Just for the record I have a nailbomb bridge and it can play clean as long as you have a very clean amp setting but if you have a little bit of gain it will push it into crunch. If you wired a push/pull to run the pup in parallel you would get a cleaner sound, I've yet to try this however.
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Oh, yeah. On topic:
Whoever told you you cant clean up with a BK is ON CRACK. End of story.
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I'll be posting some clean clips of my Nailbomb, soonish.....
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Nick, the fact that some people here seem to be overly enthusiastic about their BKP's here is due to that they're very high quality pickups, I'd say one level up from mass-produced pickups. The difference in clarity, definition and complexity is obvious, due to scatterwinding, quality materials and Tim's ears ;), as others have stated that. It's something that's not easy to hear unless you're playing such a pickup yourself or comparing two pickups side-by-side. In many cases it will feel like your guitar has finally come alive. There are a lot of models to choose from and I don't think a Nailbomb is the proper bridge pickup for clean work. It's more of a hard rock pickup that's surprisingly versatile (I have one in my Strat) but still quite high-output so you might have to split it if you want to play dead clean. There are some lower output models in the BKP range that have a less compressed and more open clean sound, like Mules, Stormy Mondays, VHII, MQ bridge, maybe Abraxas etc.
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at the guitar college i go to, i got told to go for seamore duncan or dimazro pick ups. i got told that the pickups wouldnt ever sound 'properly clean', when i want to get a by-passed clean sound, is this true? i was wondering if anyone has either of these pickups and can tell me if you can get a true clean sound from your guitar still and if they are definatley worth the money. i have also been told if i fit these in to my guitar, the 5 way pick up selector switch will become usless. is this true :? i appreciate the help as i really want some new pick ups for christmas, thanks everyone! :D
Sound like propaganda to me. How could a hand made pickup be inferior to a mass produced one? That just doesn't makes any sense. The same kind of moronic advices are on most forums out there, generaly given by people who "just eard it was like that". It generaly drives me mad in stores :lol: I usualy can't resist to tell people like that they are morrons. And the worse is near nobody beleive me! :lol:
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:D By & large Higher Gain P/U`s are more forgiving of "Sloppy" playing were as the lower gain P/U`s will give a better Tone but at the cost that your playing will be far more "Exposed"
When you hear myself & others talk about the VHII being a players P/U it`s because the ofset coil is very unforgiving of sloppy playing.....you cant hide !! The trade off is a great Tone.
My Cold Sweats are far easier to play than my VHII`s allthough i find the Mules to be easy to use.
:D 8)
These are the types of things you need to think about before ordering your P/U`s. Low gain better Tone High gain easier to play Mid gain a compromise between the 2
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thanks everyone for the help, my guitar its a yamaha rgx but it doesnt seem to be available over the internet much so i cant post a link of one. it has two ceramic humbuckers. iv been playing for about 4 and a half years, im trying to get a varried amount of sounds. i love using my effects, i use about 5 or 6 pedals so hopefully this wont affect the pick ups or anything. the guy recommended seamore duncan jazzmasters or something, but he is excellent at guitar but he has never heard of bare knuckle before so i suppose he shouldnt have said anything before he has heard them. my main sound is based around a 'musey' type guitar sound and this was the combo i was advised to get... everyone think its for the best?
Thanks once again
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I'll be posting some clean clips of my Nailbomb, soonish.....
I remember hearing a clip in the Players section of a fantastic clean Nailbomb -- I swear the thing sparkled so, I might have thought it was acoustic. Don't remember which clip it was, but I remember the sound. 'Course, there are probably pups that clean up even better -- or more easily, anyway -- but still ....
Actually, in this thread, I feel almost forced to defend SDs! :o No, seriously, SD make perfectly reasonable mass-produced pickups. They're not as good as BKPs -- and accordingly will usually cost you less -- but they're all right. The thing is, for the extra you pay for BKP, I think you get a lot more quality (and service!) than just the higher price alone would suggest.
I guess it depends on your individual thing. I considered various SDs in my time, and they sounded OK, but I didn't go for them in the end; instead, I went with (obviously) some BKPs. They cost a bit more, but my confidence was very high that I was getting the right model for me from a stable of pickups that are among the best currently being produced. And I reckon that was worth a few extra quid! :) Yer mileage may vary .... ;)
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my main sound is based around a 'musey' type guitar sound and this was the combo i was advised to get... everyone think its for the best?
Thanks once again
well, those are the pickups that are in Matt Bellamy's own guitar, so they shouldn't do any harm in that quest!
oh, i'm with Carlaz there. i don't like to see the whole "everything else is rubbish, other people are stupid" thing. other companies make perfectly decent pickups, there are different levels in any market. mass produced ford's will get you where you're going quite nicely, but a hand made Ferrari will always be better!
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Matt also uses BKP Mules, although a lot of his sound is based round P90's. If I were you and after a good versatile setup that would get Muse type tones as well as covering plenty of other bases I'd probably go for a Mule and Mississippi Queen combo. I've got a set of Mules and they sound beautiful clean - really open with a chiming top end, and dirty up really well too. Lots of clarity and punch yet still sounding really sweet. Can't go wrong with them in my eyes. The Nailbomb sounds ace too, but I think that if you are really concerned about clean sounds and versatility then the Mule si what you need. ;)
*Rahnooo*
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Guitarists are usually terribly conservative creatures (in spite of seeing themselves as creative wild men). As a result of this they can be terribly suspicious of anything new. And even those who try out the new thing and are blown away will often end up buying the established or well-known product.
Tim at BKP faces the same uphill struggle that I sometimes do with Feline in this respect - players try out our product and say that it is the best thing they have tried and the next thing you know they have bought the big brand on advice from their mates who didn’t test out the product (and they cant lose face in front of their mates :roll: )
Recently I was surprised at a guitar repairer friend of mine saying to a customer that BKPs were just a flash in the pan and that he should buy Seymour Duncans (am I the only one who spells this right). Although it may just be that he is a Duncan stockist and not a BKP stockist.
I get around that by being a Duncan, EMG and BKP stockist.
My personal preference is for the BKPs - for tonal and clarity reasons but because I have the other brands in stock too it is not perceived as simply trying to push the brand that I keep as opposed to the one that the customer is interested in.
To also put a fair perspective on this (and to seem slightly at odds with some of the partisan opinions stated on these boards) I know Seymour personally - (as I do Tim) and he is a great bloke with a huge amount of knowledge.
If Seymour or one of his hand winding team wound me a pickup then I would expect it to have the same quality as a hand wound UK coil.
Seymour maintains that all Gibson pickups were machine wound and featured symmetrical coils so that is what he does for those pickups.
I have his pickups in several of my personal guitars as well as some EMGs and lots of BKPs. The guitars that have the SDs in sound great with them in as I chose carefully what I wanted and they are older pickups too.
When a make becomes more and more sucessful it becomes harder to have the same personal involvement with each batch of product that goes out. Tim trains his guys well so that is good news and i am sure he will continue to think ahead for when his product gains wider use.
However I have been alarmed to hear that some USA pickup makers are having the coils made in the Far East and assembling them in the USA and still calling the product USA made. I have had no concrete proof as yet but it does concern me- not so much from quality control but from the honesty factor.
But I like what Tim does with the hand wound coils and the slightly differently wound coils in a humbucker and the way it increases clarity and the frequency range-and I tell people that and let them decide for themselves with their ears- we keep a lot of guitars in stock with BKPs so that players can try them out.
I guess I get tired of hearing blanket statements like "SD are cr@p - use BKPs" rather than statements like "I prefer BKPs to SDs and i think that you would do too". especially when the players saying the first statement have NEVER tried SDs in the first place :evil:
The BKP forum is usually very good because it is full of informed opinion, and hopefully it will stay that way rather than spouting what others have said.
I hope I havent ruffled anyones feathers here but I dont like seeing knee jerk reactions and comments clouding good discussion
In answer to the original post - BKPs will do what you want but the Nailbomb may not give the cleanest of clean tones as it is pretty high output.
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I'm in the same boat. I got many pickups in very different guitars (wich are from : Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, Schaller (they do great vintage pickups), GFS (cheap but good sounding MIK pickups) and love them both (even my SD JB, love/hate relationship). I'm pretty sure BKPs are better than all those mainly because they are hand wound, and my personnal beleive is nothing can beat a carefully hand made pickup (it's even more than that because it can be custom wound to YOUR specs)
My philosophy is "the right pickups for the right guitar" so my pickups are moving around a lot :lol:
I can't wait to get my first BKP set (still undecided between A5 MM or a NB set) so I could put those DiMarzio in my Schecter and ditch the Duncan Designed :lol:
(I'm totaly offtopic, sorry guys...)
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Used SD's and Dimarzios, couldnt get a tone i liked out of any of them. They just sounded immature and fake, i tried a BK humbucker and the difference was night and day!
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well thanks for all the help everyone its very useful. Sounds like i was misinformed about the details of the BKP's. Im still really tempted by the decription i have read of the nailbomb, so i don't no if that or the mule would best in the bridge position. Do either of those two pick ups (nailbomb and the mule) sound totally different from the mississippi?
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Used SD's and Dimarzios, couldnt get a tone i liked out of any of them. They just sounded immature and fake, i tried a BK humbucker and the difference was night and day!
Exactly my point Steve - you have tried them and PREFER the BKPs
There are others who post such opinion & have NOT tried the other brands in their OWN guitars and therefore cant express it as a personal opinion but rather as heresay.
And whilst there is nothing wrong with having enthusiam for the BKP product (as we all do) it isnt very productive to post opinion that isn't based on experience but make it look like it is.
Of course there are players on here who have got real life comparison experience and that is invaluable to us all.
Some of us have even tried many different BKPs in the SAME guitar and can offer comparisons between models
For example Hellbilly has had most of the high output humbuckers in his Charvel model 6 and eventually settled on the Miracle Man for that particular axe - as it totally nailed the tone he wanted (I hope he doesnt mind me namechecking him)
And I guess that is what the origianal poster on this thread was asking about as his tutor who was offering opinion had never tried out BKPs in all liklihood but was expressing an opinion that was somewhat partisan - in favour of SD or Dimarzio in this case.
I just feel that it is best to offer experienced opinion back to guide him in his choices
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i was wondering if anyone has either of these pickups and can tell me if you can get a true clean sound from your guitar still and if they are definatley worth the money. i have also been told if i fit these in to my guitar, the 5 way pick up selector switch will become usless. is this true :? i appreciate the help as i really want some new pick ups for christmas, thanks everyone! :D
What guitar do you have?
By the way - what college are you at??
The 5 way may not work the same - simply beacuse the MQ is a single coil so the auto coil splits will be a bit different.
This isnt because of using BKP but simply because you are swapping a twin coil pickup for a single coil pickup
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i have a yamaha rgx 420 it already sounds really good so i dont want to ruin it and get something that i wont prefer thats what i worry about. i go to guitar-x in acton
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What sort of range of tones do you need out of it?
Bearing in mind that you wil want a variety of convincing tones as the college will make you do a wide range of stuff it may be worth considering all the types of music that you want the guitar to excell at
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It's very difficult to convince someone new to BKP's of their superior quality. You'll just have to try them yourself to see that there's no hype here. The difference in the playing feel/tone/definition is just massive.
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Yeah, if I was going to be in a "need to play everything" sort of situation I'd probably lean more towards the Crawler, Cold sweat or Rebel Yell.
The guy who advised you to get an SD Jazz had a point, it IS a very good clean pickup and gives good definition of notes when performing technical passages with gain. HOWEVER, it lacks balls in a big way, and will not do hard rock upwards rhythm and will strugggle to do high gain bridge leads.
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:D It`s also fair to say that some of us come from large circles of musicians. This means we`ve been exposed to many different brands of guitars, P/U`s, amps etc.
My preferance for BK`s is based on the evidance of my own ears. I`ve heard Duncans, invaders, 59`s, pearly`s, Jb`s all in the same guitar & the only Duncan i rated was the SH5 Custom. Now i didn`t own the guitar that had used/tried all of these Duncans [ Washburn Chicago ] but i used said guitar for recordings & gigs so i think it qualifies me to have an opinion.
My mate made similar decisions based on the fact that i had DiMarzio`s in most of my guitars, & he used to use mine to play with as well. Just for the record i have personnaly stated on this forum in the past that i regard Dimarzio super distortion P/U as a bench mark pup. That for my money all other pups who`ever makes `em are judged by.
:D 8)
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putting aside the guitar college becuase i have a strat i use for that, im using my other guitar for personal use and for music i want to play. im looking to get a heavy rocking sound at times eg. i was advised the naibomb to get some nice harmonics, great distortion but not thrash metal or anything like that, at the max i go drop d and i was advised the mississippi queen for the more easy going stuff i like to play eg chili peppers and when i use my synth and delay effects. it sounds like it they should work together well, but im hesitant because i don't want to spend £200 roughly and realise its not exactly what i wanted/expected
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:D It`s also fair to say that some of us come from large circles of musicians. This means we`ve been exposed to many different brands of guitars, P/U`s, amps etc.
My preferance for BK`s is based on the evidance of my own ears. I`ve heard Duncans, invaders, 59`s, pearly`s, Jb`s all in the same guitar & the only Duncan i rated was the SH5 Custom. Now i didn`t own the guitar that had used/tried all of these Duncans [ Washburn Chicago ] but i used said guitar for recordings & gigs so i think it qualifies me to have an opinion.
My mate made similar decisions based on the fact that i had DiMarzio`s in most of my guitars, & he used to use mine to play with as well. Just for the record i have personally stated on this forum in the past that i regard Dimarzio super distortion P/U as a bench mark pup. That for my money all other pups who`ever makes `em are judged by.
:D 8)
Yup that counts as personal experience JT hence your opinions are well informed, and more so that your observations are comparitive and subjective. You can say this pickup was too nasal sounding to me or whatever and we all benefit from you sharing your experience
I was just against the "Brand X are shite and they kill kittens, so use BKP instead!" type posting as it doesn't help others make informed choices
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:D You mean Seymour kills kittens !!!!
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Wasn`t having a go mate mearly stating for the record my own background as to why i have my opinions. I think its good that we all have opinions that we share here in by & large friendly terms. Its what makes this forum such a pleasure to be a member of.
:D 8)
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so i should i go for the nailnomb in the bridhe and mississippi queen in the neck?
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If you want to play muse then yes.
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OK, as promised a clean Nailbomb clip is now in the Players forum:
http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=78141#78141
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so i should i go for the nailnomb in the bridhe and mississippi queen in the neck?
I'm building a guitar right now that has a Nailbomb and a Mississipi Queen (it also has a sustainer and a piezo bridge) specifically to get the Matt Bellamy / Muse sound.
The Nail bomb is a very versatile pickup in my view which, on my amp at least, gives a really nice crunch overdrive flat out and beautiful articulate cleans with the vol just rolled off ever so slightly.
As Jonathan said there are lots of good products out there and I use a lot of them at one time or another but the Nailbomb was the first BKP I ever used and I have to say it was the first pickup in years that I was totally impressed with.
If you want what is generally recognised as the muse sound (Matt does use other combinations as well) then that's the right combo for you.
Cheers,
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ok thanks for the help :D good luck with your guitar and thanks for the clean nailbomb clip, sounded really nice. hopefully il be able to wire it up so i can use my 5 way selector switch but im going to go for both the pickups in chrome :) thanks guys
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ok thanks for the help :D good luck with your guitar and thanks for the clean nailbomb clip, sounded really nice. hopefully il be able to wire it up so i can use my 5 way selector switch but im going to go for both the pickups in chrome :) thanks guys
If you have a Strat style 5 way it might be worth swapping it for a Tele 3 way to give you 1) neck 2) both 3) bridge you can then put the coil tap on a pull-push switch on the tone or vol pot. It's a simple arrange ment but very versatile.
If you need any help with wiring diagrams gimme a shout.
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if you could give me some sort of diagram tat would be great, i know how it all works inside the guitar, so a diagram would be real yeasy to follow thanks alot :D
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if you could give me some sort of diagram tat would be great, i know how it all works inside the guitar, so a diagram would be real yeasy to follow thanks alot :D
Better than that, check this out. Lots of wiring options here.
http://www.guitartechcraig.com/techwire/diagindx.htm
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thats excellent mate, easy to understand aswell. thanks i really apprecate it
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has anyone got any sound clips of them using a nailbomb or mississippi queen playing muse songs? thanks
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sorry to bug everyone again, this should hopefully be my last post on this topic. just wondering what part i measure to work out if i need 50mm or 53mm spacing and do i need conductor 4 or braided 2? thanks once again, after i know this i can finally get them! i take it when you order the mississippi queen all you you have to do is choose the cover?
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sorry to bug everyone again, this should hopefully be my last post on this topic. just wondering what part i measure to work out if i need 50mm or 53mm spacing and do i need conductor 4 or braided 2? thanks once again, after i know this i can finally get them! i take it when you order the mississippi queen all you you have to do is choose the cover?
I'd suggest 4 conductor to allow you coil splitting options
as for the spacing there is a couple of threads, but they sum up to measuring the width yourself (to make sure)
Rob...
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Measure the distance between the 1st & 6th strings over the polepieces of your existing bridge pickup.
You only need to get a 4 conductor humbucker if you want to have the option of coil-splitting. However, you don't have to wire in coil splitting if you have a 4-con.
For the MQ, you choose whether it's for the bridge or neck position & what cover you want.
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so you would recommend the 4 conductor? too be honest i don't have a clue what the difference is so im going by what you guys say :D i have open poled pickups at the moment but don't have strings on the guitar, so i measured from the first silver screw on the pickup to the last silver screw and it measured at 50mm exactly, so i guess thats right
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Get a 4 conductor & you can't really go wrong - you can either wire it for simple humbucker operation or to a coil splitting switch to allow you get get a single coil type sound as well.
Assuming that those pole pieces lined up OK when you had strings on it, then yes, 50mm will be fine.
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thanks for the advice mate, i will get the options you advised