The neck pickup has more of a strat sound, I think Phil King said something similar.
I remember Phil K saying something like that, but are you sure it was about the Blackguard neck? I've just been giving them a little comparison - There must be strats that sound like this, but mine doesn't... My strat neck sounds more nasal, hard, and, well, strat-like. (But that might be more to do with the strat sounds I prefer!!)
My Baja b/g neck in comparison sounds rounded and open - and yes Philly Q, it
does do those pretty clean tones, in fact
very chimey :D - must have been my ears getting tired last night, but that extra warmth and bottom end that I'm so impressed with is still there, though.
The other things I hadn't spotted last night:
1. I probably take this one too much for granted with BKPs now, but the standard "chords sound so much better with BKPs" effect is there. Even with distorted sounds, you're aware of every note.
2. I've discovered that I'd been picking this guitar
very hard to get the tone I want, and that's how I was still playing it last night. I find this morning that that's what gives me the extra "boingg" as it were :lol: The BKPs, as usual, seem a lot more responsive to pick attack. Suddenly I'm varying the attack a lot more, like I do on my other BKP guitars without even thinking - and that's how I've found the chime Philly! It's even possible that I'll be able to lower the action a bit now - I was suffering from "blues-player with heavy hands" fret-buzz, so I'd had to put a fair bit of relief in the neck and raise the action higher than my strat. I just couldn't figure out why I wasn't able to set it up nearer to what my strat is like - it would appear that the answer was "cos you're beating the cr@p out of the strings even for normal playing..."
All in all, for me, these Blackguards are definitely an improvement over the stock pups. It's turned my nice Baja that "I ought to like a bit more than I do" into a very tasty guitar that I want to pick up because I do like it.
I would like to put the Blackguards head to head against the County Boys for the sake of comparison.
Same here 38th - if what I play was more consistently in the country-blues, Albert Lee, etc, area, then Country Boys had to be it. But I seem to want to cast a wider net, so I reasoned that the Blackguards (aiming at the pups in the guitars that caused all the fuss amongst country and blues players in the first place) would be a really good all-rounder. But even when you get what you wanted, even better than you expected, you still kinda wonder what the other choices might have been like, don't you?!
