a quick 'which pickup?' question...

[danstap]

hello all,

so like alot of people out there into rock/metal and looking for a good BKP to fit the bill i pinned it down to nailbomb, miracle man or warpig... i've ruled out the MM now as most topics on here say its most fitting for shredding and tight wanky solos... which isn't the tone im going for.

the pickup being replaced is a kent armstrong motherbucker, the evil 27.5k monster that imho doesn't have much character at all besides grating noise into your brain. its recently packed in which is a convenient excuse for me to see what all the fuss is with BKPs!

the guitar in question is a hot rodded fat telecaster, to give the silly full name, with a fender DH-1 humbucker in the neck and a humbucker bridge housing the motherbucker, that i replaced the original standard single coil with. it has a 5-way pickup selector, so the neck pickup can be split giving you the normal tele neck single coil tone, and also a toggle switch i used to change the motherbucker between full or half capacity.

i use a jcm800 50w head which, as its not a hi gain amp, overdrives very nicely when using a hotter than average pickup.

im not looking just to get the hottest pickup possible to replace the motherbucker, because quite frankly it was ridiculous and all the character of the guitar was completely lost, but that said im not ruling out the warpig.

as for the style i play mostly.. mainly riff based rock/metal, i guess the easiest comparison would be to ratm and tom morellos sound.. as far as im aware he used emgs of some sort during his rage days and now with audioslave he has a strat with a hot rails in the bridge and standard noiseless singles in the middle and neck. but we also play styles that almost verge on system of a downs sound, which if im using the 800 requires that slightly hotter output to drive the amp nicely.

so with all this in mind, not wanting to sound too nu-metal, but wanting that extra kick, not quite as insane as the MB was, what would you recommend out of the nailbomb and warpig? im worried the warpig would be too high still given my experience with the MB

and like others have said, the sound clips of the nailbomb have all been with a very modern sounding distortion, so they haven't really sold it to me for its ability to get the sound i want.

if anyones seen the live rage dvd, think of the sound morello gets from his 800 when playing the main riff of know your enemy, using whatever EMGs he has..

hows the warpig sound split?

thanks

[Ratrod]

I think a Nailbomb would be very nice in your Strat. They're amazing in Ibanez strat style guitars. Look for Tim's clip of Diary of a Madman. It's a bit more old school.

Also worth considdering is the Crawler. It works great in Strats and they're very good for Tom Morello stuff.

[MDV]

I have a warpig in the bridge of a basswood/maple jackson.

It will give you the sounds you're after. Whether the nailbombs better for you or not I cant say. But I know this:

It brings out the character of the guitar very well for a high gain pickup, theres no worries there at all.

A mate of mine has a muthabucker in an RG550, and I know what you mean about the shear gain of it. The pig is a bit less gainy than that, noticably so, but not by much. It will drive your 800 hard but it still sound characterfull. I play some very fuc!<ing heavy stuff with my TSL and the pig and it still sounds tonefull, and thats higher gain than an 800.

The pig and JCM800 should sound great, actually. I've not played a pig through an 800, but I reckon they'd make a wonderfull couple :)

[danstap]

well i've gone for the nailbomb for the time being...didnt want anything too extreme as the warpig and make the same mistake i did with the motherbucker.. i checked out the crawler, sounds good but hearing about the nailbombs versatility convinced me.. id quite like to fit other guitars with a warpig or crawler somepoint in the future, but not looking for that classic rock sound the crawler offers at the moment, i got an lp for that.

thanks