SG Special pup upgrade

[Jagg]

Hello,

Just discovered this website and thought that this forum might help me out a bit.  I'm not real informed on the topic of pickups.  I really don't know that much about them.  So please bear with me if I seem to spew ridiculously stupid questions and such.

I'm wanting to upgrade the stock 490 pups in my SG Special.  I've considered the Gibson 57 Classics, and the Seymour Duncan 59 vintage blues pickups, but I'm suddenly very interested in these Bare Knuckles. 

I've got both feet in the blues and my intention is to turn this SG of mine into a total Blues Beast.  I'm really into artists such as the Three Kings (Albert, Freddie and BB).  I'm also a huge fan of Claptons Fool SG Woman tone, along with his LP guitar work with the Bluesbreakers.  Peter Greens out of phase LP is also a very inspiring sound to me.  I'm also a huge fan of SRV's Strat tones.  The heavily overdriven Texas blues sound speaks volumes to me.

Having said that, I'm not wanting to emulate these tones exactly.  The sound I have in my head is definately bred from the above mentioned, but I'm not wanting to just carbon copy them.

I'm looking for a very warm buttery, creamy sound for the neck position, and a biting, crunchy overdriven blues sound in the bridge.  Does this make sense.  Like I said, I'm not really informed on the specifics of pickup selection, but the above is basically what I'm wanting to achieve.

I would appreciate it if someone might suggest a pickup selection that might help me reach this.  I've listened to several of the sound clips on this site and I've found them to be very nice sounding.  I particularly like the Stormy Monday and the Mule.  My thought was to use the Stormy monday in the neck and the mule in the bridge.  Would this combo work?  Can you mix and match them that way or do they need to be calibrated sets?

I would appreciate any and all suggestions.

Thanks,

Jagg

[ericsabbath]

stormies?

[ailean]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I'm not great at pup selection myself, but the 2 that spring to mind are the Stormy Mondays and the PG Blues sets. Check the players forum (use the search tool) to see if you can get any clips that might help.

It's always worth firing an email to Tim at Bare Knuckle (on the sales email address), he's very helpful and knows the products well as he designed them.

[Twinfan]

Welcome  :D

I'm looking for a very warm buttery, creamy sound for the neck position, and a biting, crunchy overdriven blues sound in the bridge........

You can mix and match, some combinations work better than others though  :)

I'd say you want an Alnico II Stormy Monday in the neck, and an Alnico V Riff Raff in the bridge.  That would do exactly what you want, in my opinion, and is a valid combination that people have tried before  :)

[Fourth Feline]

Welcome  :D

I'm looking for a very warm buttery, creamy sound for the neck position, and a biting, crunchy overdriven blues sound in the bridge........

You can mix and match, some combinations work better than others though  :)

I'd say you want an Alnico II Stormy Monday in the neck, and an Alnico V Riff Raff in the bridge.  That would do exactly what you want, in my opinion, and is a valid combination that people have tried before  :)

+ 1 on that idea . :)

The only thing I am thinking -is that if you want the bass response in the neck a little tighter - I swapped AII magnets in my Stormies to AIV in my S.G. - to acheive that .  AII is a lovely sound, but in an solid S.G. I did not mind losing a little bit of sweetness at the top end for a more detailed bass.  I suppose the best way to describe it, is that AII Stormies tend to make it sound like your steel wound strings are pure nickel wound. 

TwinFan is still absolutely spot on, but consider the subtle tonal differnce you may want ( either way ) in the neck S.M.

The reason my observations do not preclude Twinfan's - in that as you will have an AV Riff Raff in the bridge, you can go right ahead and use an AII in the neck - as all bases will be covered. I  had to go AIV in both, as I have a pair of Stormies - and needed both to 'blur ' the line between AII Stormies and Riff Raffs - without buying new pickups.

( Oh, and welcome to the forum !  )  :)

 

[Twinfan]

FF makes a good point.  An Alnico IV SM in the neck will be a little 'tighter' sounding, if that is something you'd like  :)

[PhilKing]

If you use a Riff Raff and an AIV Stormy Monday you will be able to get the Peter Green out of phase tone with both pickups on.  Tim has mentioned to me before that he likes the combination of AV and AIV magnets to get this tone.  I have this in an LP and I also have the PG Blues in another LP.  In an SG I think the Riff Raff/Stormy Monday would work best.  Another combination that I have is an Emerald/Mule set in a Zemaitis metal front clone.  This is a bit more of the rockier end of the blues (Thin Lizzy/Free/Cream), but works really well too.