Looking for suggestions on pickups

[gbsmusic]

Hey there, I'm new to the forum. I am going to buy a set of BKP's and I just want the best set for me. I love heavy metal, 80's hair metal (VH-Lynch-Vai), but I also like a nice clean tone and I want to be able to split the pick-ups for single coil tones also. I have a Paul Reed Smith Singlecut Artist trem, I put a set of PRS, HFS and Vintage in it and while I like them I just know there is so much more to be heard!!! Thanks for any help!!

[dheim]

holydivers? i haven't still got mine functional but from what i know they can cover your style pretty well...

[ericsabbath]

cold sweat set or vh2

[Roobubba]

Cold sweats sound just about right, I think!

Welcome to the forum!

[gbsmusic]

I'm leaning to the Rebel Yells, how is the volume between the neck and bridge it seems like the neck would drop in volume with it being less powerful. It also sounds like the VH2's would be a little to brite.

[Zaned]

If you're talking about a volume drop on a calibrated set..well, there isn't. The neck pickup is less powerful because it 'senses' a larger vibration on the string. Sorry if this was an obvious fact for you :) Plus, they're voiced differently. For example, Cold Sweat bridge is ceramic, and the neck is Alnico V.

About the pickups, I dont' think the VHII would be too bright, that PRS being a mahogany/maple body + a mahogany neck. However, I don't have personal experience with it.

I do have the Cold Sweat set, in a PRS McCarty. It's excellent. The Rebel Yell set was another strong candidate when I was choosing pickups for the McCarty. The CS has smoother mids and more CUT in the the high end, and is marginally hotter. The RY is more aggressive in the mids and has smoother highs. If you listen to the samples (there are a few with CS bridge too), you'll hear this difference. I went with the CS because my guitar has a clear and warm tone with a good deal of mids, and I wanted a tone akin to John Sykes from it.

Someone else should chime in on the VHII.

-Zaned

[ericsabbath]

if you like the HFS, you'll love the Cold Sweat
they have a similar voicing and output, but the Sweat is less middy, warmer on the top and way clearer

[dheim]

I'm leaning to the Rebel Yells, how is the volume between the neck and bridge it seems like the neck would drop in volume with it being less powerful. It also sounds like the VH2's would be a little to brite.

usually neck pickups pick up (obviously...  :P) a lot more vibrations and are louder... pickup power (i may be wrong here, but this is my experience) is more related to the way they saturate the signal before the preamp than with their audible volume, so you can have a neck set at 7k DC and a bridge at 18k and still hear a fuller and louder voice from the first one... much depends on pickup distance from strings... anyway with balanced sets there's no risk of having an unbalanced couple in terms of volume and frequencies, being them... er... balanced, indeed... :) of course pickup height still plays a primary role.
sorry if i said things you already know... then i didn't understand your question!
anyway if this is your first experience with BKPs and you're not sure of how different pickups sound in the two positions i suggest you a balanced set anyway, it's always a good point to start from...

[HairyChris]

According to Tim the nearest to HFS/VB is the Cold Sweat set. Go for it one day - as mainly a bridge pickup player the CS blows the HFS out of the water. It's not quite as hot but is much more defined and tighter without losing any fatness. The necks really nice too...