versatile bridge HB with coil split potential?

[drownedcat]

Hi there

i'm looking for a bridge humbucker to go in a fixed-bridge alder body strat with ebony fretboard. Its a H-S pickup configuration & i'm thinking about pairing it with a BK mother's milk single-coil in the neck.

Ideally i'd like to wire up the bridge HB with a coil-split switch to get some good strat tones for classic rock & alternative tones, but also be able to get good distorted/hard rock sounds when wired as a HB. So i'm looking for something versatile and a good all-rounder really!

I was hoping someone could recommend some options for good pickup choices

Thanks in advance!

[Telerocker]

I have a VHII in ash American Series HSS-strat, paired with Mother's Milk. The VHII is bright, but not piercing. Actually it is very balanced. It's an articulate pickup. Dig in and you can get wicked screaming tones. Harmonics jump out with ease. Cleans up very nice to certain singlecoil-vocal quality.

In my custom MXG swampash-HSS-strat I have a Crawler paired with two Irish Tours. The Crawler is fat, has beefy mids, but enough treble to bite if necessary. It has PAF-flavour, just with extra balls and a bit more compression. Splits great. This is a very good allrounder from everything between blues and hardrock.

There are more good contesters: the Abraxas, which is a bit milder Crawler, still with good beef in alder, but a more chimey, airy topend. I reckon even a Mule will serve you well. PAF59-voiced. However I get the best split-results with the Crawler, since it's roughly twice the dc-resistance of the IT. Maybe you should look at something between 12 and 15k.

[drownedcat]

I have a VHII in ash American Series HSS-strat, paired with Mother's Milk. The VHII is bright, but not piercing. Actually it is very balanced. It's an articulate pickup. Dig in and you can get wicked screaming tones. Harmonics jump out with ease. Cleans up very nice to certain singlecoil-vocal quality.

In my custom MXG swampash-HSS-strat I have a Crawler paired with two Irish Tours. The Crawler is fat, has beefy mids, but enough treble to bite if necessary. It has PAF-flavour, just with extra balls and a bit more compression. Splits great. This is a very good allrounder from everything between blues and hardrock.

There are more good contesters: the Abraxas, which is a bit milder Crawler, still with good beef in alder, but a more chimey, airy topend. I reckon even a Mule will serve you well. PAF59-voiced. However I get the best split-results with the Crawler, since it's roughly twice the dc-resistance of the IT. Maybe you should look at something between 12 and 15k.

Thanks v.much for the recommendations & descriptions :) I've been trying to make sense of the various BK offerings and this makes things a lot clearer!

My main concern is that Alder maybe too bright - I was looking at the Mule & VII but it seems like they are voiced high on the treble side ..and you also raise a good point about considering output for best split results. 

From the product descriptions it looks like maybe the Abraxas would be the best fit or else the Crawler. The difference seems to be higher mids on the crawler and different magnet types...