S-S-H, low gain/warm and bright recommendations

[darcym]

I'm looking for a setup of pickups for my guitar that's s-s-h from neck to bridge.

I've put "low gain" in the title, but I'm not sure if this is appropriate.

What I'm actually looking for is a very warm sound (especially from the neck single coil) and a very bright but not tinny humbucker in the bridge

so a classic clean and warm strat neck and middle pickup - a reasonable trade off between clean and gain, and probably a slightly higher gain/brighter bridge humbucker that's not quite as harsh tinny.

[Mr. Air]

Without being the one with the biggest BKP knowledge I would go for a Riff Raff in the bridge. For the neck and middle I think Mothers Milk or Apaches would suit you fine, but I'm sure some more experienced forumites will chip in.

[darcym]

I've got in another guitar a set of slow hands which are very good, as well as a set of custom winds from Bareknuckles and I was looking for something along those lines.

as I was torn when I bought the Slow hands I was thinking a set of "Irish Tour" in the neck/middle would be good, maybe with maybe a PG blues in the bridge, maybe the riff raff in the bridge ? (I was hoping to have black/cream zebra colours for the humbucker, but the colour is a nice to have, more so the sound)

that was my first initial thought that I should have put in the intial post, sorry.

[darcym]

This "off the shelf" combination sounds quite appealing

VH II humbucker & 2 Irish Tour single coils DC 9.2/6.4/6.4K Alnico V & 2x Alnico V

[gwEm]

This "off the shelf" combination sounds quite appealing

VH II humbucker & 2 Irish Tour single coils DC 9.2/6.4/6.4K Alnico V & 2x Alnico V

thats a "can't go wrong" combination unless your guitar is very bright - what woods is it? i might think twice about that in a hard ash body/maple board combo, but anything else will be fine.

The VH2 is great in a Fender, its a marvellous pickup.

edit: then again, didn't van halen use a ash/maple strat

[Antag]

"a very warm sound (especially from the neck single coil)...so a classic clean and warm strat neck and middle pickup - a reasonable trade off between clean and gain"

Almost perfectly describes the Slowhand.  IMHO you should get them with the zinc baseplate option - it seems to beef up the output just enough to balance it with a humbucker.  Without the baseplate the Slowhand is a lot lower output than I expected with a very "rounded" top end.

The Irish Tours are very bright & quite pokey.  Notes have a real "pop" when first sounded & it has a real "sizzle" on the clean & crunch channel.  The Trilogy is a fair bit more powerful with slightly less brightness & more low end.

Never tried Apaches or Mothers Milks yet, but I'd give serious thought to the Sultans'.  They have a gorgeous light airy clean sound - they "jangle" without the aggressive top end of the Irish Tours.  I have a Nailbomb/Sultans' HSS set & really like it.

Can't really advise you on the lower output bridge models (see my sig - I only put metal machines in the bridge :twisted:) except to say NOT the Crawler - it's very rounded & warm, exactly the opposite of what you asked for.  As a guess, how about the Stormy Monday?  The stock HSS set matches with Apaches but I wonder how it would go with Sultans' for an all-A2 set?

[gwEm]

tim disrecommended me baseplates on the neck (for irish tours and slowhands anyway) since he felt the lowend was too much then

[Antag]

tim disrecommended me baseplates on the neck (for irish tours and slowhands anyway) since he felt the lowend was too much then

Interesting.  I've got Slowhand neck with baseplate (on my Feline custom) & without (Jackson SL3).  The baseplate seems to give it a bit more punch & power without fundamentally altering the single coil character or the warm rounded nature of the pickup.  Yes, there's more low-end & output, but that's a good thing for me - paired with a Holy Diver bridge, the Slowhand doesn't balance particularly well in the SL3.  There's much better balance in the Feline (though the 'Diver in that is the old-spec ceramic version...)

As you might guess I'm not really a strat player - well, not a "proper" strat with 3 single coils.  While I like single coil neck/mid pickups, they need to work well with a high output bridge humbucker.  So take my opinions with a pinch of salt... :)

[darcym]

all very interesting input,

to provide some more details and input.

The body is a dark poplar body.

I've got a set of Slow hands in another strat and quite like them I was trying to do something a little different for this one, thats one of the main reasons I was staying away from the slow hands, no other reason.


I'm really tempted to get a set of Apache's for a different strat and move the slow hands to this current strat.

I like the feedback I'm hearing on this forum so very interesting and balanced views and even more interesting it was gwEm's slowhand clip that tipped me over the edge to purchase them.

in theory what humbucker would you match up for the apache's ?]

Given me some great food for thought

[darcym]

I think I'm going to sell my set of slow hands that I bought for another guitar (they are still boxed) pick up a slow hand set of SSH for this guitar and pickup some mother milks for the guitar the slow hands where for.