aftermath

[braintheory]

I currently have a painkiller bridge pickup in a Dean CFH.  I love its tightness, clarity, and upper mid grind, but sometimes i feel like it sounds boxy or bloated because of its midrange voicing.  Also, I cannot quite put my finger on it but something about its voicing just sounds kind of funky to me.  I have a Miracle Man in a 68 reissue custom les paul that I overall prefer to my painkiller, but I like how my painkiller is tighter, clearer, and has that aggressive upper mid grind.  I love that upper grind!  So I am wondering if it would be worth switching my painkiller for an Aftermath or maybe even a C-Bomb.  The clips I heard of the C-Bomb sounded amazing and also had that grind I was talking and overall they just sounded explosive to me, in a good way. I cannot stand a boxy or bloated sound.  So far I am leaning towards the Aftermath since everyone is raving about it so much and I am hearing that everyone seems to prefer it to the painkiller.  In retrospect it may not have been worth getting the painkiller because I hate the tone in the song Painkiller.  It has that stuffy bloated sound.

[ericsabbath]

assuming you're a Darrell fan, I think you would love the cold sweat
through the right amps, it can nail any Pantera-like tone, specially on leads and harmonics, unlike the painkiller and miracle man that I had before
but if you want to stay in the PK output/grind ballpark, you should try the c-bomb (which is an overwound cold sweat)
the aftermath seems to be a quite mid heavy pickup like the painkiller

[braintheory]

I'm actually not really a dimebag darrell fan and am not at all trying to get his tone.

[ShredHeadJHJ]

Wow, I never heard that the Cold Sweat was good for super high gain stuff like Pantera. I thought it was more associated with classic rock and 80's metal. I need something hotter, more agressive, and with a more full bodied lead tone than my Suhr Aldrich's.

The thing that is so hard is that there are at least 4-5 sets of BKP's that sound like I would dig, but I want to pick the right one the first time.

[Nolly]

I think you would dig either the Aftermath or the ceramic Nailbomb. The former is leaner on the low end, with more midrange across the board, while the latter is more compressed/saturated and bigger sounding. Both are very clear, and while the C-'bomb is extremely tight, the AM is the tightest pickup around.

[ShredHeadJHJ]

I think you would dig either the Aftermath or the ceramic Nailbomb. The former is leaner on the low end, with more midrange across the board, while the latter is more compressed/saturated and bigger sounding. Both are very clear, and while the C-'bomb is extremely tight, the AM is the tightest pickup around.

Bwahahahahaha, looks like we're back to that C-NB bridge / CS neck combo again, hahahahahahahahaha!!!

[Nolly]

Ain't nothing wrong with that!

[FELINEGUITARS]

Wow, I never heard that the Cold Sweat was good for super high gain stuff like Pantera. I thought it was more associated with classic rock and 80's metal. I need something hotter, more agressive, and with a more full bodied lead tone than my Suhr Aldrich's.

The thing that is so hard is that there are at least 4-5 sets of BKP's that sound like I would dig, but I want to pick the right one the first time.

The Cold Sweat serves up lots of aggression IMO, and is a little more open and less compressed than some of the others . I find it great for riffing

[braintheory]

between the Painkiller, C-Bomb, and Aftermath which one sounds the most aggressive?  Which has the most grind?

[MDV]

C-Bomb left, aftermath right. Judge for yourself.

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=19791.0

The aftermath is, to my ears, more aggressive than the PK, but the PK is grindier. Its the upper mids thing.

[visitorQ]

C-Bomb left, aftermath right. Judge for yourself.

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=19791.0

The aftermath is, to my ears, more aggressive than the PK, but the PK is grindier. Its the upper mids thing.

I want to change a JB bridge pick-up from my LTD H-500 (mahogany with maple top body, set-thru maple neck, rosewood fingerboard) because of the lack of definition on the lows when playing one string picking, and the very bad clean sound, which is very loud and... I heard someone saying brittle, and I think is the right word for what I want to say - I'm not a very good english speaker, or speler - and I'm divided between the c-bomb and Aftermath.
I liked very much the sound of Aftermath from your clip of which I know for one year or something, but I'm worried that the midds are shadowing the highs, affecting the bite of the guitar. On the other hand, the lows of the c-bomb sounds a little bit bloated in my ears, in your post. I play with the guitar tuned in C, and when I picked up this LTD, after I had a basswood RG with a Blackout on the bridge, I was very surprised how the lows and the highs are accentuated by the mahogany-maple top body, so surprised that I thoght  the guitar sounds scooped or something. After that, I ended up by cutting the midds a lot on my amp.  Still they are over middle, as long as I don't like the very scooped sound, and for that I hesitated to buy - and now the blasphemy - a Lundgren M, me being a huge Meshuggah fan.
So, after all this novel that I wrote, as Cartman said: What should I do?

[braintheory]

Besides the Painkiller possibly having more grind than the Aftermath is there anything else the Painkiller has going for it that the Aftermath doesn't?  Because so far it sounds like I'm better off switching my Painkiller for an Aftermath.  Everyone seems to be raving about the Aftermath and also replacing their painkillers with Aftermaths.