Kramer Pacer, Maple body/neck, Rosewood fretboard, single bridge pickup

[Max Tasty]

Greeting peeps,
  First time here. I've got a 1982-83 Kramer Pacer that I would like to change the pickup in. It's got a maple body/neck, rosewood fretboard, floyd rose original, and an old JB pickup in the bridge position (1982ish). It has a volume and tone knob, on/off toggle, and a split toggle.
 
The guitar is very thin and bright sounding compared to my V. The V is a Gibson 81 reissue made of Korina with a rosewood fretboard and PAF's. I play through a Marshall JVM 410H, which has 4 channels. 1 clean, 1 crunch, 2 Overdrive.
 
I gig a lot and I need the Pacer as a backup. I don't want it to sound exactly the same as the V, but I need it to be comparable with my amp settings so that I don't need to tweak the settings when I switch out guitars.
 
As I said, the Pacer is thin and super bright sounding, with less drive/distortion than the V on the same amp settings. Since I only have one pickup in the guitar in the bridge position, it needs to be versatile. I cover a lot of different styles, from 70's through current. Clean, dirty, old metal, pop rock, etc. You name it, I play it.
 
 I love the classic brown sound so my first thoughts were the VHII. But the Nailbomb, Holy Diver, and Rebel Yell sound nice too, so I'm kind of torn. I need something that cleans up well when I back off the volume knob, but also has a great lead tone that cuts and screams, yet has warmth when I crank it up. I'm a huge VH, Schenker, Satch, Andy Timmons fan, so something that can deliver that diverse of a sound is what I'm after.
 
 I await your recommendations with baited breath.  8)

 Max Tasty

[Telerocker]

Holy Diver!

[Max Tasty]

Hey Telerocker...
  Looking at the sound profiles the HD does look like a good choice for this guitar. Boosted mids and less highs. Seems that would darken up my sound a bit, which is good. I appreciate the feedback, pun intended.  :D

  Any other opinions out there in BK land?

Max

[Zaned]

Could you define how the guitar is thin? Do you mean that it has a shrill top, or that the maple brings lot of harsh upper mids? Or lack of bottom? Hopefully not all  :lol:

Anyway, as your V has PAFs, I wouldn't go TOO hot on the output. Black Dog is hotter than a regular PAF, has a big sound, clear but warm highs. If the guitar lacks bottom, I'm afraid the HD is not going to add too much of them. That pickup is about mids; there's lots of them. BUT, if the guitar has a good bottom and shrill highs, the HD could work wonders.

I would steer clear of the RY in this case; maple usually has a lot of upper mids, and RY has lots of them too, with less bottom. It would probably be shrill in your guitar.

-Zaned

[Kiichi]

I agree with Telerocker and Zaned here. RY will prob be too shrill while the BD and HD are both nice choices.
Both should fill in the tonal gap nicely. Depends on how smooth you want it and how much output you favor. My hunch is that you will be very happy with the diver.

[Slartibartfarst42]

The more I read of your post, the more I thought Holydiver. It's very versatile and works in pretty much any wood. BKP do a lot of pickups that work well in Les Pauls (too many in my view but then I don't play a Les Paul) and some that work well in Strats but the Holydiver works great in both. I originally put my Holydiver in a Jackson that was maple neck-thru with a rosewood board, alder wings and OFR and it worked great. That guitar shouldn't be a billion miles away from yours tonally so I have no doubt you'd like it. I also tried an alnico Nailbomb in the same guitar and it was all wrong, being VERY hot, aggressive and tight. With an overdrive pedal and a bit of compression I can get my Holydiver going from clean to Children of Bodom so it's certainly versatile. I now have a Miracle Man in the Jackson and the Holydiver is in my PRS where it also works superbly, making the PRS my favourite guitar despite being half the price (SE version).

[darkbluemurder]

If the guitar sounds too thin right now, stay away from the VHII - it would not have the midrange push that would help the guitar.

Holydiver would be a good choice but given the requirement of versatility I would consider the Crawler, too - fat midrange, lots of warmth, not overboard with output and cleans up better than the Diver. I have one in my Les Paul, one in a brighter guitar and also tried it in a very bright guitar bordering on the edge of being thin, and it worked well everywhere. The only kind of guitar the Crawler does not like as much is dark guitars.

Want more aggression - Alnico Nailbomb will give you plenty of that, although I don't feel it is as versatile.

Cheers Stephan

[Slartibartfarst42]

I'd forgotten about the Crawler and while personally I'd still go with the Holydiver, I think the Crawler is a really good idea.

[Telerocker]

The Crawler would help you on the way too, I have on an swampashstrat, but for those styles I think the Diver is te better option, tighter, yet with a thick, smooth leadtone.