Recommend me some BK pups to go with a maple body 7 string!

[Jongpil Yun]

So I'm getting a custom guitar.

Maple body, maple neck, ebony fretboard. HSH pickup configuration.

For the bridge, think Lundgren M7. Think Meshuggah. Brutal, clear low end.

For the middle single coil, (case 1) I want something that sounds like a violin or cello, OR, (case 2) something with jazz box style cleans.

For the neck, (case 1) a more mellow overdrive, from AC/DC to Sabbath. Hard rock to British Metal style. OR (case 2), a violin or cello sound.

Case 1 would be that a single coil would give a better violin/cello sound. Case 2 would be that a humbucker would.

Thanks guys!

[Roobubba]

I've just put a Miracle Man in the bridge position of my Ibanez RG470F - Basswood body, Maple Neck. I tune down to A-E-A-D-F#-B and this pickup is tight, clear, and really, really sweet all the way down there (so I'm sure the 7-string version would be absolutely fine)

Oh, and I like Meshuggah :)

An alternative, if you want even higher output, would be a ceramic warpig.

I'm afraid I'm still quite new here, so I'll limit my advice to that, I'm sure MDV will be along soon with some superb suggestions :)

Roo

[MDV]

You rang, m'lord?

Seriously, LOTS of guys know this stuff! But I'll help as best I can:

Bridge: Warpig or ceramic warpig. Depends if you want tight and searing highs brutality or organic with detailed mids brutality. I dont know lundgren but for meshuggah I wouldnt look any further than a C-Pig.

Middle: I dont really know the singles. Perhaps 38th beatle or philking will come along.

But I'll try...

Case 1: not really a single sound, that, but I'd say go for the mid-push of an irish tour or slowhand.

Case 2: It does sound like you want something with or that can be well adapted to an AIII magnet though. Check the range and see if there is one, I dont know. This would provide the jazz sound you seek. SCs arent awefully common in jazz, though, its normally a very hum-bucked tone, so I dont know how much success you'd have with that. You'd probably have to carefully choose a tone control setting with any pickup to tame a singles high end.

Neck:

Case 1: Any number of pickups, as I understand the range. Mule, black dog, emerald, crawler, VHII, riff raff (the obvious one, given the mention of ACDC). Of these I know the crawler and know that it will get that sound very well. There could be better though. Wait for someone with mellower tastes, on average, to come by.

Case 2:  By violin or chello I take you to mean an even sound with a pronounced midrange. I'm also assuming that you mean with distortion. That, to me, says cold sweat (again! I always seem to recommend the CS neck! Awesome pickup though). Its got a pronounced mid thats made to shred, but that mid hump (that ex-bkp employee Steve once said sounds 'kind of like a half-c--ked wah') should get you where you want to go.

So you can get  youre bridge sound very succesfully, and the neck shouldnt be a problem in either case. But given that you want a very un-single sound from the middle, the best choice there will probably decide which of case one or two you choose. Were I to guess (which I have to, having never made or wanted to make any guitar sound like a violin or chello), case 1 would give you the best results, given that a middy SC with the tone control could do that (probably) but I find it hard to imagine the jazz sounds I know on a middle single. So my advice is something like this:

Bridge: C-Pig
Middle: Irish tour
Neck: Crawler

Lets see what the other guys say.

[Jongpil Yun]

Alright, so the bridge is pretty much down to a Ceramic Warpig.

By the way, if you know Meshuggah, you know Lundgren, because Meshuggah's guitarists use Lundgren M7s and M8s.

Anyways, I've been playing for a while, and the best sort of violin/cello-esque sound I've gotten (pronounced mids, clear highs, low bass) came from a DiMarzio YJM, so I figured a single would do it well.

This demo of a Trilogy actually sounds pretty good. I'm thinking about that one for the SC pretty heavily now.

Thanks for the advice, Mark.

[CUBE]

i just put a nail bomb in my 7 string and its pretty phat!

[ericsabbath]

maple body + ceramic pickup = brightttnesss

i'd go with alnico warpig

[MDV]

maple body + ceramic pickup = brightttnesss

i'd go with alnico warpig

That really depends on the neck coupling and bridge. Even if its a well secured neck and a fixed bridge most of the sound, wood wise, of a guitar comes from the neck. If its gonna be a bolt on and have a floyd then the body wont actually make much difference.

I'm sure you realise that many, many maple necked, floyd rose equiped guitars have ceramic bridge pickups. Theres nothing intrinsically wrong, or overly bright with that combo, and you can still get plenty of lows out of it.

For example, TO has an all maple guitar with a miracle man in it, which has much more high end than a pig and he says its fine. Great, even. I've heard at least one clip of this guitar and the highs are clear and singing, but its not 'bright', and doesnt lack any thickness or lows. I have an overwound double screw ploe miracle man in a maple/alder FR guitar and its got a lot of highs, but its crushing too. The standard MM I had in before that was pretty damn heavy as well.

Basically a ceramic gives you sharper, more cutting highs, but not any more of them, per se. If you want a very bright powerfull pickup, ceramic is the way to go, but a powerfull ceramic isnt automatically bright. Its the character of the tone, more than the actual EQing.

A C-Pig in all-maple will be brighter than in mahogany, obviously, but its got more than enough lows and mids to make that guitar grind. And I daresay the man wouldnt go for maple if he didnt want some reasonable high end in there ;)

[Roobubba]

mmm. I'm thinking I should've gone for a c-pig rather than miracle man... how long do you get to decide you made the wrong decision?

[Jongpil Yun]

mmm. I'm thinking I should've gone for a c-pig rather than miracle man... how long do you get to decide you made the wrong decision?

2 weeks-ish.

[MDV]

I think if you get the C-Pig, for the sounds you want, your only problem will be that you'll want one in every other guitar you get.

The miracle man is too bright for meshuggah. Too refined sounding too. The mids are too smooth.