Newbie Questions for Pickup choices

[ByronBlack]

Hello everyone!

I'm very new to the BKP range of pickups, I've spent most of the day going through the sound samples and getting a flavour of the products on offer. I read a review of the Warpig a while ago and was suitably impressed.

I have two projects that I need to gear up with some nice PU's and was hoping some of you may be able to enlighten me on what would be good choices.

My first guitar is made from English yew with a maple cap and maple Jem style neck. Its sole purpose is a metal riff monster, it'll have just a single bridge pickup, no tone knob, just volume. My immediate choice was a warpig as I want to capture the sounds of Early Sabbath, Load era Metallica, or a crunchy palm mute sound from Avenged Sevenfolds latest 'City of Evil' album, it's a tight crunchy distorted tone but without being muddy. What say you?

My second project, is a lovely Walnut explorer with matching walnut and rosewood neck, this again is going to be a metal riff meister, but I also want something warm and buttery in the neck position for darkish (but not dull) clean tones - again think Fade to Black metallica clean sound.. I'll also want to be able to back of the volume a little on this for some dirty blues tones..

Any help and advice will be gratefully received. TIA

[Nolly]

There are far more knowledgeable people than me on here, but sounds like the Painkiller or Warpig would do pretty nicely for the first guitar of yours.

A Miracle Man might be a good choice for the second guitar, and would give you a more modern, less middy sound (I'm assuming you'd like the guitars to have different sounds). As for the neck, the Axabras seems to be a very popular pairing with high-output bridge units around here. Though I haven't tried it myself, I believe it has quite a fat vintagey-type tone that might be great for what you've described.

[machine_of_god]

Yea, what he said  ;)

[WezV]

Hello everyone!
My first guitar is made from English yew with a maple cap

interesting!!  I have always avoided using yew for some unknown reason.... hows it sound

[Roobubba]

An alternative is a cold sweat neck for your second guitar. Much love here for that as well as the Abraxas for what you mentioned.

Given that you quoted some not-all-that-heavy sounds, I'm wondering if a warpig might be a little *too* much. Ahh, hang on, alnico warpig should be about right. Ceramic warpig would slay you, I think :D

Roo

[ByronBlack]

Thanks for all you replies, it really helps narrow it down a little, Just got to get the projects finished and then I can place some orders!!!

Wez, I've not tested the yew guitar yet - I'll be posting progress of that guitar on the projectguitar forum soon (month or so, after the walnut explorer), I've heard conflicting reports about yew, some say it can be muddy, others say it can be 'woody', but it has a rather thick maple cap on it so it should balance out any muddyness, it'll also feature an all maple neck, so i'm hoping it will be quite a heavy tone with some nice clears on it.

[Transcend]

for your metallica leads clips the miracle man bridge works fine for me.

heres a few clips ive done

fade to black intro
http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/download.php?id=1886
on this one i layered it over the cunning stunts recording after removing the right channel,

sanitarium intro
http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/download.php?id=1893
ignore the cleans on this lol theyre terrible

and as for riffing
http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/download.php?id=2260

and also metallica the new song also by me
http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/download.php?id=1689

[Transcend]

oh yeah please note those clips are over a period of about a year hence the drastic tone changes on some.

[ByronBlack]

HG - those samples are stunning! The tone on the fade to black solo was simply superb! I really like the riffing sample as well, there was a little 'sabbath' in there too which is nice. Well, I think I may have settled on the miracle man for the bridge for the walnut explorer, just need to now decide on a clean/blues lead sound for the neck.

Thanks again for posting them links, really nice playing!!

[Transcend]

HG - those samples are stunning! The tone on the fade to black solo was simply superb! I really like the riffing sample as well, there was a little 'sabbath' in there too which is nice. Well, I think I may have settled on the miracle man for the bridge for the walnut explorer, just need to now decide on a clean/blues lead sound for the neck.

Thanks again for posting them links, really nice playing!!

Id go for the cold sweat. That's my next purchase :D

[il˙ti]

To get a good difference in guitars, I'd say you should make the first project a metal riff monster as you said with a Warpig, maybe even ceramic. For the explorer I think a calibrated Cold Sweat set would be ideal. More vintage in caracter, less output but still a tight bass for metal, and a paf-like neck pup with smooth leads. In a big explorer body, it will sound huge. (listen to Twilight's clips with the CS bridge)

[AngusYoung01]

HG - those samples are stunning! The tone on the fade to black solo was simply superb! I really like the riffing sample as well, there was a little 'sabbath' in there too which is nice. Well, I think I may have settled on the miracle man for the bridge for the walnut explorer, just need to now decide on a clean/blues lead sound for the neck.

Thanks again for posting them links, really nice playing!!

Actually, A Miracle Man  set will do nicely. Thats what I use, and I wasn't sure to go for a Cold Sweat, but Tim recommended the set, and I'm glad I followed his advice. The neck is really smooth, fluent, and is perfectly balanced with the bridge of course. Have you asked Tim, he knows more about them than anyone, he is the creator after all  :D