another bkp review - painkiller

[gwEm]

i've had these pickups with the slowhands in my box of bits to fit for a while, so I haven't really just brought a load of pickups, but it seems like it here - feels a bit like christmas!

so i've had cold sweat, miracle man and painkiller bridges in this guitar which is a maple through neck steinberger copy.

previously tried a painkiller at feline's place - but not on my rig. i thought it sounded close to the cold sweat, in fact thats utter cr@p as TO once pointed out to me. here on the same rig i could hear the difference immediately.

if anything the painkiller is closer to the miracle man. if you imagine a less compressed sounding miracle man with a big fat ceramic sounding mid range, a little more bass, and nicer cleans - thats a painkiller. of course its a great pickup! very addictive to play with.

the painkiller is very modern sounding, but in a british way, i like it alot - prefer it to the miracle man actually! which is a shock as i liked the miracle man alot in that guitar. however i'm putting the miracle man in my next project guitar, another maple axe, which i have high hopes for.

its been quite cool having the 3 bkp ceramic pickups in the same guitar, i feel as if i understand the difference between the three well now. i think theres the case for another ceramic BKP.

[TwilightOdyssey]

Nice review/comparison!

[Philly Q]

previously tried a painkiller at feline's place - but not on my rig. i thought it sounded close to the cold sweat, in fact thats utter cr@p as TO once pointed out to me. here on the same rig i could hear the difference immediately.

I know it was mentioned a bit in that previous thread somewhere, but now that you've used the PK a bit more, how would you describe the difference between the PK and CS, gwEm?  You're good at these comparisons.

[gwEm]

i'll have a stab philly:

for me, i could get the miracle man in my maple bodied steinberger to be pretty close to tone on the priest painkiller album. nice mid range grind, surprisingly organic. with less gain it sounded (again surprisingly) close to something like a mule, at least from the EQ - it was possible to get good hard rock tones out of it with ease.

the cold sweat in the same guitar with similar amp settings sounded just like this blue murder track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdC7vLSmiro. Vintage hot with mild sounding mids. Very extended treble response without being piercing. The bass wasn't very strong, but it went lower. great crunch and cut.

the painkiller has much fuller and richer mids than either of these. while the cold sweat is a bit vintage, and i found the miracle man to be a sort of 80s sound the painkiller is unmistakeably modern - but not in a scooped US metal way. i reckon it has more bass to the tone than the painkiller album. it even sounds modern when i roll the gain down to breakup levels - not the best choice for classic hard rock or blues.

the clean tone of the painkiller is really high class (perhaps because of the strongish yet defined bass), the cold sweat has a great clean tone as well, but i expected it to have. the miracle doesn't do cleans very well, its a bit fragile, but to be fair who would have expected otherwise.

edit: by the way, i tried the MM and CS in my feline - it was a different story there... in that case the MM revealed a more modern character - goes to show the importance of wood and construction methods i guess.

[Philly Q]

Cheers gwEm, that's a very useful comparison.  :)

I'm quite interested in the CS, if I had a suitable guitar for it, but I suspect the PK and MM probably aren't for me.

[il˙ti]

The Painkiller is one of those pickups that upon reading the description I thought "yeah, not for me" but it's becomming increasingly attractive to me. And I even hate Judas Priest a teeny bit less than I used to. What is this foruming making me??!