Will - one sees! Cheers
Eric - the 81 has very little bass. What have you been playing it through? The miracle man isnt closer. Like I've said before, Ive had an 81 and a miracle man (actually, 3 different miracle men!!) in the same guitar, and the MM has WAY more lows, and less mids and high mids. It also lags behind it slightly in output. Please dont try and tell me that it doesnt, when I have extensively A/B'd the standard 17k MM with the pig and 81 and discovered it to be noticably lower in output, and a 23k MM and discovered that to be very similar output to the Pig, 81, and c-pig.
Puma, you happen to be a lucky fussy git.
I just happen to have exchanged the C-Pig/ Cold sweat combo in my Legra yesterday. Then put the CP/CS back in. Then the PKs back in. Then the CS back in. A/Bing with the Monster Miracle Man and A5 warpig at each stage.
My conclusions:
Most obviously, I am a little wrong about the PK output. It could stand to be the tiniest shade more powerfull to hang with the big boys, but you only notice it in A/B ing. Play an 81 one day and a PK 2 days later, and you wont notice the gain difference.
This changes nothing about the gain levels of the miracle man. If my conclusions were different then I wouldnt have a 23k miracle man (oh, Tim chose the output, I just asked him to make it as powerfull as possible while still sounding baislcally like a miracle man) and I would have an overwound PK!
The painkiller is the tightest BK. Or at least of all the ones I've played; excluding singles, 5-Pig, C-Pig, NB set, PK set, CS neck, Crawler set, MM, Double screw pole MM, 23k double screw pole MM (of those I havent the Cold Sweat bridge might be tighter< I suppose, but I cant imagine a tighter pickup).
It has a very full and not-in-the-slightest-raw high end (sorry eric, I [/i]strongly[/i] dissagree with that - perhaps you should have changed your strings if you played it). This is especially true compared to the others, where due to the compression, the highs get a little squashed in and are comparatively thin and scratchy (note, that is COMPARATIVELY, as in to a painkiller. they still make the vast majority of similar output pickups sound like the thin and scratchy ones).
C-Pig Vs PK.
Bear in mind my PK is double allen bolt, and covered, and the C-pig covered and double screw blot. That means that both have the tiniest highs attenuation, but the PK, with steel allens, is a little brighter that the iron screws, and the standard PK is single screw pole, so I've got about 15 or 20%-ish more low end from mine.
The C-Pig is hotter, no doubt about it. But I'd be very, very suprised if the PK wasnt hot enough for you.
The PK is tighter.
The PK is louder. Probably the mids being heard more easily by the ears.
EQing - If I arbirarily set the C-Pig at 5/5/5/5/5, bass, low mids, mids, high mids, treble then the PK is something like 4.5/6/6/7/5
I'm not going to guess what a single-screw pole would be.
The PK has a more dynamic response.
The PK is quite a ways better to shred on. It makes lead sound BIG. Which is....errr.....odd, but very cool.
All told, I left the Painkillers in and have no desire to move them. Asside from anything else the PK neck is one of the finest pickups ever created.
Oh, and, Eric,
The output characteristics of an 81 and 85 are elctrically identicle. They have exactly the same output
RMS voltage - 1.25
Peak V - 1.75
Current - 80 microamps
Impedence - 10kohms.
And they sound rather perfectly equal, too. The 85 is darker and has more low mids, and isnt quite as tight, but the outputs are the same.
