How about better names of BKP's single coils?

[38thBeatle]

Tis a potentially thorny issue and you make a good thought out argument. I think back to when I first bought my BKPs and I can't say the names had too much influence. Sure they gave me a rough idea of what to expect but I sought advice and opinions and bought mine regardless of the names. I certainly agree with your views on Apaches-they are superb as I have said countless times in the past. My personal view is that the gear you are playing is almost ( I said almost) incidental to the sound you are going to make.If Jimi were around now and he were to borrow my Strat, he'd sound just like Jimi and the same wopuld apply if he used just about any Strat. Having said that, each of us wants the best possible gear to enable us to try to emulate our idols or to create our own thing with as good a core sound as we can.

[Ben_W]

You could say the same of the humbuckers. The warpig and painkiller leap out as beeing far more powerfull and heavy than the sounds they're named for.

+1 I was talking to a guy who was making his own metal guitar, and he bought Warpigs, and I asked him why he got them over Miracle Men, as Miracle Men seemed to fit his needs better, and he said "Warpig sounds heavier" or something like that, which may be a common thing, to instantly presume Warpigs are the ultimate metal pickup, due to them having an angry name... :P

[MrBump]

81
81TW
85
ZW
KFK
60
60A
89
H
HA

Hmmm... I know how I'd rather have MY pickups lablled...  "Nailbomb" CAN'T be any more confusing than "81"...

 :?

[HTH AMPS]

The pickup descriptions give the magnet type and DC resistence - I think you can get a basic idea just from that. 

If you're not sure, email or phone Tim - he's always more than happy to talk shop in my experience.

[Will]

81
81TW
85
ZW
KFK
60
60A
89
H
HA

Hmmm... I know how I'd rather have MY pickups lablled...  "Nailbomb" CAN'T be any more confusing than "81"...

 :?

Just what I was thinking :P

[FELINEGUITARS]

Good posts on here
It is a really tough situation for sure for many reasons

One factor that raises it's head a bit is perceptions of players and prejudices towards certain players.
It is funny that I suffer with a prejudice against both Hendrix and SRV
I can't upon reflection say that I dislike their tone or even their singing (although not my favourite)
But I suffer with hearing way too much about them from the legions of fans and from the constant barrage from guitar mags over the years.
Now the point I am making is that I may be looking for a particular strat sound that maybe these two fine players had  on their recordings but because of my prejudice I would steer clear of pickups called "woodstocks" or "Little Wings" Or "Texas Floods"

I have to be careful not to develop a blind-spot towards the Nailbomb (as it is a fine pickup and has a wide range of applications) simply because I cant stand Sepultura and that genre of metal  (mainly because of the poor vocalists), and I am sure the same might apply to others maybe if a pickup made you think of hair-metal (which i am fond of) simply because of visions of spandex trousers and day-glo guitars

Another example of prejudice I experienced was a while back I was trying to sort out a problem that a jazz player was having getting the right sounds out of a cheapish jazz guitar (like a Gibson 175)
I knew and Tim advised that he would be best of with a stronger voiced pickup (the stormy Mondays, mules etc were not doing what we needed) and it seemed that either a rebel Yell or a Warpig neck pickup would give him the tones he wanted.
But there was no way that the player could get his head around the names - they evoked all the wrong images for him
I wished that I could have printed up my own labels with names that evoked smoky jazz clubs to him.
Something that would make him think of Joe Pass rather than Tony Iommi - but alas I couldn't do that (no Djangobucker or Manhatten twilight)

Just thoughts on a tricky subject

[Philly Q]

Interesting post Jonathan.

I was going to say that I wouldn't let the name of a pickup put me off.... but thinking about it, I would hesitate to get the Brown Sugars simply because I don't like the Stones.

 

[Fikealox]

...I don't like the Stones.

Good call  :D

[wintersun]

I personally don't like the name of Miracle Man. I mean, it is a metal pickup, and many thrash players will prefer it cos it is kinda scooped and very tight, but I'm sure they would be much happier if it had a more aggressive name.

Even the Mule sounds kinda.. well... animalistic :D

As for the mothers milk, I would really need to be a some sort of a funky-60s-stoned type of person to say with pride something like "yeah dudee, I've got this cool pickup dudee, it's called mothers milk! hahaha, it's such a cool name.. ! I love it.. DUDE". Now thats just not me. NO WAY :D

However I like the name of Apache, Sultans, Emerald, Holy Diver, Crawler, and all other, except for those few I mentioned.

[Tomcaster]

I think this is just too major an overhaul to be workable.  It's reinventing the wheel.

As Indy pointed out, it's fundamentally changing the whole basis of naming the pickups.  The current names are based on the way they sound (regardless of formvar, grade of alnico and all that gubbins).  The "new" names would be based on what the pickups are made of and/or some anal-retentive (sorry) obsession with exactly what pickup so-and-so used on such-and-such a recording.

Well I think you didn't get my point at all - maybe you didn't read the post carefully enough. What I was trying to say is that the current names might mislead expectations when you buy them. I just suggested to give them song- or artist-based names which could reflect their qualities more precisely so a potential customer could listen to the recording they are named after and immediately understand their qualities. Example: when listening to the song "Apache" you don't get the idea how round and jazzy Alnico III sounds. Anything from Buddy Holly is better. "Slowhands" is a terrible name because you would expect a mid 70s vintage Strat sound - who in the world would think that they replicate 'atmosphere' of the boosted Lace Gold pickups?

In addition, I proposed to fill the hole in the offering and introduce Alnico V Apaches as early 60s pickups. Nobody commented on that?

If you applied the same principle to the humbuckers, everything apart from maybe the vintage models would have to totally change as well.

Well I'm not from the humbucker world so I can't say whether the names are good or not. Seems that other guys here are doing this already.

I thought BKP were in the business of innovation (albeit from a foundation of tried-and-tested traditional methods).  Not making slavish period-correct recreations of other people's pickups.

I thought BKP did both vintage recreations and modern pickups. All of their products deserve names which mirror their qualities as precisely as possible, that's all.

[edited for spelling]

[Philly Q]

Well I think you didn't get my point at all - maybe you didn't read the post carefully enough.

No, I got your point and I'm perfectly capable of reading carefully, I just didn't agree with your idea. 

The existing names are meant to give an idea how the pickup sounds.  They're not supposed to indicate that they're the same as the pickups a particular artist used (KK Downing and Yngwie Malmsteen never used overwound Strat pickups like the Sinner or Trilogy Suite, for example).  And they're not supposed to tell you what wire or magnets the pickups are made of.  You said yourself about the Sultans that "this type of pickup has never been used throughout music history" because of the AII magnets - and yet Tim chose to make them that way because they produced a sound that said something to him.  They clearly "sound like a Strat" even if the materials are "wrong".

If you don't agree with the names Tim chose, that's OK - you just need to do more research to find what's going to suit you, the same as everyone else did.  Some of the names may be confusing - it's entirely subjective - but changing them at this stage would be infinitely more confusing.

[AndyR]

Yep, very interesting post Jonathan, "Just thoughts on a tricky subject",  (and Philly's reply to it).

I bought my first set, Irish Tours, through a prejudice of sorts ("positive discimination"?) - I was a huge Rory fan, I even heard about BKP through the existance of these pups being reported on a Rory forum a few years back...

But other than that, I would have said the same as Philly "I wouldn't let the name of a pickup put me off". Except... I recently realised that I'd never even bothered reading the product pages for Slowhand or The Boss pups, due to some slight, er, prejudices...

One thing possibly holding me back (I don't think it's the names) is that I lean towards "I want vintage tones" - I'm sure if I had the time/money/space, that some of the "modern" humbuckers would do some great jobs for me. I'm almost convinced (I think it was MDV a while back) that Warpigs would make some very tasteful sounds for me - it means more guitars though!!

For the rest of my acquisitions so far, it wasn't the names - I went for Mules because they get described as achieving the late 50's PAF type sound. Riff Raffs cos they're the 60s-70s "patent" types. And MQs because they're P90 types that fit in a guitar built for humbuckers... I'm not too worried how they're made!!

And now they're integral parts of my guitars, like Mr Bump and Will, I am very happy that they have names - "oh yeah, those are Mules, sound good, don't they?" :D

I think BKP themselves might have a possible marketing issue over someone not buying, say a "Nailbomb" because of what the name means to them - but it seems to be quite likely that the customer is going to buy some sort of BKP instead??? So possibly not a problem after all?

For us as customers - I think most of us, once prepared to spend this much, are in the market for getting what we want and putting a bit of research in. The names aren't actually that much of a problem once you start researching. There's loads of help on here, and BKP themselves will give you personal advice on that front (and swap them if it turns out the advice didn't work!!). Personally, I'd be surprised if I ended up with say "Slowhands" in one of my guitars - but if that was what was needed, and it gave me the tone I was looking for, I could grin and bear it :lol:

EDIT: Tomcaster - on the Alnico V Apaches gap - I'm not sure it is that much of a gap if they'll do them for you if you ask. But certainly you writing about it has alerted me to the possibility!!

[Philly Q]

I think BKP themselves might have a possible marketing issue over someone not buying, say a "Nailbomb" because of what the name means to them - but it seems to be quite likely that the customer is going to buy some sort of BKP instead??? So possibly not a problem after all?

I think that's one case where the pickup's reputation has completely overtaken any association with the origin of the name  :).  Not in the world at large, of course, but on this forum people recommend Nailbombs (and C-Bombs) all the time for applications which have nothing to do with Max Cavalera or Alex Newport.  I don't know about sales figures, of course, but I get the impression it's a very popular pickup.

[AndyR]

I think BKP themselves might have a possible marketing issue over someone not buying, say a "Nailbomb" because of what the name means to them - but it seems to be quite likely that the customer is going to buy some sort of BKP instead??? So possibly not a problem after all?

I think that's one case where the pickup's reputation has completely overtaken any association with the origin of the name  :).  Not in the world at large, of course, but on this forum people recommend Nailbombs (and C-Bombs) all the time for applications which have nothing to do with Max Cavalera or Alex Newport.  I don't know about sales figures, of course, but I get the impression it's a very popular pickup.

The problem for me on "Nailbomb" has always been that the only image it conjures up (for me) is an explosive device with 6" nails in it!! :lol:

(So it's always been in the "I'll save that one for later  :?" category for me - I'm sure I'll want that sound one day!)

[Flashheart]

i'm quite fond of the BKP naming system, practically every name really makes me want that certain pickup. i guess the names are confusing, but most people will look up reviews, talk to tim and check the forum before buying anyway, even if they don't post, i do extreme amounts of research before any purchase, and if possible will always test drive, i assume most people will also learn to look into something before they buy, most of us seem to be very analytical when it comes to tone :)