Vintage Output?

[Fikealox]

Hey guys,

For the last month or so I was restricted to using my friend's guitar, which had an EMG 81/85 combo. During that period I got a couple of distortion pedals, and I dialed them in until they sounded awesome. Now that I've got my Painkiller/Nailbomb strat, I'm finding that the pedal settings I was using are noisy and a bit harsh.  I don't have any real experience with EMGs, and I had no opportunity to A/B them with the passives, but I'm guessing the problem is just that the passives are more aggressively voiced (and unbuffered). I'm hoping that simply rolling back the gain/sustain on the pedals will help, but it is a bit of a pain, and I've not had a huge amount of success so far. :(

The BKPs sound great for heavy riffing and really fast playing, and I love the "feel" of them and their clean tones (especially the Nailbomb), but I want to recapture the smooth, singing lead tone that I had dialed in before. Does this sound like a job for vintage output pickups? If so, what would you recommend for a mahogany-bodied ESP Viper?

Thanks guys,
-Liam

[AndyR]

I'm really no expert in this area, I haven't used any of the pups mentioned, nor do I go for the tone coming out of distortion pedals - but I think I've heard that EMGs produce a "compressed" tone?

If that's true, and it's a factor in the tone you were getting, I'm not convinced that vintage output levels would do you much better. Sounds to me like you want a compressor maybe? That way you keep the tones you like already... Again, I don't use a compressor like that either...

SO... not much help at all... why am I typing... etc... :roll:

[Fikealox]

Hey Andy, thanks for your advice. You're right to say that EMGs have more compression than most passives, which does help toward a singing tone, and a compressor is definitely on the cards for me :) I do think, though, that the voicing of the pickups (for lack of a better word), is an issue too. The EMGs don't have any "grit" to them, which makes them sort of characterless and boring, but means that they stay intact and clean even with the gain/sustain on the pedals cranked.

I have basically no experience with the lower-output BKPs, but I'm hoping there's something that's voiced very cleanly so it can survive a lot of gain while remaining smooth. Sorta like how Duncan Alnico II Pros distort more cleanly and smoothly than a Duncan Distortion does.

[JamesHealey]

I think a set of VH2's would be right up your street :P

[Fikealox]

Thanks for the suggestion, James :) I'll have to check out some soundclips and stuff. Tim recommended Crawlers or Riff Raffs, so they're on the list for the Viper, too.

I've managed to get some nice singing tones out of my NB neck by rolling back on the volume and tone on the guitar and being very sparing on the pedal's gain... but the PK is still a bit harsh. That said, nothing touches it for fast playing, so changing it out isn't a huge priority.