Swapped my Riff Raffs and MQs - 2 gits rejuvenated!

[AndyR]

I wasn't too sure where to post this... (over-long as usual - you should see the first version!!)
...but seeing as it's about BKP pups and their effect...
...this must be the place :lol:

One of the first sets I bought was the Riff Raffs - put them in my Epi SG, seemed the obvious choice to me: for 60-70s rock sounds they seemed to be the best bet, and would let me get bluesy as well (my main thing).

Then I acquired a Gibson Explorer and I wasn't sure what to do with it. I wanted it to be a big f-off blues-beast, and Riff Raffs was one of the possible choices,  if not the only only one. I wanted raunchy, so that seemed to suggest more than Stormy Mondays, it is a very "dark" mahogany guitar, so conventional wisdom seemed to suggest not Mules, and I wasn't sure if really I needed hotter pups to do the job (it had gibson ceramics already). As I had the Riff Raffs, a cheap option was to try them out first... I loved it, and the Epi lost her pickups.

That allowed me to justify buying Mississippi Queens that I'd been reading about. I put them in the SG and loved it. I discovered I like the "P90 thing" - not much of a surprise, because really I'm a Fender-man :)

But recently, with my Baja tele being severely improved by adding Blackguards, and my Mules finding a superb home in a Tokai Love Rock, and of course my Strat as an ever-present "No 1 wife" (challenged by the Tele now, incidentally), it all meant that the most expensive guitar in the room, the Explorer, has not been giving me much, if any, joy :(. Added to that, the SG hasn't been getting any attention because its T-O-M bridge needed some work, and after my initial excitement, I couldn't get to grips with the sounds it was making with the MQs. Both guitars, I would pick up, sigh, and put down again...

So I decided to do a swap with the pickups. I was expecting the Explorer to improve - the Riff Raffs just seemed a bit too weedy sounding for me, the Explorer was like a weak version of my Love Rock, which was one of the reasons why I wasn't playing it. I knew the MQs were fatter sounding, if anything drive an amp harder, and would definitely make the thing sound a different animal to the Love Rock. I already knew the Riff Raffs worked in the SG. So, at worst, I'd be no worse off...

Instead, I got MASSIVE improvements all round!

The SG is back to it's former glory - which I'd forgotten. Crisper and less aggressive, it does tight AC/DC and other 70s rock sounds, it actually does "Beano" Eric better than my Muled Love Rock does (I'd completely forgotten that was the case). It still might not get played a lot, like the Love Rock, but it now fulfills a purpose that doesn't overlap with another guitar, and the minute I start playing it I love the sounds rather than having to figure out what to do with it.

But the Explorer with MQs - WOW!!!  :P It is exactly as I had hoped but didn't dare count on. The MQs cut through all that wood (better than the Riff Raffs did), but they have a lot more "middle-bottom" to them, so it doesn't have a "hollow" sort of tone anymore (that was bugging me). And added to that, although they behave like a humbucker when full-on, when you roll off the volume you get that "clean but not weedier" that single-coil players are used to... I haven't found all the voices that are hiding in this instrument now, but it's a lot more to my taste than it was a few hours ago.

For me, my SG and Love Rock are for those "let's play like my heroes" moments... but suddenly the Explorer has joined the ranks of the Tele and the Strat - it's one of the guitars to pick up when I want to be "me" :D

[Twinfan]

Nice!

It must be P90 weekend!  I've just been working out the new 'DC tune (Rock N Roll Train) on my LP Junior Lite with BKPs.  Great, great tones!

[AndyR]

Yep, I've been playing the Explorer on and off all afternoon, can't put it down now...

I'm somewhat relieved - it's been sat there gazing accusingly at me for several weeks. I'd been thinking "I could have almost bought another 2 Japanese Fenders for the price of that thing..."

I knew I liked the MQs, but not quite enough in the SG - very tasty now :D

It was actually an exercise in "improving the guitar collection" without buying a guitar or pickups! Alas, for all it's success, I don't have enough guitars and BKPs to do it again...

Unfortunately it's started me thinking:
A) What other guitars might I like P90s or MQs in?
B) Is my Epi SG, for all her prettiness, ease-of-playing, etc, a bit of a dog that actually needs replacing with a better one?

[Twinfan]

A)  Semi-hollows, Les Pauls, Teles....

B)  Not necessarily.  I sold my Gibson SG and kept my Epiphone as there wasn't that much difference....

[FernandoDuarte]

STOP MAKING ME WISH A MQ!!! 

I got no money, damn :lol:

[il˙ti]

STOP MAKING ME WISH A MQ!!! 

I got no money, damn :lol:

+1

I'm listening to old clips of MQs and BKP-90s and hot diggetty those are nice tones. I'm wanting a guitar to put an MQ and Manhattan into.

[Fourth Feline]

Mississipi Queens are my current favourite B.K.P. Pickup. Versatile, pure, fat and HOT .. 8)

[Philly Q]

Great post as always Andy.

But it's an interesting example of how perceptions change once the honeymoon period is over - you were so crazy about the Riff Raffs in the Explorer and the MQs in the SG not so long ago!  :D

Of course I've done the same thing myself, many times.  And will again...

[_tom_]

Andy, you should get a goldtop with cream soapbar p90s. One of the coolest looking guitars you can get!

I love my p90s in my all mahogany LP, sound really fat with a bit of twang. I'm finally getting that back from the tech tomorrow and finally made myself order a push/pull pot so I can coil tap the bridge pig 90 for a twangier and lower output sound to match the neck mq better :)

[AndyR]

Fair comments one and all! :D

I am indeed wondering about a semi, Twinfan - partly because I used to have one years back and I know the accoustic tone was similar to the "mellow" (or "dark") sound of my Explorer, and partly because of Fourth Feline's reports on how his MQs work for him in a semi...

And yep, Tom, Goldtop with soapbars is one of those [homersimpson]"mmmm... {insert productdescription}"[/homersimpson] things for me... it always seems to be behind something else in the wishlist though...

But both of those require spending money, and I really am vaguely GAS-less at the moment. This will change obviously!

However, I feel no guilt over causing or increasing MQ GAS in others, so, sorry chaps :D - some bast@rd did to me, I'm just passing it on :lol: (and besides, if you like those tones, you do need a P90 of some sort to do it justice...)

But Philly's comment is the one I want to run with - you are so right, and I knew as I was writing it that I was admitting to "changing my mind", which I felt was probably a good thing! I suspect that I might change my mind over the SG again, but the Explorer feels a little more permanent - I tried it this morning (immediately after 3/4 hour of strat-playing) and it's now a strap-on/plug-in/start-playing guitar. Before, it needed 10 minutes of amp-twiddling and getting used to before I could start making any coherrent statements with it!!

There was something worrying me about my original post, though (and it is vaguely connected to what Philly points out). One of the reasons I posted the thread was to get a bit more information out there for someone trying to choose pickups. But I realised afterwards that I could easily be adding to someone's fear and confusion when choosing that first set of BKPs - that "oh no, look what happened to that bloke, I really must choose exactly the right set for what I want..."

I really don't want to give that impression - what's actually happened to me is "two guitars needed BKPs, 2 sets of BKPs got bought, and 2 guitars now have smiles on their faces..."

The Riff Raffs only ended up "not working" for me in the Explorer in comparison to other guitars in my living room. If I hadn't had other guitars doing jobs here, the Riff Raffs would still be in the Explorer. I spent most of the early evenings last week cycling through all of my current amp patches, playing the RR-Explorer, MQ-SG, and the Love Rock, one after the other, trying to predict what effect the MQs would have in the Explorer, and whether I would end up with three distinctive "voices" that fit the mood that each guitar invokes in me. As it turned out, they did exactly what I wanted, and that's what I wanted to share.

Now the dust has settled, I realise:
a) The SG has got the Riff Raffs I originally bought for it :roll:
b) The Explorer had a prolonged try-out on the Riff Raffs, and these would have been fine except that...
c) In the meantime I've found I rather like MQs, and, now I've tried it out, they seem to work better for me in a great big lump of mellow/dark sounding mahogany rather than a slimmer, harder sounding lump of mahogany
d) The Riff Raffs seem to work better in the slimmer/harder lump for me.

But yeah, I was raving about how well it was working the other way round :oops:. I have to say though, that that was before Alice (baja tele) got her black-stockings and suspenders (Blackguards) and changed from the geeky girl in the corner into the finger-numbing "I'm the one you're going to have every night big-boy, forget those others..." :lol: (They're still going to have their work cut out to compete - I'm about to restring her now... sigh)

[Philly Q]

But yeah, I was raving about how well it was working the other way round :oops:. I have to say though, that that was before Alice (baja tele) got her black-stockings and suspenders (Blackguards) and changed from the geeky girl in the corner into the finger-numbing "I'm the one you're going to have every night big-boy, ..." :lol: (They're still going to have their work cut out to compete - I'm about to restring her now... sigh)

I've just gone and dug out my Baja (Badger) and had a good long look at it...  but I'm just not seeing the geeky girl in the corner :( :?.  Never mind forgetting those "others", she's the only one I'd have been in with a chance with anyway. 

Since it's confession time, and on the subject of nagging doubts and changing one's mind, you were dead right about my silver Strat, Andy :lol:.   I am going to get another body and put the rosewood neck and SSS scratchplate back on the silver.  I've just been weighing all the parts ( :oops: ) and figuring out how light a body I'm going to need, given that a trem weighs about a pound more than a hardtail bridge...

Thinking about this whole question, I don't think I have a single guitar that I could honestly say "I'm 100% happy with that, I'm never changing it again".  I'm happy with the hardware/cosmetic changes and bits of fine-tuning I've done, but when it comes to the pickups... it could be open season at any time.  :twisted:

[johnnyswitch]

so what was it you didn't like about the MQs in the SG? or you just liked them better in the explorer?

Tim has tipped me to choose between either Riff Raffs or Mississippi Queens for my SG.. I'm thinking I'll go with MQs since I really like P90s, and I want to get some fatter sounds out of the guitar, rather than a just-Angus kind of deal.

could you maybe give me a breakdown of your SG's sound with the RRs and the MQs if you have the time?

thanks!

[AndyR]

Hi johnny - I'll give it a go!

The guitar I was concentrating on was the Explorer and I do indeed much prefer the way the Explorer works with the MQs than it did with the RRs.

The SG was kinda secondary for me at the time (and I haven't played it since the day of the swap!).

I like the SG with both the RRs and the MQs, but I didn't really give it enough of a chance with the MQs I suppose. What I found with the MQs was that it could still give me a reasonable Angus, but it opened up other avenues as well - Pete Townsend, Joe Walsh, etc. I also like how they behave as single coils when you bring the volume down.

The issues I had with the SG were twofold: The first was a mechanical problem with the bridge (fixed now) that was discouraging me from playing it, the second was, as I wasn't playing it for hours on end, I couldn't get used to how MQs worked in that guitar.

I'm not good at choosing the right words to describe things, and it's all subjective anyway, so bear with me here :D. But I would say that in my SG, the MQs were pumping out a lot of "upper-mids" (I could be wrong, might be lower-mids, or even bottom end, I'm not a sound engineer) - basically, they were producing a very aggressive tone in comparison with my other guitars, not harsh, but more than I was used to. Also, they produce a very open sound, not much of what I'd call "compression". It was what I'd describe as a guitar you need to learn to control, but once you've learnt... wooo!

At the same time, the RRs in my Explorer seemed to be lacking these exact qualities - it was a bit tame sounding and lacked the "hairyness" I wanted, as it were :lol:. So I put 2 and 2 together and decided to improve the Explorer - it worked perfectly.

The RRs back in the SG - this put it back to much tighter sounding, just as bright, but much less aggressive than the MQs through the same amp settings. For me it's a sound I immediately know how to use, it is the rock sound I grew up with in the late 70s and (very) early 80s, much more so than the older "plummy and biting" tones I've learnt to love and get from Mules in a Love Rock. Unfortunately for the SG (her name's Maud, btw) it's not a sound I use a lot nowadays, so she's just for when the mood takes me.

I know my RR'd SG will do more than that one sound - it's not just Angus, it does biting blues, it cleans up reasonably well, it does late 60s blues rock, etc. - it's just that I'm lazy and was looking for an easy slot to fit each of my guitars into. They all perform a slightly different job now. When they duplicate jobs, one ends up not getting played at all...

If it's important that you have an all-round 70s type classic humbucker sound, I think you need Riff Raffs. I think MQs would be a braver choice, giving you more flexibility but you'll have to work a bit harder to get some of the more compressed crunch sounds of late 70s rockers.

With the experience I have now, if my only guitar was my Epi SG, I'd personally choose the MQs. As it stands with the rest of the arsenal, my SG needs the Riff Raffs.

Hope that helps :D

[johnnyswitch]

Very helpful, thankyou very much!!

One more question then.. I've used P90s before and really like the beast that they are. Just wondering, would you say you could get a really thick Iommi tone out of the MQs in an SG?
That's the one I'm still trying to tame out of this other hb-sized p90 i've got.

thanks again!

johnny

[AndyR]

Very helpful, thankyou very much!!

One more question then.. I've used P90s before and really like the beast that they are. Just wondering, would you say you could get a really thick Iommi tone out of the MQs in an SG?
That's the one I'm still trying to tame out of this other hb-sized p90 i've got.

thanks again!

johnny

That's the very first thing that jumped out of my SG when I received the MQs and put them in :D

Bear in mind I'm going through modellers not a real valve amp anymore, and I don't tend to look for a really accurate copy of someone's sound. But for some reason the first thing I played was "Black Sabbath", and I was amazed that I could get the distorted parts and the cleaner parts with varying pick attack alone - no knob twiddling or pedal stomping... I knew I liked P90s, or at least the MQ version, from that very moment!

One thing I've "learnt" since, and I might be misquoting someone here, but I understand that the MQ is the equivalent of the hotter BKP P90s - so a bit hotter than the original "real P90s"? I suspect that's what you'd want anyway, but there is another version called the Manhattan that isn't listed in the shop (or wasn't last time I looked) - I believe this one is a cooler pickup if that's what you were after, all you'd need to do is ask BKP themselves.