Pickups for a Levinson Blade (Strat style)

[simonp]

I've just purchased a 2nd hand Levinson Blade Strat stye guitar circa 1990. Currently it has a random mix of pickups, not too well matched, vintage Seymour Duncan Five-Two SSL-52 vintage stagger at the neck, and a 1/4 pounder flat at the bridge, no idea what the middle one is.
I'm looking for a replacement set, but I need to achieve some level of balance with my main guiar, which is a '96 Gibson Les Paul Standard with a set of unpotted Mules fitted.
I want to keep the output level a bit under that of the Les Paul as I intend to use it for some of the more clean moments (running a Cornford MK50H with no clean channel), but still want to be able to drive the amp a bit when needed, so do not want too much disparity.
The guitar has a heavy ash body, witth maple neck and rosewood fingerboard.
I play classic rock and blues.
Looking at specs and some other threads, I' thinking possibly Irish Tours with a bassplate on the bridge, but opinions welcome.

[AndyR]

I'm thinking you might be barking up the right tree with ITs :D - can't comment on the baseplate really, I don't have one, but I think you might be right...

From what I've read, another option might be the Slowhands?

[blue]

hi, the only bareknuckle strat pickups i have experience of are the irish tours, but you say you want to be just under your les paul's mules.  my les paul has gibson burstbuckers, which i believe are similar in output to the mules, and the irish tours work well with them.  they have planty of poke, but certainly clean up nicely.

does your blade have the famous boost circuit?  i've only played more recent Blades, but they were very nice guitars.

[simonp]

does your blade have the famous boost circuit?  i've only played more recent Blades, but they were very nice guitars.

No, mine is a bit of an oddity, it does not have the boost circuit, nor the body cavity for it. There are also a couple of other differences from the standard R1 it appears to be, so must have been some form of semi custom model. Fantastic neck on it though :D

The Mules are noticably lower output than the standard Gibson pickups, but they were the higher output ones, so possibly highre than the Burstbucker.

[shobet]

Any chance of pics of the Blade?

I quite like mine it's a nice player.

Dirty old string less pic of the girl

[simonp]

Here you go:

[Philly Q]

Quarter Pounders are pretty powerful, aren't they?  Are you looking for something more or less hot than that?

[shobet]

Here you go:

Looks rather familiar apart from the colour, different log size I notice. Info on them is rather hard to come by.

[simonp]

Looks rather familiar apart from the colour, different log size I notice. Info on them is rather hard to come by.

Yours not have the switchable active boost either?

[simonp]

Quarter Pounders are pretty powerful, aren't they?  Are you looking for something more or less hot than that?

Yes I understand they are pretty powerfull. Looking for something a little less hot.

[simonp]

Ah Tim has surprised me and recommended the Mother's Milk set. I was expecting him to go for the IT being a bit hotter in output. Maybe the Mules on the Les Paul are lower output than I think if the MM will not be so far behind.

Oooh, dilemna now, Tim knows his pickups so I should go with his recommendation. Then we come to baseplates, tempted on the bridge as that always needs some bottom end help and focus in my opinion, but what about the others?

[AndyR]

Still can't comment on the baseplates :D

But I'm not overly surprised at Tim's suggestion - and I think I'd go with it if you've discussed it with him :D

I play through modellors so I wasn't sure how useful my experience is but, with the same type of strings, my IT'd strat is right up there with my Mule'd Tokai Loverock, power-wise, possibly even past it... Very rarely could the two guitars go through the same patches with the same settings...

I've actually switched to using pure nickel strings, originally an experiment, on my strat. This mellows the ITs down a bit, and the strat and loverock can now go through exactly the same amp models without tweaking the settings, giving the tones I want from the different guitars.

I suppose what I've learnt is that, if I had my time again, I'd probably choose Mother's Milks. It was a close run thing anyway, and being a big Rory Gallagher fan swayed me somewhat :lol:

As a footnote, when the current set of pure nickels dies, I am going back to nickel wound on the strat, as a further experiment, to see what I'm missing - she don't quite cut it next to my teles anymore! :lol:

[simonp]

my IT'd strat is right up there with my Mule'd Tokai Loverock, power-wise, possibly even past it...

That is interesting, I defintely want a little less output with the Levinson, so I can roll the volume back to that just off clean sound. I can do it with the Les Paul, but have to roll the volume a long way back and it is easy to hit the strings a bit harder and get break up, nice if you want it, but sometimes you just want it clean.

Having been through a lot of pickups over the years, I've found that I get a better sound with a lower output pup and just use a good valve amp running hard and just use a boost to hitthe amp harder for more gain if I really want it. With the Cornford MK50, running on boost and a home-built Tubescreamer clone as well I can get insane ammounts of distortion if I even with the Mules 8)

[AndyR]

my IT'd strat is right up there with my Mule'd Tokai Loverock, power-wise, possibly even past it...

That is interesting, I defintely want a little less output with the Levinson, so I can roll the volume back to that just off clean sound. I can do it with the Les Paul, but have to roll the volume a long way back and it is easy to hit the strings a bit harder and get break up, nice if you want it, but sometimes you just want it clean.

Having been through a lot of pickups over the years, I've found that I get a better sound with a lower output pup and just use a good valve amp running hard and just use a boost to hitthe amp harder for more gain if I really want it. With the Cornford MK50, running on boost and a home-built Tubescreamer clone as well I can get insane ammounts of distortion if I even with the Mules 8)

I use my ITs - in fact, all my guitars - exactly the same way with regard to onboard volume control, I'm aiming at being able to achieve that "just off clean" on any guitar or amp patch...

But it does sound like Mother's Milks is the way to go for you :D

[shobet]

Looks rather familiar apart from the colour, different log size I notice. Info on them is rather hard to come by.

Yours not have the switchable active boost either?

Nope mine has the boost on the tone pot. It's all too easy to knock it on as it's a push/push pot and it does have quite a kick depending on how you've set the trim pot.