Knopfler Configuration?

[TelePaul]

Hi gents,

Was thinking about installing some BK pups on my Yamaha Pacifica 412; it's a H/S/S configuration. I had the idea of covering Mark Knofler's spectrum of tones with one guitar - snappy single coil tones with the option of rich, dark overdrive via humbucker. So I guess my questions are:

1) I don't actually see the 'Sultan' pickups listed in the HSS sets page. Do BK allow chopping and changing/custom orders?

2) If I could cherry-pick, what'd be a nice Humbucker for that "Brothers in Arms" sound? I know that's a pretty vague question, but I'm assuming it'd be one from the 'Vintage' or 'Vintage Hot' series?

Any thoughts/comments would be much appreciated - I guess these questions come up alot!

[PhilKing]

I have a Stormy Monday/Sultan HSS set (all pickups are AII magnets).  It has a great sound and can get many Dire Straits tones.  The Brothers in Arms tone is a valve amp pushed with the treble rolled off on the guitar.  To do that, the best way is to move the tone control from the middle pickup to the bass (on an HSS set I like to do this anyway and use different capacitors for the 2 types of pickups - 0.022 mf's for the HB, 0.047 mf's for the singles).

[Philly Q]

Out of interest, Phil - and hopefully reasonably on-topic - what value pots do you use with that set?  500k volume and 250k tones, or 250k for all three?

[TelePaul]

I have a Stormy Monday/Sultan HSS set (all pickups are AII magnets).  It has a great sound and can get many Dire Straits tones.  The Brothers in Arms tone is a valve amp pushed with the treble rolled off on the guitar.  To do that, the best way is to move the tone control from the middle pickup to the bass (on an HSS set I like to do this anyway and use different capacitors for the 2 types of pickups - 0.022 mf's for the HB, 0.047 mf's for the singles).

Ah shoot, is changing pups gonna require a change of pots too?

[PhilKing]

On this set I have 250's for all 3.  On my HSS with Crawlers and P-91's I went to a 300K volume.  I did have one one time with 2 vols and a master tone, on that I used 250 for the single coil vol and the master tone and 500 for the HB vol (with a 0.33mf cap).

[MrBump]

I have a Stormy Monday/Sultan HSS set (all pickups are AII magnets).  It has a great sound and can get many Dire Straits tones.  The Brothers in Arms tone is a valve amp pushed with the treble rolled off on the guitar.  To do that, the best way is to move the tone control from the middle pickup to the bass (on an HSS set I like to do this anyway and use different capacitors for the 2 types of pickups - 0.022 mf's for the HB, 0.047 mf's for the singles).

Ah shoot, is changing pups gonna require a change of pots too?

Personally, when I change pickups I change the whole circuit - my thoughts are if you're going to spend money on the best pickups in the world, why do half a job?  Nice spanking new pots, wires and solder. 

Love Knopfler, by the way...  Might build myself a strat with Sultans one day...

Mark.

[ailean]

Ah shoot, is changing pups gonna require a change of pots too?

Require, no. It just depends how far you are willing to go to get the tone you want. Change the pups first, see if that gets you what you want.

[TelePaul]

Cheers lads. I probably should've mentioned that I'll be getting a shop to install the pickups (as I couldn't tell one end of a soldering iron from the other!) so changing pots might be a bit of a tall order. Also...wondering how sensible it is to put a few hundred quid into a guitar that's worth just that itself....?

[ailean]

BK's will bring out the best in any guitar (and amp for that matter). The upside is that if you decide to upgrade the guitar you can always swap the pickups into that.

As for value for money, that's a personal opinion, BK's will give you a good improvement over stock pups, but as to if it's worth it? Only your ears will answer that. So far for me, every time the answer has been yes, they are worth it.

[Bradock PI]

In actual fact the upgrade to the pups on a cheaper guitar is likely to be larger than that on a £2000 custom, presuming that in the latter case they dropped decent ones in in the first place.

Also a good tech will tell you if the instrument is worthy of the upgrade as in it has no other faults/flaws which may let it down.

[gwEm]

on a cheap strat, changing the saddles can be a nice low-budget upgrade. not sure whats fitted to a pacifica

[Philly Q]

on a cheap strat, changing the saddles can be a nice low-budget upgrade. not sure whats fitted to a pacifica

+1

I'm a fan of all the different saddles Graph Tech make.  They improve the tone somewhat (IMO), and they certainly increase playing comfort and "stay-in-tuneness".