Cold Sweat bridge first impressions...

[Antag]

Some people say that the Cold Sweat is "like" the Duncan Custom.  Those people need to do 3 things:
1. Go to your kitchen
2. Take your largest/sharpest knife in your right hand
3. Ritually disembowel yourself because you are even deafer than me & too stupid to deserve life, let alone BKPs :)

More when I've had a chance to play at proper volume, but for now I can say with absolute certainty that the CS is nothing like the Custom.  NOTHING at all.  The custom was/isthe vilest weediest muddiest pile of junk ever.  The CS is a really good pickup & I like it.

I cannot believe I held off getting one for so long because it might be "like" the Duncan Custom... :roll:

[MDV]

:lol:

Too right.

How did you find it sounds  though? I've only played one briefly on a guitar (SG) in E, 10-46 so I cant compare too well to the rest of mine (Drop A#, 12-64)

[Antag]

Well, I was playing it on unfamiliar gear (Feline's Egnater), but it more than held its own against the Miracle Man in the Flying V I also had with me.

FWIW, my LP Goldtop is a very heavy guitar (~11lbs) with big booming bass.  It has now had 3 BKP sets in it:
Holy Diver: Just didn't work. Too bassy, lacked clarity. I moved that HD set to my VB LP (which is only ~8lb) & they sound GREAT.
Nailbomb: Better than the HDs, but after I put a NB in my alder strat, I realised that I still hadn't heard the best of the NB
Cold Sweat: First impression is that it's the best of the 3 pickup sets to go in this guitar.  Awesome clarity, enough power, plenty of "bite", makes me want to rock out :)

Like I said, I need to really let fly with my own amp before posting something that might actually be useful to someone... :)

[MDV]

From what I heard, I'd certainly favour it for dark guitars.

[Philly Q]

Some people say that the Cold Sweat is "like" the Duncan Custom. 

Only looking at the specifications on paper!  :lol:

[MDV]

Some people say that the Cold Sweat is "like" the Duncan Custom. 

Only looking at the specifications on paper!  :lol:

Quite!

[dheim]

From what I heard, I'd certainly favour it for dark guitars.

i think you'd like it... i've got it in my gibson SG61 that isn't exactly dark (quite middy indeed) (and "wide" sounding, if it means anything) and it's bright but smoothly... very defined but absolutely not dry. my SG (the olny one i've ever played so i'm not sure if it's mine or SGs in general) has a tendency to break up sustained notes in harmonics (like an e-bow!), not as if strings buzzed against something but in a very natural and pleasant way... cold sweats capture and exhalt this behaviour, even in neck position. in few words, i love them!

[Dr. Vic]

From what I heard, I'd certainly favour it for dark guitars.

What Tim says about the CS is that it's the brightest and maybe the clearest BKP (at least compared to the other in the contemporary line...), with tight bass, Very bright trebble AND very smooth mids...

So I guess your are right and that a CS will be at home in a dark guitar (like a LP Mahogany bodied),

But in another topic Antag said :

I think that one mistake many people make is choosing a pickup to "offset" (or work against) certain qualities in a guitar, where often the best thing to do would be to accentuate those qualities as these are what make that guitar special (i.e. bright pickup in bright guitar as opposed to bright pickup in dark guitar).  I think I made that mistake with the Nailbomb - having tried it in 2 Les Pauls & a PRS, it wasn't until I put it in my alder strat that I really heard it at its best.

So maybe you'll like to try the CS in your kelly  :twisted:, your Rhoads  :twisted: :twisted:  or your King V  :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: 

Let us know the result if you intend to do it... :D




 

[MDV]

From what I heard, I'd certainly favour it for dark guitars.

i think you'd like it... i've got it in my gibson SG61 that isn't exactly dark (quite middy indeed) (and "wide" sounding, if it means anything) and it's bright but smoothly... very defined but absolutely not dry. my SG (the olny one i've ever played so i'm not sure if it's mine or SGs in general) has a tendency to break up sustained notes in harmonics (like an e-bow!), not as if strings buzzed against something but in a very natural and pleasant way... cold sweats capture and exhalt this behaviour, even in neck position. in few words, i love them!

Oh, I did like it. Good pickup. Might get one some day.

[Zaned]

About combining a bright pickup with a bright guitar..well there are no absolute rules :) Of course, it might not suite anybody and/or not every combination would work. All up to individual taste.

But it's a fun game! For example, you get different results if you combine a bright and tight pickup with a guitar that has a lot loose bottom versus if you combine a bottom-heavy pickup with a guitar that has a very tight bottom end. Overall, there might be a 'similar' amount of low frequencies between those two combinations, but they behave differently.

That makes me think..I would like to try an all maple guitar with a Miracle man :) Maple has very tight bottom and highs, and puts out midrange, which is scooped in the Miracle man. I bet the combination would have a very tight and quick attack, defined and thick bottom, tight midrange and cutting highs. Lots of 'tight'  :lol:

-Zaned

[Antag]

I think that one mistake many people make is choosing a pickup to "offset" (or work against) certain qualities in a guitar, where often the best thing to do would be to accentuate those qualities as these are what make that guitar special (i.e. bright pickup in bright guitar as opposed to bright pickup in dark guitar).  I think I made that mistake with the Nailbomb - having tried it in 2 Les Pauls & a PRS, it wasn't until I put it in my alder strat that I really heard it at its best.

When I posted this, I was thinking of a thread we had about maple-bodied guitars a while back (check out Tim's comments in it).

So maybe you'll like to try the CS in your kelly  :twisted:, your Rhoads  :twisted: :twisted:  or your King V  :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: 

Let us know the result if you intend to do it... :D

No chance - those 3 guitars are perfect already :)  I can see no scenario in which I would remove the HD from my Kelly, the HD set from my RR1T or PK/CS from my KV2...

I'm just pleased to have found something that actually works well in my LP Goldtop.

[dave_mc]

But in another topic Antag said :

I think that one mistake many people make is choosing a pickup to "offset" (or work against) certain qualities in a guitar, where often the best thing to do would be to accentuate those qualities as these are what make that guitar special (i.e. bright pickup in bright guitar as opposed to bright pickup in dark guitar).  I think I made that mistake with the Nailbomb - having tried it in 2 Les Pauls & a PRS, it wasn't until I put it in my alder strat that I really heard it at its best.

yeah, that's also what i'm sort of wondering about at the moment- i know that (shameless plug) in my pickup thread, Ben said that the Cold Sweat would sound awesome in a swamp ash superstrat... even though on paper it'd possibly be very bright. and when ben says something will sound awesome, i tend to listen...

[Antag]

OK, rather than start a new thread, here are my second impressions having played with it a bit more.

This is such a good pickup.  It is a million miles away from the Duncan custom (haven't you disembowelled yourselves yet??)  My goldtop has never sounded this good.  Bucket loads of hot rock tone, attitude, & clarity.

However, let there be no doubt that the CS bridge belongs in the "contempory" section.  It has easily enough power to hang out with the NB/HD/MM/PK.

A few people have posted that the CS is slightly lower power than the HD, a few have posted that it's actually a bit hotter & at least one person here has posted both things :).  I can see why there's confusion as the two pickups emphasise totally different frequencies.

IMHO they are approximately the same power, but the CS seems hotter - it kinda "sizzles" more on the clean/crunch channels & feels more "aggressive" under gain.  It's much much brighter than the HD, perhaps has a little more low end.  It doesn't have the huge fat midrange of the HD but nor is it scooped in the upper mids like the MM.  I guess the best description I can give next to the MM is that the eq curve is a bit straighter.

My LP Goldtop is one of my dumber guitar purchases - I bought it because it was a goldtop rather than on its playability/sound.  It's made from a very dense piece of mahogany (you can see how close/tight the grain is on the back) & I've struggled to match the right BKP to it.  I even put it up for sale once.  But now I will definitely be keeping it :)

[Antag]

& FWIW, poorly-recorded clip here

[ericsabbath]

my SG (the olny one i've ever played so i'm not sure if it's mine or SGs in general) has a tendency to break up sustained notes in harmonics (like an e-bow!)

you mean that acoustic resonance/reverb that apparently comes from the neck cavity when you play it unplugged?  :D