What does the old holy diver sound lock?
My first impression was that it's not a million miles from the new HD - it has a lot of the same full midrange punch, but it's brighter & not as warm/rounded. It has a lot of the clarity/tightness of the Cold Sweat & that snarly "cut" that the Rebel Yell gives you, perhaps a shade less power than CS or new HD. Feline first described it to me as "basically a ceramic RY".
I can see why Tim redesigned it - with the CS available & the RY in development, there were 3 pickups doing that "hot rock" thing in the BKP range. The heavy metal monster that is the alnico HD was something the range didn't have & IMHO needed.
The new/current HD is still my favourite BKP, but I'm glad I have one of the old ones now & it's just about perfect for this guitar.
As an aside, putting a baseplate on the Slowhand neck has made quite a difference (I have non-plated SHs on my Jackson SL3). I still don't think the Slowhand is really "vintage hot" - to my ears it's similar power to the Sultans', albeit tonally a lot different. But the baseplate gives it noticably more power & presence, making it balance better with the fire breathing HD....
Whats it like playing on a scallopped fretboard? I've never actually played on a scallopped guitar before, I imagine it feels pretty weird at first and takes some time to get used to?
Well, it's only scalloped from the 17th up & with very tall frets, you don't really get much fingerboard feel up there anyway. It feels slightly easier to do massive bends & maybe a little faster but not massively different.
I've played an Yngwie strat which is scalloped all the way down & didn't like it. It was too easy to press too hard when fretting notes below the 12th fret & make them out of tune. But on the upper frets there isn't enough distance between the frets for that to be a problem.
IMHO 17th fret upwards is about the optimal amount of scalloping for heavy fingered players :)
Nice! Now go and play it :D
Yeah :lol: I played all afternoon, didn't put the children to bed until well after 8, then I carried on playing :) Had to switch the amp off because it was keeping them awake (& probably getting a bit late for the neighbours), so I switched to my Rocktron preamp on headphones, then eventually was just playing it acoustically. Didn't get to bed until well after 1am.
Had to getup at 5am to get to work early :( so I'm running on adrenalin right now :roll:
Can't wait to get home & play more :)
