To beat a dead horse(Piledriver v. the world): What to do?

[thisisnickpaige]

   Alright so i'm new to this site and don't mean to sound arrogant but im tired of tele pickups! So tired. Most of them are either lifeless or just too darn generic! So i've come here =) I live in Schenectady,New york but my family heritage is from Somerset so the chance to get a product from that general area even if total rubbish just kinda excited me let alone the fact BKP's rule and have always been recommended to me. But enough of my babbling and on with my problem.

   I have a USA Custom guitar tele, single maple neck with SS jumbo frets, 2 piece alder body with brass saddles and ashtray bridge, string through body, those should be the details(forgive me if i miss something for all the purist junkies out there).  I have Seymour Duncan pickups in there now but i just feel they make me sad. This guitar is so super bright and i love the neck, which is an alnico II pro, nice and warm but still tele-ish (this guitar makes even the muddiest pickups so super ridiculously bright) but for the bridge i have a seymour duncan antiquity '55 hot which is the same pickup i had in my last tele but in this one it just seems life less, tin canny and castrated.  So here is my problem.
  
   I play a huge variety of stuff, i started as a bass player so i love warm but punchy tones.  As a guitarist i started heavily influenced by the blues but as for late i have moved from that. My styles as of now are rock, funk, and indie rock with a heavy influence of indie rock as of late(that whole dancey funky rock sound) and thats the kind of direction i want this guitar to have, funky indie rock. Main examples of this would be the The Dirty Pretty Things(ex: Bang Bang You're Dead), Franz Ferdinand(ex:Van Tango), Sondre Lerche(ex: the Tape, Face the blood),The Fratelli's(ex:Henrietta) and The Wombats(though mostly too bright still). That kind of crunchy attacking and gritty when distorted(almost kinda along the lines of the Fender Jaguar or Mustang or depending on the distortion you use almost like Wolfmothers track "White Unicorn" or " Joker And The Thief" that kinda feedback inducing gritty, squeeky punch) but when clean very nice, if not warm when rolled off mellow but articulate.  But this is all very hard for me because for the longest time ive hated bright guitars and bright tones so im very very hesitant and even some of the bands i mentioned get too bright for me, hence why i gave specific examples of songs.  So here is where im comin from, now my ideas
  
   I was lookin at the pile drivers. I feel they will give me the warmth im looking for in the bridge and i know they lack the jangly jaguar like high end but i figured perhaps my guitar will brighten the heck out of them. Then i thought the yardbirds because thatd give me the bright and punchy attack but still keep it kinda mellow. So i called Mr. Tim and he suggested the BG50's(non staggered) but i am beyond worried those will be too bright in my solar flare of a bright tele. And seeing as i live in American i dont really feel like ordering a pickup just to have it sent back, and they are all really nice to allow me to swap pickups till i find the right one but i just want to make it easier on everyone. So any suggestions? Because if you couldnt tell by my many words and litany of examples im kinda lost. So please do give me any ideas, hints, tips, concepts, maps, free pickups, high fives, free beer, free tickets to England and a place to stay lol ya know anything that's helpful really 0=) Just let me know so i can order me up some of these sexies and rip the heck out of them! =) thanks y'all! You rock =)

[maverickf1jockey]

Tim's recommendations are generally considered pretty airtight most of the time but if you are still concerned about brightness a change to the magnet formulation would likely be a better idea than raising the inductance, as would be the case with the Piledrivers as that would lend itself more to a distorted and compressed sound.

For example if you take the Yardbird set to be akin to Jimmy Page's sound in the band of the same name and compare it to the Brown Sugars; which are closer to the live sound he got after having his bridge pickup rewound for playing Led Zeppelin riffs, the difference in inductance doesn't neccessarily mean that one set could not be used to get the other sound but it would be much easier.
The piledrivers give humbuckers a run for their money in terms of high-output sound and are more commonly seen as a 'metal/rock' pickup, though that is not all that they can do by any means.

By the sort of bands you are looking at I'd've suggested something relatively low impedence, possibly AlNiCo 4 in the bridge and AlNiCo 2/3 in the neck (as you said you liked that particular sound) so it's as open as you would require with the added 'spongeyness' of those magnet choices, which would be accommodated by the brightness of the guitar.

Perhaps an AlNiCo 4 Yardbird or Brown Sugar bridge and a Country Boy neck?

[thisisnickpaige]

Wait so i can choose which magnet i want in there? Now im confused further lol =) And like i said im not trying to limit myself with getting a super bright pickup. I just wish there were sample clips of the yardbird BRIDGE and the pile driver BRIDGE. I mean im looking for those kind of tones but dont want to be limited to them. Would you(or anyone) call either one of these tinny or super bright? im just nervous bout the yardbird because the one example i heard it was pretty bright and the BG was stinkin super bright! and almost tinny but i worry the piledriver may be too much....

[thisisnickpaige]

Okay so after checking out the ROY FULTON DEMO's the BG's are really cool and have a really good sound, just not what i want for this; if anything it sounds like the pickup in my guitar now. How do the yardbirds compare to those? and how do the pile drivers compare to those?

[badgermark]

You can find a few piledriver clips here http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=9677.0 Not the best, but I did love them a lot in my tele.

[BigB]

Wait so i can choose which magnet i want in there?

Special order - IOW: check this with Tim before.

the BG was stinkin super bright! and almost tinny

I do have BGF50s on my Tele and they are nothing but tiny, and not "super bright" neither. Quite raw sounding with a good share of grit, indeed, but yet quite thick (specially when overdriven) and warm, and never shrill - don't even need to roll the trebles off when switching to the bridge. Now my tele is rosewood fretboard, and mostly well-balanced so I guess this contributes to a warmer response from the pups.

FWIW, I was quite skeptical about the BGF50s at first (Tim's advice), but found them to be heavenly good for everything blues and rock (including old school hard rock, punk-rock etc), and doing clean funky stuff quite well too.

Not to say you'd necessarily like them on your own Tele...

My 2 cents.

[AndyR]

I have feeling the BG Flat 50s will do you, especially if Tim has recommended them as well.

I've got them in two teles, both maple board and ash body.

My main one of these two is a Baja that is very resonant and quite bright. The original pickups, which a lot of people seem to like, seemed a bit thin and weedy to me. When I tried to get her going, it would get too bright for my tastes, and a bit mushy when I tried to tame it.

Now I suspect that your tele has got it worse than I had, but I was getting quite saddened by it as well. Especially with others on various forums telling me the pups were good, all I had to do was adjust the heights...

I gave in and ordered a set of BG Flat 50s, and... WOW!

It was exactly what I'd always imagined for a tele. A nice bit of grit, but well-balanced with some body to it as well. They respond really well to volume and tone knob fiddling. They also respond really well to height adjustments - like all the BKPs I have - you can set it for bright and ice-picky if that's what you like, or thicker and punchy (that's what I like).

They turned a "what did I buy this for" guitar into one of my favourites. I was heading towards "I guess teles aren't for me after all", and after the BG Flat 50s I ended up getting two more teles...

I also have Yardbirds (rosewood board, alder body guitar). They are sweeter than the BGs, and through my set-ups they're clearer and not quite so thick. In the long run, I find this tele a more versatile instrument, but I prefer the tone out of the BG 50 teles.

If your tele is prone to making pickups sound bright/thin, then I have the feeling that the Yardbirds might not impress you so much as as the BG 50s...

I can't really comment on the other BKP options, but I do occassionally get tempted by Piledrivers myself.

I do have one last thing though - have you experimented with capacitor types? I've only recently learnt about this, I didn't really believe it when people recommended it, but it is now definitely something I consider if a guitar was sounding "not quite right". Paper-in-oil capacitors tame the top end when compared to ceramic disk types or "orange drop" types. You get slightly less output out of the guitar (even with the tone control full open), and it sounds slightly mellower, but in good way. One way of describing it is that the sound is more "vintage".

I've used PIO caps to "fix" an SG that wasn't giving me very pleasant sounds on certain amp settings, it's lovely now. I've since tried them in guitars that didn't seem to need fixing, some with very little effect, some with STUNNING results. I have a strat and les paul that were pretty damn fine already, but with the PIO caps in, I can't put them down once I start playing, stunning result...

However, at the moment I'm not sure I like the effect in my Baja with BG 50s - it's taken some of the edge of it. It sounds really good, but I'd got used to the meaty rasp it was creating :lol:

If you've not tried PIO caps, give it a go. Even with the expensive Vitamin Qs, it's a fairly cheap experiment, and on a tele you don't even have to take the strings off to try it!


EDIT: I'd even recommned trying the PIOs with your current pickups, just to see what it does to the guitar, but I still think you want BG Flat 50s as well :lol:

[Andrew W]

I second what everyone else here has said.  I have a BG Flat 50 bridge and Piledriver bridge in two different guitars.  The two guitars aren't identical so I'm not comparing like with like exactly but I think the BG Flat 50s will get you closer to what it sounds like you're describing tonally.  The Piledrivers are really high output and very compressed (think 80s rock) whereas the BG50s have more room to breathe.  I think the BG50s are more versatile: the Piledriver is a flat out weapon of audio destruction whereas you can wield the BG50s with a lighter touch if needed.  Here's a few clips I've done so you can hear yourself and make your own mind up.  Hope they're slightly useful to hear the differences:

Piledriver

Blackguard Flat 50 Part 1

Blackguard Flat 50 Part 2

[thisisnickpaige]

Hey badgermark your link says you removed it! and Andrew W do you have any samples of the pile driver without distortion? How would you compare the pile driver to the BG 50's? Thanks y'all for the responses keep the discussion comin! =)

[badgermark]

Hey badgermark your link says you removed it! and Andrew W do you have any samples of the pile driver without distortion? How would you compare the pile driver to the BG 50's? Thanks y'all for the responses keep the discussion comin! =)

Scroll down a bit, there is a clean and distorted clip further down the page.

[Andrew W]

Hey badgermark your link says you removed it! and Andrew W do you have any samples of the pile driver without distortion? How would you compare the pile driver to the BG 50's? Thanks y'all for the responses keep the discussion comin! =)

I don't have any clean examples of the Piledriver because its output is sufficiently great to push my amps into overdrive at almost any level.  I'd need a lot more headroom on my amps to get a clean tone.  Sorry.

[thisisnickpaige]

lol thank you! lol right after i typed that i found the samples, sounds nice i kinda really like the pile driver but they do sound kinda compressed compared to most tele pickups i get what people are saying, thank you so much for the demo. Also, i feel me going against Tim would be like telling Caravaggio " nah this is painting is cr@p let me tell you what to do " lol ya know? And Andrew W what watt amp do you have? Eish, or are they that hot of pickups? lol then maybe i should definitely get the BG's.  So if yes they are just that hot then i guess they're out.  So a blackguard is the best idea then.  But let me get this straight the Yardbirds are weaker then the BG's is the general consensus and the brown sugars are warmer and fuller then the yardbird but less warm then the BG's? Yeah?

[Andrew W]

And Andrew W what watt amp do you have?

My amps are both very low wattage - I can get cleans from my Strat with them (that has Apaches in it) but nothing approaching clean from the Piledriver.

[Ratrod]

Well if Tim recommends the BG50........he's right 99.9% of the time.

I have one too and love it, absolutely love it.

Other tele pickups I tried seemed like a cartoon version of how a Tele should sound. Usually too bright and spanky and the hotter ones have too much mid hump.

The BG50 is just so nicely balanced. It responds well to the tone knob. Just an eighth or a quarter turn roll off takes away the bright edge and warms and fattens up the the tone. Almost like a P90.

It might seem a bit tame or generic at first try but it comes to life when you add volume. Just turn that amp up loud. it also loves a bit of dirt and echo.

[thisisnickpaige]

Well dirt and echo are my main two pedals! lol Literally, the dd5 and a rat2 through a vox ac30. i dig that setup quite a bit personally. I found this video of the notorious Phil X playing a 52 blackpickguard tele just wondering if the pikcups compared to thisall ye with blackguards. I know im getting kinda trivial but i really want something with a nice bottom end, that rings out and sustains a bit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgZFWCZLMJM&feature=related I dont mean it has to sound exactly like that i just really dont want another tinny pickup lol I'm not a country player.