OK, apologies for a
long post, but the time is nigh for my 1990 Gibson LP Standard to get the BKPs it deserves :) and I need some advice in arriving at a real decision about what to go for! (I think come New Years, I'll have my funds saved up!)
I play (or try to play!) a variety of things, ranging from classic rock over into doom metal territory. I freely confess to terrible technique and way-slow fingers -- no shredding here! Power-chord slash'n'burn with wah-abuse leads are more like me. I tend to tune down to D, sometimes further down to C, sometimes back up to E. I've played out in several bands over the years (though most recently on bass), but I'm really just a heinous amateur and expect primarily to be amusing myself with hard-drive home-recording (with amp modelling for the plausibly forseeable future, though I've not really settled on what to do about that).
I want to generally improve my guitar's tone more than I want to aim for a particular player's or band's sound. The stock Gibson pickups (498T bridge, Alnico V, ~14.00-14.50K; 490R neck, Alnico II, ~7.50-8.00K) aren't really
bad but are a bit ho-hum and, I think, lose definition quickly whenever the gain goes up and the tuning goes down. I started to get frustrated about 10 years ago while picking the little figure in "War Pigs" that goes like ...
|----------------|----------------|
|----------------|----------------|
|--------7-------|----7-------7---|
|--9-----------9-|--------9-------|
|7-----7-----7---|--7-------------|
|----------------|----------------|With much gain of any kind there, I felt like my string definition started heading out the window to land in Mushville. I fiddled about with amp settings and string gauges, eventually figuring better pickups wouldn't hurt. I thought briefly of EMGs (Zakk Attack! but active pups sound too "artifical" to me), longer about Duncans like the JB or Custom, and then about Gibson's Iommi model (reviews said it had good string definition when rockin' and also cleaned up well), but I never felt totally convinced, so the stock pickups stayed. Then a friend came raving to me about BKPs earlier this year, and I got a hunch the pickups I had been waiting for were close!
I've tried hard in recent months or so to think about guitar tones that I like (as opposed to just playing styles or songs I like!); my inspirations are very '70s, but I'm not interested in scoring some tone from 30 years ago :). I find I really like the guitar sounds on Bruce Dickinson's last two solo albums (which actually make me think of Santana or Peter Green tones on really stupendous steroids) and on Iommi's recent
Fused album (I'm a sucker for down-tuned doom riffing, and IMO the man sounds better than ever). I also find myself going back to the guitars from Kyuss and Monster Magnet and Clutch and -- on the lighter side -- guys like Santana and Trey Anastasio and Warren Haynes, though they're rather more articulate and restrained than I would ever be ;). I suppose the bass sound is often a major prop to guitar sounds on record, but I think in general I'm listening for big, fat rock guitar tones, effin' heavy rock and souped-up classic metal guitars, but not like modern extreme-metal grind.
In my ideal dream world 8) when the amps are smokin', the leads peel out smooth and creamy but with generous burn and harmonics that fly out on command; the power chords feel like being hit by a semi-molten moon of Jupiter. Yet when the gain comes off, the cleans are all organic and sunshine-moonlight pretty. OK, a lot depends on what the amp is doing -- and alas! probably more on what my sloppy fingers are doing -- but I'm thinking about the pickups here!
Because the LP is basically my only guitar (haven't even got an acoustic), versatility is very good, and I've been thinking that I should spring for having push-pull pots installed with the new pickups so I can do that coil-tapping/splitting thing. Though I generally like humbucker tones better than single coil tones, the occasional holiday from stoner-metal riff-fest madness, to be able to tap that coil and slap on the auto-wah to noodle along with my Jerry Garcia records (or my wife's Latin pop CDs) would be fun :). I guess hotter humbuckers tap/split better, but I'm no techie and don't really know what's what about that.
As a fan of Santana-style neck tones (vintage creamy-sweet + habaņero heat!), an Abraxas in the neck seems to me like a good choice. I have a harder time settling on a bridge pup, but I think my best options narrow down to a) another Abraxas, b) a Nailbomb, or c) the almighty Warpig! I guess the Abraxases are most similar in terms of output to what I have, the Nailbomb probably a bit hotter, and the 'Pig .... OK, though my Warpig-lust has been primed Tim's various juicy descriptions:
"Playing Warpigs is..........effortless. Serious silly grin time .... plenty of balls, great cleans and effortless to play ... a versatile beast ... a fantastic tone too ... splits down really well ... For rock and metal it's a serious silly grin humbucker as it almost plays itself.
I have nevertheless been spirtually preparing myself to accept that the 'Pig could be a touch too much given the amount of ground I hope to cover with one guitar.
But anyway, I could have it all wrong! So which pickups do ye assembled tone hounds and BKP family think might suit me and my LP best?
