Guitar building project

[LMM]

Hello,

first of all i want to excuse myself for my bad english. I am not a native speaker, so please be lenient toward me.

I have started a guitar building project some time ago and now i search for the right pickups to use. I did not start building yet, i did the design until now (i am graphic designer so this was my starting point). Everything is open until now, even the scale lenght and the right wood to use for getting the whole potential out of the pickups of choice and the (suggestiones highly welcome).
Because i am not a musician and cannot play guitar very well (to be true i had some lessons fifteen Years ago and want to start "again" now) it is not easy for me to describe the sound i am searching for, but there are sounds i like very much and i would love to come close to:

- Parisienne Walkway - Gary Moore
This Sound is so unbelievable awsome and i like it without any complaints.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrz00Rs7mbA
(I hope Links to Youtube are allowed?)

- Yngwie Malmsteen like sound
I like very much how the tone "builds up" with every pick (hard to describe what i mean) ... it sounds "sparkling" somehow. I lighter impression of what i mean can be heard also in the Gary Moore Video linked above, too, with the first note playéd after the longer "break" at 2:35. Is it what "bell-like sound" mean? I am not sure. This is very much stronger with Malmsteen Sound in my opinion.
Here is a linke how i would like the sound to be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS_IYe5JTZ4

(There are DiMarzio HS 4 that are supposed to sound like this and they do! I like them very much, but they have a big downside: I plan to buld a 7 string guitar but there is no 7 string version of the HS 4  :(
(a second marginal downside is, that it sounds a little little bit to percussive in the very very first milisecond when tone builds up. It could be slightly rounder there .. but that is marginal and maybe borders imagination).

At to the end i would like have a pickup that have a very absolute metal sound (the Painkiller seems to do this job very good... but if there would be a better one to complement the other pickup(s) i would prefer this).
It does not need to be three pickups. If there is a pickup (or two) that kan handle all of this it would be ok (I am far away from beeing rich, so it will take me time to save money for ever pickup and i must purchase them one after another)

Hope to find help here and did not annoy you too much

[PhilKing]

Hi, welcome to the forum.  If you were just asking for the Gary More sound on a 6 string, then the PG blues set would be the ones to get as it is what Gary Moore uses now.  However you are going for a seven string and you want to play metal too.

I would look at an Abraxas neck pickup and possibly the Cold Sweat bridge, because the Painkiller can be bright in some woods.  Since you don't know what woods you will be using it is hard to say really what to get.  Until you know the acoustic sound of the guitar, picking pickups is just theory.

Once you know the woods, then we can help a lot more.

[LMM]

I will pick the wood that would best suit to the pickups but all in all i would prefer an all maple guitar with neck through body and 7 string  FR Tremolo. (But i would without any concern change to other wood if it would sound better ... think this would be the wrong wood for Painkiller for example).

As important as the over all sound is the "resolution". I do not like it when a guitar sounds becomes a "sound wall without identifiable single tones". (Sorry again for my bad english. I hope one can understand what i mean). That is why i love the parisienne walkway sound so much. To me it it is somehow mellow and warm without loosing its clarity (and it SINGS like the queen of the night and seems to come direct out of another dimension ... wow :D).

So the sound i am searching for would be somethink like an metal version of the gary moore sound (i would prefer a single Pickup in Bridge Position for that).

I am also thinking about using some active electronic (state variable filter + stepless blend between pickups).

P.S.: If someone asked to articulate the sound i am searching for i would say it it is a crisp and fast (but not to percussiv) BLORB (no TWANG!) followed by a NJIIIUUUUUU   :? (please do not laugh ... hard to explain this in english).

[Zaned]

You're asking for much, Yngwie and Gary Moore from the same pickup :) The guitars on the videos are pretty much at the opposite ends of the spectrum. BUT.

I love both their tones. They both have this unbelievable intensity in their playing when they want. However, I would approach building the guitar with 'woods and specs first, then pickups to suit'. The shape of guitar, the scale length and the neck joint type all play a big role in how the guitar sounds in the end.

Can't really give a pickup suggestion before you give some more details of the guitar. Maple (if you go with that) would give a strong midrange, tight highs and tight lows. If you want to approach both of their tones, I'd probably go with a maple neck, and rosewood fretboard.

Interesting topic  PDT_025

-Zaned

[LMM]

2 Pickups would be ok, too.  :D
To the rest my total agreement. But with malmsteen it is not only this intensity what makes the sound so special to me. It is also this special "attack" in this sound. The way it "builds up" "round".
It is so hard to explain even in german, in english it is the hell for me. Maybe the right word is "purl" (like a brook). I never heard this special sound even approximately with an other pickup.

Here is a picture to visualice how i experience the sound. This is in no way technical correkt, it is just how i feel the sound: First curve are some picks on most pups, second one is the sound i am searching for in a seven string variant.