More pickup comparisons! VHII vs. NAILBOMB!!

[TwilightOdyssey]

Well, a million thanx again to PhilKing for bringing another great guitar to TO Central last night. This one was a Warmoth Strat copy with a custom neck. ("Real maple" accoring to Phil, lol ... ebony fingerboard) The neck was a bit small for my tastes, but very comfy nonetheless.

Pickupwise, the guitar is fitted with a bridge Nailbomb and 2xTrilogy Suites. (At least I THINK it was Trilogy ... I only played the bridge pup)

It was a lot of fun comparing Igor's no-name-pup-Vigier to my VHII-equipped Strat to Phil's Nailbomb-equipped Strat.

The Nailbomb is certainy a very metal sort of pup. It drove the Diezel VH-4 to mega crunch with no problems at all. For my taste, I prefer the VHII, but if someone is looking for something that will be better than a JB, Custom Custom, Evolution, Breed, or Super Distortion, this is the pickup for you. It has tons of crunch and bottom end, but not the same levels of smearing and mush.

It blended really well with the VHII when Igor and I were playing simultaneously. The Nailbomb exhibited more volume and better harmonics, and a LOT more gain.

[carlaz]

if someone is looking for something that will be better than a JB, Custom Custom, Evolution, Breed, or Super Distortion, this is the pickup for you. It has tons of crunch and bottom end, but not the same levels of smearing and mush.

OK, you're comparing NB and VHII here, and the RY was in a different guitar, but I gotta ask if you've got a gut-feeling comparison on the similarities/difference of Nailbomb and Rebel Yell prototype? :)  Their DC ratings must be a bit closer to each other than the NB and VHII (which I remember looking a bit hot, but not super hot). The RY also got compared to the JB; I remember the RY described as mid-rangy and the JB seems mid-rangy too.  Would you guess there's more low-end in the Nailbomb than the RY (as you heard it)?

[TwilightOdyssey]

WAAAAY more bottom end on the Nailbomb!

My off-the-cuff answer, and I think Phil will agree with me, is that the Nailbomb is more METAL and the Rebel Yell more ARENA ROCK.  They both have the hallmarks of every other BK pickup I've encountered: meticulous build quality, sustain for days, and lots of clarity. I picture the NB working really well in a 2 guitar band, with another pickup adding colours to the pallette, or even another NB but with different EQ applied. The Rebel Yell wants to be the ONLY pickup you hear! Which makes it work better in 1-guitar situations, imo.

Another thing: don't sell the VHII short. It is a LOUD pickup, and it crunches AMAZINGLY well. I'll wait for Phil to chime in with the technical details, but he installed a magic switch on my Strat that tamed the high frequency peak on the guitar ... the result is nothing less than WOW.

Final note: before discovering BK, my favourite pickup was the Screamin' Demon, also a pickup designed for a single HB super strat. So, I'm biased towards that style of pickup, and I admit it. The reason I mention this is because my observations are subjective. I'm not a scientist, nor do I claim to be. However, I DO have the privelege of playing through a world-class selection of amps and guitars every week., so I think my subjective observations hold more merit than the "bedroom shredder". (In other words, my bias is well-founded :) )

[dave_mc]

the nailbomb is definitely "metal" orientated then? isn't it meant to be very versatile too?

gah, bk have too many good pickups! I have GAS for a MM at the moment...

[carlaz]

I picture the NB working really well in a 2 guitar band, with another pickup adding colours to the pallette, or even another NB but with different EQ applied. The Rebel Yell wants to be the ONLY pickup you hear! Which makes it work better in 1-guitar situations, imo.

Huh, that's actually a really interesting thought never would have occured to me on my own!  I'll have to think about that .... (I'm mostly playing by myself for my lame-o home recordings, but do usually double-track with different amp sounds or something).

Another thing: don't sell the VHII short. It is a LOUD pickup, and it crunches AMAZINGLY well.

Well, I would expect something called the "VHII" to crunch loudly. :)  Heck, Tim plays Ozzy covers with a Mule, which is less hot than the VHII, but clearly does the job!

What kind of general bass-mid-hi feel do you get from the VHII?  (It's so hard to guess at these things from the current BKP website descriptions!)

Final note: before discovering BK, my favourite pickup was the Screamin' Demon, also a pickup designed for a single HB super strat. So, I'm biased towards that style of pickup, and I admit it. The reason I mention this is because my observations are subjective. I'm not a scientist, nor do I claim to be. However, I DO have the privelege of playing through a world-class selection of amps and guitars every week., so I think my subjective observations hold more merit than the "bedroom shredder". (In other words, my bias is well-founded :) )

I ain't even a "bedroom shredder" -- more a "bedroom chugger"! :P   But hey, it's like reading movie or music reviews: once you get to know the reviewers biases, you can adjust what you read to fit what you know of your own biases. :)

As an LP player, I thought about the JB when I first started thinking of pickup replacements -- mostly because it's way popular and I didn't know much else about pickups (other than that I could probably improve on what I got).  And I'm like the 90-lb weakling when it comes to shredding, so the Demon wasn't likely the one for me.  I thought more about the Custom 5 when it popped up a few years back, but ....

But all that SD stuff is just history! |:) What's great now is to get these bird's-eye views on how the various BKPs feel against each other.  The website descriptions are very sketchy, and while I've heard lots of cool stuff in the Players section, I've find myself struggling to distinguish pickup subtleties from amping/recording/etc. subtleties.  I feel more confident in my understanding of what's what by steering between your and Phil's reports!

[TwilightOdyssey]

I feel more confident in my understanding of what's what by steering between your and Phil's reports!

Thanx much, carlaz!

And Phil deserves thanx, too, because he's made it possible for someone like myself (ie, the vociferous type lol) to play a variety of different guitars and pickukps.

To answer your question, I will have to tell you my impressions pre/post the high freq roll-off that Phil put in.

NOTE: My Strat has no volume control, tone pots, etc. It was previously wired VHII > output jack. Now it's wired VHII > fixed hi freq rolloff > output jack.

Hmm, numerical values ... Okay ... 0 = non-existent, 10 = highest amount possible. I will try to make this as simple as possible!

A. VHII > OUTPUT JACK
Bass - 5
Lower Midrange - 5
Midrange - 6
Upper Midrange - 9
Treble - 10

B. VHII > HI FREQ. ROLLOFF > OUTPUT JACK
Bass - 6.5
Lower Midrange - 6.5
Midrange - 5
Upper Midrange - 6
Treble - 8

Dunno if that's clear or not, tho, lol

[indysmith]

did you like the nailbomb then Ben? I told you that ya would!
Would yu ever use it yourself? -obviously you like your metal, and you've called it a very metal pup.
I got mine the other day, and it is INCREDIBLE. It suprised me with how much bass there was in it! but it was good because it really balanced out the rather trebly sound of the JCM, and fattenned up my guitar sound 8) .

[PhilKing]

The tone filter that Ben is talking about is a dpdt switch with a capacitor and resistor in series wired to ground across the live output.  On one setting it is a 470k resistor and .0.47 capacitor, on the other it is a 230k resistor and 0.022 capacitor.  This gives the sound of a Gibson tone circut or a Fender circuit, but with the tone between 9 & 10.

[TwilightOdyssey]

Thanx for the info, Phil. I can never remember that stuff!