HSS Pickup Balancing

[XxpapertigerxX]

Hi everybody, I'm new to the forum and to Bare Knuckle Pickups as well. I'm having a custom aluminum body guitar made by Alumisonic guitars (check them out, they're incredible) and I want to make sure I do the guitar justice by putting in high quality pickups, and from what I've heard these are some of the best. The setup will be HSS, and I know for sure that I want an Alnico Nailbomb in the bridge. However, I'm looking for a mix of both clean and dirty sounds, so I want single coils that are very nice sounding clean, but without harsh treble response.

I like the sound of the Apache single coils the most based on Bare Knuckle's clean sound clips, but would the Nailbomb completely overpower them? I don't want to get anything less than the Nailbomb's full potential, so I would rather compromise on the single coil clean tone than the Nailbomb's dirty tone. So if any of you have any experience with balancing an HSS set, your input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Telerocker]

I think in this case Slowhands are a better options. Quite some midrange, still vintagecharacter. For a more contempory tone Trilogies.

[XxpapertigerxX]

Yeah since I made that post I've been obsessively exploring the forums and I was thinking the Slow Hands might be best. How do the Trilogies compare clean? I'm looking for something that is appropriately loud for the Nailbomb but has a rich, shimmering clean tone

[Telerocker]

BKP sells a HSS-set Nailbomb/Trilogies. Outputwise, the Nailbomb splitted will pair great with the Slowhand middle-singlecoil. Trilogies will soundwise be more on par with the NB, but if you want to keep vintagecharacter in the singlecoils, I would recommend the Slowhands. If that's not a particular demand, then go for the Trilogies. They do Blackmore-stuff very well.

[XxpapertigerxX]

Ok thanks you have been very helpful    :) I'll most likely go with the Slow Hands because I think they would fit my clean tones better

[XxpapertigerxX]

Actually nope, I just changed my mind. After looking into the Trilogy Suites more I discovered that they retain the great Strat clean tones while being more full bodied, and of course they handle distortion very well which is an added bonus. Thanks for mentioning them, otherwise I wouldn't have even looked into them

[Telerocker]

The Trilogies are a good choiche too. Just with a little more oomph.