Same old question. Which Pickup?

[ainvar]

Hi people,

fist of all, I'd like to ask you to forgive me for the bad english you're going to read. I'm doing my best :)

I'm an owner of a Jackson DR7 (Alder body, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard) and I need to change my pickups (2HB - Duncan Design - 3 way selector).
I play death metal but with clean/jazzy parts and some effects.
My preamp/multi-effect unit is Rocktron Prophesy and my current amp is a Marshall EL34 100/100. I have no fixed cab.

Before buying the DR7, I had a BC.Rich KKV with Seymour Duncan Invader pickups and I was satisfied for the fat and powerful sound except for clarity.

I've played a lot of genres (pop, tripo-hop, soft-rock, samba, bossa, dance and various metal sub-genres) and I tried a lot of effect units, pedals and so on...but I find the Prophesy is one of the few units that does not "eat" sound.
That's to say that now I come back to my roots (extreme metal), I can mix a lot sounds coming from my other experiences and so I pay a lot of attention to clean sounds as to overdriven sounds.

Now what i need is to get the best of two worlds: on the bridge a super-fat-but-clear sound for rhythmic parts and on the neck i need pure-crystal-but-not-thin clean sound.
Sometimes we use clean sound for rhythmics (quite like old surf music a la neil hefti) so the bridge should be versatile enough to get a reasonable good clean sound.

I know most of the sounds comes from a good eq, a good ampli and cabs...but the pickup is the start of all...an eq can't modify missing frequencies.

For the bridge I was aiming to the Warpig (ceramic) pup but I'm worried about the clean sound.
Dunno what could be the best choice for the neck but the aftermath seems to be well balanced to let the multieffect to shape the sound as needed.

What's your suggestion?

[ainvar]

Tim said that a pair of aftermath will do the job and that they are a lot more brutal and distinct than my old seymour duncan invader.

Is there anyone using aftermath for death metal?

[Transcend]

I dont use it for death metal but i imagine it would work amazingly well due to the voicing

[ericsabbath]

I don't think the aftermath isn't "more brutal" than a invader at all
but it's quite hot and a lot clearer, tighter, sharper and more edgy than the invader
not really a fat voiced pickup
it's a completely different voicing
if want to keep the invader character but with clarity, go with the c-pig
the aftermath is a whole different pickup

[Transcend]

The aftermath can do brutal extremely well check MDVs recent clips.

I will agree it doesnt have the invader voicing though.

[Slartibartfarst42]

As I don't own the pickups it's difficult for me to say but based on the clips I've heard, the Aftermath doesn't sound anything like fat enough to be similar to an Invader, though it seems a thicker sound than I was expecting. My guess would have been the Warpig too but for the cleans I was thinking more the alnico version. I know why you're thinking ceramic but in a lot of the threads I've read there are comments about pickups like the Nailbomb and Warpig being as tight and articulate as most ceramics anyway so maybe with a Bare Knuckle pickup, you don't need ceramic. Certainly from what I've heard, the alnico Warpig is every bit as brutal as an Invader, far tighter and more articulate and with a much better tone as well. Perhaps someone with an A-Pig could comment.

[Transcend]

I wouldnt say the alnicos are anywhere near as tight as the BKP ceramics

theyre tight but not even close on the scale.

I also think the official clips are a really bad way to select pickups as all the ones of the pickups i have sound nothing like the pickups in real life.

you are better off finding clips on the forum by users who have similar equipment to you

[Slartibartfarst42]

Sorry, I meant that I'd read a number of people say that Bare Knuckle alnicos like Nailbomb and Warpig were as tight and articulate as ceramics from other manufacturers. I never meant they were as tight as BKP ceramics. If that's wrong, I apologise, I was only passing on what I'd read.

[Transcend]

I think you took what i said the wrong way.

Sorry about that it wasnt worded very well.

I wasnt meaning to be aggressive.

But to be honest i have never actually got on with the alnico bridge pickups from any company and i don't think they're really any good for metal if you're wanting a really tight aggressive sound.

They do aggressive well but not tight.

Have you been in touch with Tim yet? he would be able to give the best advice

[ainvar]

I already asked Tim and he suggested aftermath pups.
From what I understood the aftermath should be the more versatile on the neck, but I have doubts about the bridge.

As I said Tim, I use 80% clean 20% dist. on the neck and 90% dist. and 10% clean on the bridge.
All I want is to get a fat brutal but distinct sound on the bridge and a crystal sound on the neck.

[Transcend]

The aftermath is incredibly versatile and has great cleans for a ceramic

if you go with fancy wiring parrallel works amazingly well on the AM bridge

[ainvar]

On my spare time I build guitars for personal use only and on last guitar I put just 1 pot...the volume...so I think I won't do fancy wirings at all :)
I just need to select the pup and a knob to tell him to shut up when needed...but that's nice to know the pup works well on other kind of config.

 

[Transcend]

you could always have a push pull for the parrallel wiring.

but as i said the AM has pretty good cleans alone anyway

[ericsabbath]

ask for a TRIPLE MAGNET CERAMIC WARPIG just for fun 
I wonder what his answer would be

"sorry, we don't manufacture weapons of mass destruction"

:lol:

[gwEm]

The aftermath is incredibly versatile and has great cleans for a ceramic

jonathan and i had a great 80s rock jam using the aftermath. i think it is versatile indeed.