I'm in the market for some pickups and I'm thinking I might run with some Bare Knuckles, I know a fair amount of people who speak highly of them and from the clips I've become pretty interested in these. I'm really just worried about throwing in some pricey pickups and disliking them, so to hopefully avoid that I'll share my current set up and situation.
Currently using a 1979 Gibson "the paul", which for those of you who aren't familiar is a stripped down Les Paul that uses a walnut body. The guitar itself has an almost overwhelming amount of bass, most likely from the choice of wood it's made up of, which is another reason why I'd like to try something else out that might be a bit more suitable. Currently it has some 490's in it which are just buzzy, undefined and more or less just have entirely too much bass in the mix. As far as amps go, I run both a Sovtek Mig-60 and a Framus Cobra in live settings, both are using cabs loaded with v30's. What I'm mainly looking for is something that will kind of counter the natural bass that the wood has, while remaining full and powerful. The gross buzz from the 490's is also upsetting. Seeing that I run one high-gain amp, I really don't see the point in using a pickup that will augment that and want to try to avoid it. I'd prefer a pickup that let's my amps do the work, so-to-speak.
The style of music I'll be using this in is basically fast paced, Hardcore/Crust Punk/D-beat type stuff. There are also some Stoner/Doom elements sprinkled about but they're not really done in live settings. I'm a fan of natural tones and while this may come as a strange statement, the guitar I was using as my main just prior to this one was loaded with EMG 81/85's and it let me maintain a natural amp tone. I know everyone will scoff at EMG use but I found them to be extremely balanced, high output pickups that allowed my amps to do what they do. While I could easily just throw some EMG's in this as well, it'd be nice to have an old Gibson with passive pick-ups.
Doing my own reviews of pickups and what is available, I can say that I'm sort of partial to "The Mule". So basically to summarize, I'd like something that will just let the guitar breathe, have a nice strong output seeing that I run two amps simultaneously and won't make a wood that is naturally bass heavy, a boomy and distorted mess. If anyone has any suggestions and so forth, let me know.
