Pickups for HH superstrat style Mayones Setius guitar

[lasaranass]

Hello all,
hope I'm writing this in a right place. I am looking for some Bare Knuckles for my new Mayones Setius guitar (http://www.mayones.com/en/katalog/setius/setius_gtm). It is a fixed bridge, superstrat style double cutaway guitar with mahogany body, maple top, rosewood fingerboard and a 5-piece mahogany-maple neck. Going to do some modern-to-progressive rock with it, drop d tuned and using a variety of gain levels, but nothing extreme. Generally, I am looking for a full, warm and balanced tone. Think PRS Custom 24. I would also really love to have good split-coil sounds and I'm planning to put a 5-way switch inside. Any suggestions?

[Telerocker]

Hi and welcome. Have a look at the Holy Diver. It's beefy, warm and cleans up well. I reckon even Mules will do the trick, when your amp has enough juice.

[Mr. Air]

Joe Kaltado has posted some clips using his Mayones with Black Dog bridge and Mule neck which sounds great. Check them out.

[lasaranass]

Thanks for your suggestions. I've seen those clips of Joe Kataldo, his bridge sound is a bit too mellow for my taste. Good to know that it's a Black Dog though, I was wondering what kind of pickups does he use.

[Zaned]

Hello all,
hope I'm writing this in a right place. I am looking for some Bare Knuckles for my new Mayones Setius guitar (http://www.mayones.com/en/katalog/setius/setius_gtm). It is a fixed bridge, superstrat style double cutaway guitar with mahogany body, maple top, rosewood fingerboard and a 5-piece mahogany-maple neck. Going to do some modern-to-progressive rock with it, drop d tuned and using a variety of gain levels, but nothing extreme. Generally, I am looking for a full, warm and balanced tone. Think PRS Custom 24. I would also really love to have good split-coil sounds and I'm planning to put a 5-way switch inside. Any suggestions?

Some reference sounds would be good. There's a bunch of BKPs that fit under 'full, warm and balanced' in that wood combination :)

-Zaned

[lasaranass]

All right, so I finally got this Setius guitar with standard Mayones configuration - Seymour JB + Jazz. I love absolutely everything about this guitar except for the bridge JB sound. Jazz is okay, it's nicely balanced and has enough clarity for my taste, maybe a bit too much treble response. The JB is total cr@p though. No presence whatsoever, no articulation, midrange is muddy, no chance of cutting through a dense mix. I guess that the Setius is a dark sounding instrument to begin with and my amp (a custom made two channel 50W head with 2x12" Vintage 30 with fenderesque clean channel) has big low-mid response. My two other guitars, a 2005 Fender American Deluxe Strat and an 1997 Ibanez AS-200 sound great through this amp, but they are not that mid-range heavy.

I was wondering if you guys can help me in picking a set of BKPs for the Setius. I would like something like the JB in terms of output (maybe a bit less than JB) but articulate and with a controllable midrange.

[darkbluemurder]

Cold Sweat set. The bridge pickup would balance out the mids and the neck pickup is warm, articulate and clear.

Cheers Stephan

[lasaranass]

Yeah, but the bridge would probably be colder and grittier since it's ceramic, right? I would very much like my bridge pickup to do some warm but articulate clean tones.

[darkbluemurder]

I am afraid I am not of much help with clean tones from a bridge humbucker. In the country rock band I used to play I used Teles and Strats for clean tones but at home I don't play clean - if I want clean I take an acoustic.

If you are afraid of ceramic magnets and want an articulate warm tone for progressive then the Alnico Nailbomb comes to mind. You can go for the full Nailbomb set or combine the A-NB bridge with a Cold Sweat neck - this one is Alnico, too.

Cheers Stephan

[Telerocker]

Nailbombs (alnico) or NB/Cold Sweat-neck.

[lasaranass]

I was just looking through BKP catalog (again), and started thinking more about some vintage-hot pickups for my Setius. What do you guys think of Emerald in that wood combination (fat mahogany body and neck + maple top)? I guess I don't need all that output and compression, since playing metal is not my thing (like to be capable of doing some hard-rock sometimes though). I've been also thinking of VHII's. The sound clips on the site make me think that VHII are kinda like hotter-PAF, fat sounding pickups, while Emeralds have a more modern touch to them. Is that more or less acurate? What do you guys think? Will those pups sound okay in a guitar with really deep low-mids?

[darkbluemurder]

Both VHII and Emerald are described as belonging to the brighter species - so they should mate well with a guitar that is strong on low mids.

Cheers Stephan