They're quite contradictory things - again, you see a hollow body and think "warm", but in fact there's quite a lot of brightness and snap, plus big twangy bass notes. And they really sing with distortion. I like the '57 Classics, don't really feel any inclination to change them.
"brightness and snap, plus big twangy bass notes" - yes indeed :D. I'd forgotten how much. In fact I suspect that my old Rainbow had less brightness and snap. This one has very pleasing dollop of it. I'm finding I'm also turning the amp's bass up to a level that I don't like with strats, teles, SGs, and wotnots. With other guitars "too much" bass gets me into areas where I feel it's muddy, won't clean-up and sparkle like I want. With this one it just gets bigger, warmer and capable of more of that "mellow" you get on a semi's neck pickup.
And I have to say that so far I really like these pickups as well. While I was waiting for the guitar to travel to the local store, obviously I was wondering about "which BKP might I put in there eventually if I buy it?".
Now I've got it at home, I do have some very good ideas about which BKP I'd put in it, but... I have a feeling I won't need to:
- It's knocking out a tone that I don't feel the need to change at the moment
- With height and pole adjustments, the stock pickups seem to be giving me a lot of the attributes I get out of BKP humbuckers (clarity, responsive, etc, etc)
- It's a complete pain changing pickups on these things :lol: (although I do remember doing it on the Rainbow
without a lot of shennanigins - I think I cheated and cut the leads short on the pups... :roll:)
Ian, I didn't realise (or had forgotten) that you'd had a 335. I know exactly what you mean. I've had this "hmmm... that guitar was rather tasty" feeling for years and years.
[
Look Away Now]
All I can say is, it wasn't my imagination, a 335 type really is as gorgeous as I was remembering...
[
/Look Away Now]
... Nah! It's really nothing special, save yer money/angst, you'll be extremely disappointed if you try one again, hang on to your memories instead! :lol:
It's starting to sound like a lot of people on here have some love for them. The problem is though, unless it's "your main type of guitar", it's more likely to be an "ooh I'd love one of those for a change of mood..." sort of guitar. And they're a bit expensive for that. I think that's why it's taken me so long to get one (and it's only happened now because random browsing unearthed one that looked cute and was going for a grand less than I'd have expected).
