Pickup for a certain kind of tone

[stuh84]

Hey everyone,

I'm not new to this board, BKPs or even asking for recommendations on here, but it has been a while.

I currently have Bareknuckles in two guitars. I have a Nailbomb in my LTD M207 (basswood body, bolt on, rosewood board) which sounds great, full and lovely. I have an Aftermath in my Agile 8 string (mahogany body, neck thru, maple board), and I love the tones from them. The Aftermath is modern and has the right amount of cut and comes through insanely well on recordings. The Nailbomb has a slight bit more meat to it, and records just as well but slightly differently.

Now, in a couple of months I shall be getting an Emperion 7 string LP style guitar, mahogany body, ebony board, 25.5" scale. The kind of tone I'd like to get close to is Jon Schaffer's of Iced Earth. I play a lot like him, even when I'm not doing the same overall style, and I've always loved that tone. I hear he goes for quite low output pickups, and currently uses WCR Icebuckers. There in lies a problem, WCR do not do 7 string pickups. As much as I love BKPs, I would love to have turned this guitar into the Iced Earth rhythm machine exactly, but alas its not to be the case.

To cut a long story short, I'm after an Iced Earth-esque tone, with a Les Paul style guitar. What would people recommend for this?

Edit: It's probably obvious anyway, but this is for the bridge pickup. I'm not hugely into neck pickups (I play leads on the bridge, I only use the neck for cleans and more laid back styles), but I may change it out at some point.

[ericsabbath]

riff raff! :D

[Alex]

I thought John Schaffer used RiffRaffs or Black Dogs, can't remember which one.

[stuh84]

I thought John Schaffer used RiffRaffs or Black Dogs, can't remember which one.

I'd be interested to know. I know he doesn't now, he's been using his Icebuckers and also Godwoods and the like (as noted by this http://www.bravewords.com/news/83248).

I'm not trying to clone the tone by any stretch of the imagination, I'm just kind of after that fullness and ability to keep up with the stacatto notes, but not be slightly overpowering like the more modern geared pickups can be. As much as I love my Nailbomb and Aftermath, they can take some taming in a mix at times.

[Alex]

That interview is from 2008!

I'm almost certain I read somewhere on this forum that he uses Bareknuckles and that it was a low(er) output model.

Also, Tim Mills did some work with Iced Earth. Check out the interview here: http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/artist-reviews-interviews/174097-sevenstring-org-interview-tim-mills-bare-knuckle-pickups.html

[stuh84]

Yeah he did, Tim appeared on the Overture Of The Wicked disc, which was recorded before the interview I posted up came out.

I'm pretty sure that the Bare Knuckle time was before WCR. I could be wrong but that's how it looks to have played out.

[stuh84]

Edit: Ignore this one, ended up quoting rather than editing...

[ericsabbath]

he did use several BKPs
I remember he specially liked riff raffs, black dogs and also had holy divers, nailbombs
I think he used a purple zebra rebel yell set in a les paul studio or something

he also used seymour duncans, stock gibson pups and WCRs by that time
I doubt he dumped all the others
he uses mostly WCR today cause he's a signed endorser
he's always switching guitars and he has dozens of them, so he doesn't have to swap all pickups for his signature model

[stuh84]

Sorry for the late reply on this...

Thanks Eric and Alex, it's a big help. My favourite tones Schaffer has ever had were on Something Wicked and on the most recent one (Dystopia), so quite a big gap in terms of what he'd go for!

However I think the Riff Raffs sound like a good idea on this one, it'll make a change from the rest of my pickups anyway (Nailbomb, Aftermath, Dimarzio D-Activators in my main 7 now, and a Wolfetone-rewound SD Custom in another guitar) to go lower output and get another kind of tone out of it all.

Cheers!