Forum noob asks age old question: Choose my LP pickup!

[Ratrod]

Here are the pics of my raw nickel MQ's.







It's amazing how the light is reflecting on these. In sunlight they almost seem to glow.

[carlaz]

Jumping in late, but here's my two pesos ....

Covering all those bases does make drilling down to the pickup subtlties very tough!  I had a similar situation and ended up going for Crawlers (mostly on Tim's recommendation) but I can easily see why the Cold Sweats, Nailbombs, and Holydivers would also be good candidates.  I haven't heard nearly as many clips of the CS and HD, and like Tom I had been under the impression that the CS was ceramic!  So I'll shut up and leave it at: These sound like good options about which you should ask Tim! :)

+1 for the raw nickel covers.  I just got back my black LP with raw nickel Crawlers in, and I think they look great.  The guitar itself has been banging around with me for a dozen years and I haven't exactly lavished cosmetic care on it.  The shiny stock chrome covers just looked scratched (like the rest of the guitar ;)) but the new raw nickels look smooth, if you see what I mean.

[Spleen]

Thanks for the pictures of the Raw Nickel pickups Rat Rod.  I love the look of your guitar BTW, that's an awesome yellow colour.  

Tim replied to my email indicating that the Cold Sweats, Crawler and Nailbomb would all be able to deliver most of what I want so, after much deliberation and considering that heavy is the sound that is missing from my current pickup I have decided to go with the one that I have the most exposure to, the Nailbomb.

I have an email sent to Solid Body Guitar  in the U.S. (I'm Canadian) asking whether or not they have the Nailbomb in raw Nickel.  Barring that I'll go regular nickel as the consensus seems to be that the camo would look out of place on my particular Les Paul.

[Spleen]

One as yet unanswered question.  The neck pickup in my guitar sounds pretty good to me, a classic vintage PAF sound.  I rarely use the neck pickup in my Les Pauls and I lower the volume to zero on the neck pickup of my 81 Gibson and use it as an off switch.  Despite this I seem to use the neck pickup more on my 82 Greco (the one about to be Nailbombed).  My question is will a Nailbomb totally overwhelm a classic PAF sound and volume wise?  Were I to switch pickups mid song would it be jarring?

[carlaz]

I don't think the Nailbomb will overwhelm a PAF-style.  I've seen reports from a number of people happy with Warpig bridge/Mule neck combos (the 'Pig is hotter than the NB, I think, and the Mule is very PAF), so ... it should be all right. IMO, worth giving it a try before worrying about it a lot!

If you decide the PAF-style is a little wimpy next to the NB, you could always try physically raising it a little higher in the guitar to sit closer to the strings. Alternatively, if you really end up deciding the PAF-style isn't hot enough for the NB (though my educated amateur's guess is it would be OK), you could put in an Abraxas/Crawler neck, which is hotter than a true PAF but has a similar vibe. (I've got Crawlers and the neck pup is pretty smokin' 8)).