Hi All!
I'm a newbie to BKP and I have no idea which set of pickups would work to get me nearer to the tone I set out to achieve.
I have an Epi Les Paul Custom. It's all Mahogany with a Rosewood Fretboard, so I could say it's a very dark guitar.
The tone I'm trying to achieve is for "Melodic Instrumental Rock". I'm using the term "Rock" loosely as it's sort of between Rock & Metal. I really want a set that provides great organic tones that really lets your playing style shine through. I'm unsure though as to how compressed or open-sounding the pickup should be for this type of music though.
I consider myself to be a very melodic player who writes Instrumental songs as a whole, rather than just shredded jibberish. So I like to give the song structure. Although, I do shred on some songs when the occasion calls for a very fast lick, or sweeped picking as an underlay to the melody. So really I'd like a pickup set that is really vocal.
Bridge Pickup: I'd really like this to be my pickup where I play my Higher Gain'd melodies on, where I really want the leads to cut through and be heard. But still regain a very vocal tone. Of course I'd like it to react well when I roll the Vol. back a bit to clean it up and play softer melodies.
Neck Pickup: I'm a fan of Stacked Singlecoils (Dimarzio) so I'm a bit unsure as to what Humbucker would work. This is the pickup where I play softer melodies under less amounts of gain. I like it to have that twang though to give it a sort of Andy Timmons vibe. So ideally it would have a nice bright top end (especially being in a Les Paul), and react very well to lower gain settings. As I said before, I am known to shred sometimes, and I like sweeping on the neck, so it would be nice for it to regain clarity when extra gain is added.
I'd really like these pickups to split well too.
I play through High Gain amps btw, as to vintage. But I've been considering getting a Bugera Vintage style, maybe a 1990, but we'll see.
Thanks for your time,
M
