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Author Topic: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN  (Read 15749 times)

itamar101

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BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« on: January 22, 2012, 06:21:01 PM »
hey guys,
ive been looking at upgrading my strat pickups and ive come to the decision that im either getting BKP mothers milk pups or seymour duncan antiquity texas hots with an antiquity custom in the bridge.
but i cant find many demos of them so i would like to know what would suit me better. please no biased opinions seeing as this is the bkp forum.

i play blues rock, alt rock, funk rock, hard rock and a bit of metal (but my les paul can cover metal well enough).
i would love to get some frusciante-esque tones but i am wondering how much low end either of the pickups will get me as i want a bit of that too. i want to be able to reach hard rock amounts of overdrive with a beefy sound and lot of clarity and hopefully the bridge pickups could have a bit of that "tele twang".
the neck pickup must be warm and beefy, reminiscent of '54 fenders and such.

tl;dr which pickups should i get?
should i get a telecaster and put BKP yardbirds in it?

thanks in advanc for any advice :)

dave_mc

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2012, 06:40:33 PM »
just bear in mind no-one here's likely to say to get the seymour duncans :lol: Just like no-one at teh duncan forum would say to get the bareknuckles

itamar101

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2012, 06:44:47 PM »
i thought that that would be likely.
but do you have any advice yourself?

DoomBuggi

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2012, 07:14:21 PM »
I don't really think there is a better.  Just a matter of preference really.

richard

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2012, 07:20:05 PM »
Quite a few folks on the SD forum recommend other manufacturer's pickups (including BKs), it's a very tolerant forum in that respect. I've never used SDs single coils but a lot of top players use them so they should be pretty good. I have an IT bridge in my Strat and it's a superb pup with plenty of beef.
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itamar101

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2012, 07:32:22 PM »
whats an IT bridge?

richard

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #6 on: January 22, 2012, 07:40:35 PM »
Irish Tour - inspired by the sound Rory Gallagher had on the live album of the same name. It really captures Rory's sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w0kQ74kZcw
PRS Bernie Marsden Abraxas set
PRS S2 Singlecut RY's
JV Strat  IT Bridge
Gibson SG JB bridge
Fender Mex Tele Thinline TV Jones Classics
Fender Bassbreaker 15
Yamaha THR 100 Dual
Quilter Aviator Cub

lulusg

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #7 on: January 22, 2012, 09:50:14 PM »
Ahhh... Rory!!
Just passing by

Telerocker

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #8 on: January 22, 2012, 10:26:01 PM »
If you're looking for Texas hot then IT's. Order a baseplate for the bridge for some extra oomph. I have both the Mother's Milk and Irish Tours. The IT's are a sort of overwound MM's. Fatter and grittier. But, if you turn the vol.knob on the guitar a tad back, you will get in MM-terrority and close to the woody Frusciante-tones.
Mules, VHII, Crawler, MM's, IT's, BG50's.

Brow

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #9 on: January 22, 2012, 10:35:36 PM »
I had a Strat with a set of Duncan Texas Hots with the Custom bridge, and replaced them with a set of Mother Milks  :D

The difference in tone is night and day. I know it's a cliche', but the BKPs are so much clearer sounding and (to my ears atleast) just sound 'better'.
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dave_mc

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #10 on: January 22, 2012, 10:44:30 PM »
i thought that that would be likely.
but do you have any advice yourself?

not really, i haven't tried bkp's single coils (nor duncan's custom shop) :lol:

itamar101

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #11 on: January 23, 2012, 08:18:24 AM »
I had a Strat with a set of Duncan Texas Hots with the Custom bridge, and replaced them with a set of Mother Milks  :D

The difference in tone is night and day. I know it's a cliche', but the BKPs are so much clearer sounding and (to my ears atleast) just sound 'better'.

Can you please explain this further? What are the differences in tone and clarity, what was beefier sounding, whats better for chords or leads. How is each one clean and distorted? Thanks.

Kiichi

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #12 on: January 23, 2012, 01:01:50 PM »
Now, while I only use an Irish Tour middle (which is bloody great for strat sounds), I can tell you that generally, BKPs will be clearer and more defined than other pickups as mentioned here.
What that means is for one, that they donīt have distortion coming from the pickups itself. A lot of others have dirt already in the DI signal that comes from the PUs, for example dimazios and duncans. This leads you to hear them as hotter, while the effectivly donīt really have more output. That means switching from those PUs to BKPs will usually involve turning up the gain, cause they seam to eat it. This will ultimatly give you a lot more detail and defintion in the sound, let me assure you. This makes them superiour for chords under gain and all.
Itīs hard to explain, but this is something you can expect from BKPs in general over duncan.

Btw, I think while biased we are still very tollerant here too. We tend not recommend anything but BKPs but sometimes a Duncan is just what works for you, so that is what we tell people looking to upgrade pickups sometimes if they did not like BKPs they tried out.
I for one also still love my Dimarzio Liquifire and Crunchlab (though I have not tried Ceramic Nailbomb and Coldsweat neck combo yet).

Oh yes, and I think you would do very nicely with an IT set (baseplate on the bridge probably).
BKPs in use: 10th set / RY set / Holy Diver b, Emerald n / Crawler bridge, Slowhand mid MQ neck/ Manhattan n
On the sidelines: Stockholm b / Suppermassive n, Mule n, AM set, IT mid

shobet

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #13 on: January 23, 2012, 01:38:45 PM »
What that means is for one, that they donīt have distortion coming from the pickups itself. A lot of others have dirt already in the DI signal that comes from the PUs, for example dimazios and duncans. This leads you to hear them as hotter, while the effectivly donīt really have more output.

Sorry, can you explain that a bit more for me please as I'm not sure I follow.
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Kiichi

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Re: BKP vs Seymour DUNCAN
« Reply #14 on: January 23, 2012, 02:35:51 PM »
What that means is for one, that they donīt have distortion coming from the pickups itself. A lot of others have dirt already in the DI signal that comes from the PUs, for example dimazios and duncans. This leads you to hear them as hotter, while the effectivly donīt really have more output.

Sorry, can you explain that a bit more for me please as I'm not sure I follow.
I mean the thing that is mentioned on this forum quite often (I very much may have gotten something wrong about he output). Especially dimarzios have a certain kind of dirt in the high frequencys, the high end tends to be more fizzy you could say. One may call this sort of noise. This then leads to the final signal after it went through the amp sounding more distorted, because distortion is essentially adding unwanted overtones and such, which in this case the PU itself already begins doing. So BKPs give cleaner signal because they produce less unwanted overtones.

Now I think I got some things wrong, but maybe you understand what I mean....otherwise someone wiser than me will have to chime in (enough people to pick from ;))
BKPs in use: 10th set / RY set / Holy Diver b, Emerald n / Crawler bridge, Slowhand mid MQ neck/ Manhattan n
On the sidelines: Stockholm b / Suppermassive n, Mule n, AM set, IT mid