Strangely enough, "Mr Vintage" here is tempted :lol:
However, like Brow (didn't realise you had so many!), at the moment I'm not in the "I have spare money to buy without serious budgeting" mode that I was a while back. It's not just pickups, it's all music-related stuff.
The majority of my BKPs are singles. For HB guitars I have Mules, Riff Raffs, and MQs - and the most recent of those I must have bought at least 2-3 years ago.
I have however had my sights on owning one or two other BKP HBs for some time. An imminent pick up swap is going to leave my Tokai Love Rock "Mule-less", which in some ways is a bit of a shame because they are perfect in there... at some point it's getting some more BKPs. The "no brainer" choice is a another set of Mules, but I feel a bit more adventurous than that. Not much, though - in current order of preference it's 1) Abraxas, 2) Black Dogs, 3) Stormy Mondays. Sometimes that gets reversed, it all depends on what I think I want the guitar to do for me... (Emeralds keep getting thrown into the pot as well, depending on what people write about them - sometimes it sounds like "that's it!", other times it's "oh no, that's not what I want at all...")
And then, along come these Blackhawk things.
The first I heard of them was when this thread started. I saw the various musings and who was getting involved in the discussions, and I thought "oh, another pickup for the metal boys, fair enough, not my cup of tea..."
But then more info snuck out, and they were released. And I found that they actually appeal to me. I like what Tim seems to be doing here - it almost feels like he's factored guys like me into the design. I don't want a dedicated modern/metal/emg-like/etc pickup or guitar, I don't think I'd use it enough. I'd love to have a set of Painkillers or what ever, just for the hell of it, but I'd still be reaching for the guitar that does Paul Kossoff most easily :lol:
These Blackhawks sound like they could be the tool I'm looking for - I'm imagining an almost "blank canvas" type of pickup that is capable of tones I can't get at the moment and also capable of reasonably covering the ground I do already. All with the BKP juicy goodness that I've come to rely on.
For me, what's not to like? Oh dear, like some others in this thread... the look! It's not that they're blades, nor that they're square, I even think they look very pleasing in a "blocky" kind of way... No, it's just that I'm a "covers on my humbucker size pickups" man - I can't get over it, I like them silvery things in the guitar :lol:
So, kind of like Philly, I wonder what guitar I have (or might have in future) that I'd want to put them in. These guys have definitely been added to my list (above) of BKPs I'd like to have. In fact, if they looked like traditional humbuckers they'd probably have jumped straight to the top of that list for the Tokai Love Rock.
From Tim's answers in this thread, it sounds to me like he's very aware of this and has put quite a bit of time and effort into "hmmm... the blokes who could most love what this does are going to be traditionalists on the looks front, can I fit covers, etc? ... oh bugger..." :lol:
I really don't think he's worried about "can I shift enough of these?" I think it's more a case of he's stumbled on a thing that he just KNOWS is what a bunch of fellow guitarists want/need, if only they could get over what it has to look like to achieve it.
So, with that in mind (now I'm on a PC that can stream videos), I'm off to see what this gold top looks like! :D
