Blackhawks????

[witeter]

Thanks for the clips-and cool to hear the sounds of some of those modules  :-)
By the way-how did you find the output? what other bkp would you compare it to output-wise? was it up there in 'active' territory in that regard? cheers again

[FELINEGUITARS]

I know what you mean
This ash bodied guitar seemed to kick out a lot of low end (and high end ) response .
I think I will try these out in a mahogany bodied guitar - and put the Painkillers back in the Pantera, where the fat mids of the pickup evened out the sound a touch. More clips may ensue!

Would you say that's a characteristic of ash generally?  I've noticed that my ash Washburn (although a set-neck) has some good snap in the treble strings but is a bit "woofy" in the bass.

Yes - typically that is something I generally feel about ash bodied guitars.

IMO  pickups work like a filter, and you have to take the characteristics of the timbers and the nature of the pickups filtering into account when thinking what the result will be

Team up ash with a warmer pickup and you get a nice balanced result.
Just fitted a Nailbomb (warm & beefy IMO) into an ash bodied/maple necked strat and the result was really good
I prefer that to fitting one in mahogany for example, where it ends up a touch bloated by comparison to my ears.

But that is only my own personal preference - what I think of as bloated , someone else may call fat/awesome/toneful.
Maybe what I might think is shrill , someone else might feel is cutting, percussive, funky and articulate

I'd love to have 3 identical test guitars - but one has an ash body, the next alder and the third mahogany and do a faithful back to back test in these cases, and see what each sounds like with the same pickup.

[AndyR]

Excellent post there Jonathan - I think we often forget that everything we say about this stuff is subjective personal opinion :D

I think what I'm going to want to know (thinking Explorer here) is what these Blackhawks do (in the areas I dabble) in a lump of mahogany.

I'm also wondering now that in fact Blackhawks might not be what this particular lump wants for this particular player? If anything, the guitar veers towards a "hollow" sort of tone - top and bottom, but slightly less in the middle. Not unpleasant, but sometimes lacking the body I want... I find that trying to put the body back in on the amp or whatever can lead you towards "boxy" if you're not careful. Anyway, that "hollow" characteristic might well be why the Riff Raffs seemed kind of swamped in there, that's the only way I could describe it at the time.

The thing that Blackhawks have to counter this is the higher output - my limited experience of higher output pickups seems to suggest that the "filtering" you mention seems less pronounced than what I'm used to on lower output pickups - basically you're driving the amp more so the effect is masked by a bunch of other things going on.

I'm not unhappy with the MQs in there, it's just I'm begining to feel I want the humbucker "thing" back for this guitar.

Anyway, I'll have a listen to these clips this evening :D

[Philly Q]

Thanks for those thoughts, Jonathan.  :)

IMO  pickups work like a filter, and you have to take the characteristics of the timbers and the nature of the pickups filtering into account when thinking what the result will be

I agree with that, absolutely.  And of course it works in several ways - you'll primarily want to choose pickups that work with the characteristics of the timbers to produce a nice balanced tone; but you might also want to choose pickups to emphasise "good" characteristics, or try to minimise the effects of "negative" characteristics.  Ultimately, though, if you don't like the tone of a certain timber I don't think you can "defeat" it with pickups - better to buy another guitar!

I see what you mean about putting something warm and middy in ash - I guess the same might also apply to a semi, as they also tend to emphasise lows and highs acoustically.

In a way, on that basis, it almost seems counter-intuitive to put single-coils in ash guitars, since they're not really warmer sounding pickups.  But I guess because they're much thinner and brighter sounding, they're never going to get flabby or boomy in the bass.  And in a way, with single-coils generally I think the tone is "more wood, less pickups" as compared with humbuckers.

[FELINEGUITARS]

You've not lived till you've played a mahogany bodied strat with single coils - it can be a wonderful thing.

I think some players really like the mahogany body thinline tele that Fender did for the same reason

[Philly Q]

You've not lived till you've played a mahogany bodied strat with single coils - it can be a wonderful thing.

I think some players really like the mahogany body thinline tele that Fender did for the same reason

Interesting!  Despite my many hours spent on the Warmoth site  :lol: , I've never really considered mahogany-bodied Strats or Teles.

I suppose I associate mahogany with set-necks.  Plus the fact that most of the Warmoth mahogany bodies have exotic flame or quilt maple tops, which (though lovely to look at) are too blingy for my taste.

(Edit:  Tell a lie, I just remembered I almost bought a chambered mahogany Tele body, sans maple top, once... but somebody beat me to it)

[FELINEGUITARS]

Thanks for the clips-and cool to hear the sounds of some of those modules  :-)
By the way-how did you find the output? what other bkp would you compare it to output-wise? was it up there in 'active' territory in that regard? cheers again

It was louder and a bit more pushy than a mule - possibly nearly Rebel Yell territory in how you'd perceive it
I note that that is where BKP have put it in their product range output wise

[FELINEGUITARS]

Just remembered something relating to playing through different types of amp.
I find that often my favoured Les Paul guitars which sound awesome to my ears through a Marshall flavoured amp , sometimes sound a bit wooly through a rectifier .

If this ash guitar is sounding a bit bright - maybe I should try it through a Dual rectifier type sound.

So I made a video whilst trying it out : http://youtu.be/uzLjU-g5h9U

[witeter]

Ah ok interesting - so it doesn't sound like it is in 'active' territory as some people where expecting; most bkps i have found to be medium output when compared to other manufacturers high output pups.

[TheyCallMeVolume]

But all that high output from other brands takes away the clarity and definition we love from BKP. If they had really high output stuff, how different would they be from SD or someone else?

[itamar101]

I not exactly sure what people would say high output sounds like but I can get a more aggressive and biting tone and better pinch harmonics yet also better cleans with a 15.6k Holy Diver in a mahogany Les Paul than I got in a maple cort double-cut with a 16.5k SD JB going through the same amp with the same settings.

The Holy Diver is also cleaner and more articulate and responsive so I fully understand where that's coming from but the Holy Diver actually sounds and feels higher output to me than a JB in the way that it works and it's characteristics. I wouldn't define high output and gainer/louder and therefore muddier because that can mostly be changed by messing with pickup height. I'd define higher output by how a certain pickup reacts to you playing, how much it expresses overtones and harmonics and it's overall feel.

What about you guys? Could you give me a better explanation?
Because BKP don't sound or feel lower output to me just because they aren't muddy. Muddines shouldn't be a set characteristic for high output pickups. They just feel "different".

[AndyR]

Here you go guys - CLIPS

Nothing too clever, but maybe enough to get an idea of what they are like

http://youtu.be/iEidQwCbB9k

Nice one, thanks for that. Yep, I'll be very interested in hearing them in a mahogany guitar as well.

(Although, I have to admit, I preferred the Marshall tones to the Recto ones in this guitar :lol: - I think that probably says more about personal taste in amps sounds though)

[gwEm]

Here you go guys - CLIPS

Nothing too clever, but maybe enough to get an idea of what they are like

http://youtu.be/iEidQwCbB9k

cheers Jonathan

[Mr. Air]

Here you go guys - CLIPS

Nothing too clever, but maybe enough to get an idea of what they are like

http://youtu.be/iEidQwCbB9k

That Mash-oldano module sounds frickin' bad. I want one!

[witeter]

By high output I understand it to be how powerful and loud a pickup is as standard- clarity, dynamics,etc is a completely different thing. I would say the warpig/painkiller are high output, as i would say EMGs, Invaders, Blackouts, Crunchlab,etc are high output. But that's just how I view things.