Irish Tours and Ash/Maple Neck + Board = Too Bright?

[darkbluemurder]

Hi there,

I am contemplating to upgrade the single coils in my ash bodied strat with maple neck + maple board to BKPs. The bridge pickup is a Holydiver, and this is set - it will go nowhere.

The initial selection included the Irish Tours, Slowhands and Trilogy Suites. After a bit of reserach and listening to clips I ruled out Slowhands as having not enough power to keep up with the HD and the Trilogies as being too dark for what I have in mind.

That leaves me with the Irish Tours. The middle is easy: just get a flat poled RWRP - job done.

What about the neck - I read many times the IT is bright. Bright per se is not a problem but I don't want the treble strings to be thin sounding. Does any of you have the Irish Tours in a guitar with the wood combination, and if so what are your experiences?

I am also thinking of getting the IT neck with a base plate. Not sure whether this would be beneficial for the middle pickup. Thoughts?

And finally: what are your thoughts about putting the IT bridge in the neck spot?

Thanks and kind regards,
Stephan

[gwEm]

I reckon that my Irish Tours have a touch less output than my Slowhands. Either way, the two sets are very similar in terms of output.

If you think Slowhands won't keep up, go for Trilogies and be happy  :D

[darkbluemurder]

Hi and thanks for your reply.

Did you have the Irish Tours and Slowhands in the same or different guitars?

Thanks, Stephan

[Telerocker]

IT's in swampashstrat. The neck is vintagesounding with some extra bass, lowmids and more solid highs then the Mother's Milk, but it's still a hollow sounding vintage kind of pickup. I think the high notes could be too thin for you, although they handle gain well. You might want a (more modern sounding and hotter) TS.

[gwEm]

Hi and thanks for your reply.

Did you have the Irish Tours and Slowhands in the same or different guitars?

Thanks, Stephan

In fact no!

I have a Slowhand set in an Ash/Maple strat. I also have a Slowhand neck with a Boss bridge in an Alder/Rosewood Cyclone

My Irish tours are in an Alder/Rosewood Duo-Sonic. I also have an Irish tour neck with a BG52 bridge in a Swamp Ash/Rosewood strat.

The Irish Tours sound very rauchy, and a little more open than the Slowhands. But the Slowhands are a bit smoother and have a mid range punch.

Originally I put an Irish tour neck with a Boss bridge in the same guitar, and the Irish Tour was a bit over powered. So I put a BG52 in the bridge to make it a more raunchy feeling guitar.. and then I bought a slowhand neck, and put the Boss in the Cyclone - I think they work well together, The Boss is quite a mid punchy pickup itself.

[darkbluemurder]

Many thanks, this is very helpful.

Going by description the Slowhands indeed seem to have the sound I am looking for. I was only concerned about the output but now I understand that such concerns are unfounded. That's good to hear.

I just scored a Slowhand bridge on ebay. I am going to try that in the neck position and post when it's done.

Cheers Stephan

[darkbluemurder]

I just scored a Slowhand bridge on ebay. I am going to try that in the neck position and post when it's done.

That was a promise and a threat :)

Did it last night. The seller was so kind to include the original box and warranty card. Written BKP DC resistance was 7.61k. On my meter it measured 7.4k - close enough. No baseplate.

It definitely has more output than the Lollar Special neck it replaced. It can keep up easily with the Holydiver split and also balances better with the HD in humbucking mode. The SH is similar in the midrange colour to the Lollar but with more bottom end - I know it's a bit unfair since my SH is a bridge pickup so it's wound with more turns to accommodate the shallower string movement at the bridge. What I did not expect from it were the clear bright highs the pickup has, yet they are not harsh in any way. And the treble strings do sound noticeably less thin.

One thing caught me by surprise though: even though both the HD bridge and the SH were wired in the standard way they are out of phase when both are selected, as are the SH and the middle pickup (also a Lollar Special) are. No big deal - a quick swap of the black and white wires should sort that out. But the pickup has the same polarity as the screw coil of the humbucker. This means that it should be humcancelling when used as a middle pickup together with the slug coil of the humbucker - which is what I will try next. If it works as expected I will leave it in the middle and most likely will get a Trilogy Suite for the neck as I would like more power and warmth from that position. I will need to have a discussion with BKP to get the correct polarity for that one so that also the neck + middle position is humcancelling even if I don't use it that much.

- to be continued -

Cheers Stephan

[gwEm]

Tim explained to me once that strat pickups are indeed wound out of phase with other pickups (such as a humbucker).

If you order an H-S or HSS set then they take this into account with the wiring of the strat pickups.

If you order an SSS set, then they wind them the conventional strat direction.

I know this because I once did exactly the same thing as you and got a strat pickup off ebay from an SSS set and tried to combine with a tele pickup.

You can reverse the wires on the strat pickup, and its alot better, but still not perfect for some reason - I think the magnets need flipping or something. i'm sure the experts here will be able to go into more detail!

[darkbluemurder]

Thanks, that explains it, yet I  would have never expected it.

I will just try the pickup in the middle position and reverse the wires. I doubt that you can reverse the magnets on an existing strat pickup as easily as you can with a humbucker so reversing the wires will be much easier. If I like the sound combined with the split humbucker then fine and I will just order a neck pickup. The neck pickup tone to me is more important than the neck + middle combined (or the bridge + neck combined) so no worries there.

If bridge + middle still sounds wrong with wires reversed (which I don't expect) I could flip the magnet on the humbucker and order a standard oriented single coil.

Cheers Stephan

[gwEm]

might be worth "asking Tim" on this. pickups have electric and magnetic phase.. my remembrance of Tim's explanation here is pretty shakey. In the end I sent the Slowhand in question to Tim who did something with it. Since I got the SH on ebay I had to pay BKP something, but I remember the price he was asked was very reasonable.

perhaps you can do something with the magnets for free though, which would be better.. a bit of research needed, I would hate you to go to the trouble of doing something based on my poorly remembered recollection!

i'm pleased you like the SH though, and good luck getting it phased right.

[Tomcaster]

I wouldn't say ash/maple is overly bright. It is perhaps a little more hollow in the mids.

You can listen to a great tonewood comparison here:
http://www.petelacis.com/2010/07/08/alder-vs-swamp-ash-maple-vs-rosewood-and-a-neck-swap-the-definitive-comparison-with-audio-clips/

[darkbluemurder]

Switched the SH to the middle position and reversed the wires - worked all as expected. The SH bridge sounds great in the middle position, too! Almost better than in the neck position. No thinness on the treble strings, surprisingly. I guess the thin E and B strings on the neck pickup is guitar and amp related since all the pickups I tried there had this to some extent.

The only thing that bothers me slightly is that the SH has staggered magnets - I had to set the pickup lower than I wanted, otherwise it got in the way with my picking ... 

Cheers Stephan

[Tomcaster]

The pickups should be set a bit lower from the strings to breathe. Otherwise the magnetic field will influence the string vibration pattern (problem known as 'Stratitis')