Vintage BKPs for heavier styles?

[Cool_Guy]

Hey
New guy here.
Wondering if anybody on the forum has experience with the vintage/vintage hot range of BKP humbuckers for more heavier styles.
The heaviest we'd be talking about here is Metallica-esq thrash stuff.
I'm mostly a rhythm player, so my ideal setup is a nice distorted rhythm chugga-chugga kinda sound in the bridge, then a nice clean sound in the neck.
Thanks for the advice. Rock on!

[ericsabbath]

http://tonefinder.com/?section=id&value=12205

if you're using an overdrive as a booster, the riff raff can be a great pickup for metal
the vhII and black dog are a little punchier, so they make things even easier
the black dog has great sustain for leads, as it pushes the mids a bit harder, and the vhII has a killer percussive response and full low end

jon schaffer used to love the riff raff and the black dog on iced earth's framus armageddon era

[timmy_b]

You can get heavy tones out of any of our pickups, I personally use all sorts, even stormy mondays! It's a lot more difficult to replicate a 'classic' metal tone the farther away you get from the hot end of things, but if you are experimenting, it's simply a case of tailoring your amp settings to find the sweet spot. I'm currently running a supermassive / blue note p90 combo with no lack of aggression whatsoever!

[Roboten]

With a good booster/OD any pickup can do metallica on any amp, I regularly play 'tallica on my orange ad30 with a green rhino OD with unpotted mules. Without OD and a amp with slightly more gain I'd say  pickups from the vintage hot section delivers, I easily get metallica tones with my pair of emeralds in a Les Paul dc standard.

[Zaned]

Yeah, you can play heavier styles with them easily. From vintage/vintage hot section humbuckers, I have the Black Dog and the Riff Raff.

Both can get very heavy if you want them to. I have them in different sounding guitars, so the summary is here:

Riff Raff in a PRS McCarty:
Dynamic, biting and articulate as hell. And tight. And sounds big, that guitar has always sounded big. It has a lot of mids and a certain low midrange punch, which with this guitar the Riff Raff translates to a biting, ridiculously articulate punch. Which also sounds great clean.

Black Dog in a Tokai LP:
A whole lot different. That guitar is naturally brighter voiced than the McCarty. It's a surprisingly bright LP. Because of Black dogs voicing, the guitar has a weighty midrange, and the low end seems to extend further than on the McCarty. Highs are warm, but there is no lack of them in this guitar. It's a big sound, in all directions. But not nasal, the guitar doesn't have that nasal hump that LPs often have.

For the full review on these pickups, here's what I wrote:
https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=29247.msg380087#msg380087

-Zaned

[EffigyForgotten]

EMG 57/66

[TheyCallMeVolume]

You can get heavy tones out of any of our pickups, I personally use all sorts, even stormy mondays! It's a lot more difficult to replicate a 'classic' metal tone the farther away you get from the hot end of things, but if you are experimenting, it's simply a case of tailoring your amp settings to find the sweet spot. I'm currently running a supermassive / blue note p90 combo with no lack of aggression whatsoever!

By classic do you mean the early versions of metal, or the most popular? There's a big difference between the two. If it was the former, then I would exclusively use vintage-style pickups.

[timmy_b]

Agreed! No I meant the latter, it would have made more sense if I had said 'typical' maybe :-)

[ericsabbath]

EMG 57/66

awful

[littlemurph7976]

I'm very interested in using the lower output pickups for heavier styles myself, I'd be really interested to hear more input from people on the matter. The sound I seem to want is something in between rock and metal, and I'm not even sure entirely what that is, so hearing people's opinions on this who've had experience with a wide range of different models would be really helpful.

Coming from a 'metal' background, growing up through my teenage years listening to pretty much only metal, it's hard to try anything outside of 'metal' gear when you grow up a bit and broaden your horizons. I'm at a total loss what to put in my new baritone tele, a big part of me wants to be adventurous and buy some lower output pups, but part of me is almost scared to stray away from the metal stuff. BKP's are so expensive and I'm just a poor student :(

[Alex]

I'm very interested in using the lower output pickups for heavier styles myself, I'd be really interested to hear more input from people on the matter. The sound I seem to want is something in between rock and metal, and I'm not even sure entirely what that is, so hearing people's opinions on this who've had experience with a wide range of different models would be really helpful.

Coming from a 'metal' background, growing up through my teenage years listening to pretty much only metal, it's hard to try anything outside of 'metal' gear when you grow up a bit and broaden your horizons. I'm at a total loss what to put in my new baritone tele, a big part of me wants to be adventurous and buy some lower output pups, but part of me is almost scared to stray away from the metal stuff. BKP's are so expensive and I'm just a poor student :(

You can't go wrong with a Black Dog in that guitar.

[GuitarIv]

I understand your worries since I'm pretty much from the same musical background. Unfortunately I don't have first hand experience with the Emerald, but I'm very interessted in this pickup for metal since Nolly has posted some amazing results using it for high gain applications. Just take a look and have a listen:

https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=25710.msg339785#msg339785

Then I opened a thread asking about which BKPs would come close to the pickups he has in his signature VIK 7 String and he told me the Emerald is:

https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=29142.msg379003#msg379003

As I said, I would love to try it out for metal.
Just remember the Emerald is bright as hell, so use it for a dark sounding guitar to get the best result. However a Baritone guitar should be dark enough. Review by Slart is here:

https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=28425.msg371313#msg371313

I hope that helps, cheers!

[Alex]

However a Baritone guitar should be dark enough.

This is a common misconception. Most baritones, I feel, have a lot of bass AND treble. I guess it might be the scale, which emphasizes the top end and lows more. I think Tim said as much as well in an interview once.

Especially at higher volume the top end can sound really ugly.

[Shemham]

I have 7 string Ibanez RG in which I use Black Dog pickup in the bridge. Black Dog suits the guitar extremely well. It is very expressive and has nice mid-growl going on when playing heavy rhythm stuff. In addition I like how dynamic it can be and how well the sound cleans up when I roll volume down. The sound stays focused on the 7th string too.

For solos Black Dog is simply amazing! It has a certain singing tone to it due to the darkend top end and mid-heaviness.  No lack of sustain so far

So what's the trade-off? You will lose some output obviously. If you move from active/higher output pups to lower output, you most likely have to adjust your playing a bit. You can pretty much compensate the loss of output level by simply playing harder :) No kidding! I play newer Dual Recto which, although having loads of gain, is not that compressed and requires heavy picking had to get those modern chugga-chuggas going on. Most modern amps anyway have loads of gain available so just turning the gain knob compensates somewhat. Or just get an OD/booster if necessary.

[GuitarIv]

This is a common misconception. Most baritones, I feel, have a lot of bass AND treble. I guess it might be the scale, which emphasizes the top end and lows more. I think Tim said as much as well in an interview once.

Ah, my fault, sorry. I forgot that's the reason why there exist fanned fret instruments to compensate for that.  :oops: