Looking to change out pups in PRS McCarty, have a few questions about BKP

[skm1016]

Howdy, just registered so I could pick your brains. I am thinking about changing out the pickups in my PRS. Now this is a nice Custom McCarty with 57/08's in it. They are great sounding vintage pickups, have a coil split on the tone knob and I actually like the split tones I get but am not going to be heartbroken if I don't have a coil splitting option if I change out pickups. I love this guitar like no other, it has an amazing neck, it is perfect in most every way. If I were to just plug straight into an amp and use no effects I would be happy, happy, happy.....BUT I do use quite a few effects such as fuzz, more fuzz, delay, phasing etc. etc. I am not happy with the way these vintage pickups sound when I am going with heavy distortions, dropped tunings and reverb/delay laden riffs.

I'm curious to know what I should look at as far as Bare Knuckle pickups go. I use some vintage effects and some digital stuff, modeling gear, and play a lot of heavy dropped D at times. Any thought or ideas? Thanks

[Kiichi]

Hi and welcome!

First of we could use some more info. Things that will help us are for example: Which woods are in the guitar? What styles do you play? What are you looking for in your tone?

Right now we know you want something that handles effects well and that you basecally seem to like vintage style PUs.
Of the top of my head that can mean Mules or Riff Raffs, maybe something vintage hot...really just taking shots in the dark here without info I am afraid.

Let us know more and we will gladly help you along more!

[skm1016]

Thanks!

So its a Mahogany back and neck with a flame maple top, the neck board is Brazilian Rosewood. Has a trem bridge, bone nut with locking tuners. I play blues rock and a lot of harder dropped tuning stuff as well. Like I said love the 57/08's that are in it but when I run effects it gets a little thin sounding. I am a big fan of the neck pickup with heavy doses of fuzz. The majority of time when I am playing in my group I am using distortion, lots of wah-wah action and mostly leads but I gotta get that low chunk-chunk dropped d sound as well. I have Seymour Duncans in quite a few other guitars (Pearly Gates, PAF, Jazz, JB) but for this guitar I wanted to look at something a bit better, seeing as how $$$ it was I figured high end guitar needs some high end pickups and I had heard a lot of people love their Bare Knuckles  :D

[Telerocker]

The Abraxas-set comes to mind when I read this, but I guess you would be totally happy with a Holy Diver/Emerald-neck too. The Diver has an emphasized midrange and will do the metal-stuff. It one of the BKP's with the best leadtone. The Emerald-neck gets more popular here for it's fat, fluid tones, with still a bit of vintagevibe, but at the same time being able to do modern styles.

[skm1016]

Thanks! I'll start looking into those :)

[Zaned]

Do your other guitars get thin sounding through those effects and amp?

Holy Diver would probably sound good, but if you love the vintage flavour, it would be a big step towards a more modern tone. Vintage flavour, but thicker -> Abraxas, Black Dog and Crawler (although considered contemporary). I would probably choose between Abraxas and Black Dog. I have the Black Dog, but haven't tried the Abraxas. To my ears, the Black dog has more bite in the top (also Alnico IV vs Alnico V), and is perhaps a less compressed.

Here's my review on the Black Dog in an LP, and Riff Raff / Mule -combo in a PRS McCarty: https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=29247.msg380087#msg380087

-Zaned

[hunter]

I experimented a lot with my McCarty and tried VHIIs, BlackDogs, MiracleMan and RiffRaff in the bridge. Like you I liked the original McCarty pickups but wasn't satisfied with their performance under high gain conditions. The RiffRaff did it for me. Low output and clear with a good bite. Perfect if you have enough gain on the amp or pedals. My McCart has a Rosweood neck though.

Check one of the clips with this guitar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXhbd72FuFc

[ericsabbath]

I had a heavily beaten up '96 PRS mccarty with a riff raff in the bridge and it was the best sounding guitar I ever played
that guitar looked literally tortured and had the neck plucked out from the body twice
that should have added some tone mojo  :lol:

the first thing I did after installing the riff raff was playing some Pantera  :lol:
the mccarty treble pickup was smoother, but no near as open, clear, punchy, uncompressed and natural sounding under gain
also had a dragon II in it and that was a bit too trebly and thin sounding, unlike the riff raff, which was bright and no near as hot, but much thicker sounding

I do not own that guitar anymore, but I kept the riff raff and it's still my favorite bridge pickup (now in a '73 les paul custom), specially for some effects pedals abuse

[Philly Q]

the first thing I did after installing the riff raff was playing some Pantera  :lol:
the mccarty treble pickup was smoother, but no near as open, clear, punchy, uncompressed and natural sounding under gain
also had a dragon II in it and that was a bit too trebly and thin sounding, unlike the riff raff, which was bright and no near as hot, but much thicker sounding

Interesting, I have PRS guitars with both McCartys and Dragon IIs, so I'll try to remember those comparisons for future reference.