Best Thrash pickups...

[GuitarIv]

Cheers guys,

I just watched this movie about the history of Thrash Metal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWYQP8lJH00

It basically just gave me goose bumps and reminded me of the days when Thrash was my bible. I love that music, I love to play it, to listen to it and it just has something fundamental and brutal that modern metal lacks.

Anyway, I've been thinking about the sound and riffing in general, which pickups are suited the best for it?

I know the EMG 81 is supposed to be the pickup (at least for the Metallica stuff) but how about passives? I own the Holydiver and the Miracle Man and both "thrash" in their own respective ways, any other suggestions? I heard people praise the Nailbomb for fast riffing, how about other manufacturers? Some insight would be appreciated, cheers!

[Dave Sloven]

I have that DVD, pretty cool yeah?

I don't know about the C-Bomb, but for the A-Bomb the main bands from that era that it suits are not really the 'bay area' sound associated with Metallica, but more likely to suit Sepultura and Possessed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm92Aan8KEk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0krreagQlyE

For Metallica etc I would tend toward the Miracle Man, from what I've heard of it on videos.

[JimmyMoorby]

For 80's metal riffage the nailbomb is king.  It also has an aggressive blues/metal solo vibe like Kirk Hammett on the black album.  It does 80's rock and metal in general well too like extreme and van halen.  My only fault with the alnico nailbomb is pinch harmonics aren't as easy as most other pickups but that's modern metal not thrash metal to be fair !!!

As you say modern metal has the heaviness but misses the aggression of thrash. 

I'm sure you'll be aware of the Seymour Duncan jb that was often used back in the day. I think the Dimebag Darrell Seymour Duncan thrashes well too.  I imagine the cold sweat would work well too but I have no personal experience.

Di Marzio have the d-activator and x2n which tend to be used by the newer thrash bands and the thrash bands of old doing more polished stuff.

I cant recommend the nailbomb enough.  I contacted Tim as per my bye bye black hawk thread and he pretty much pointed me in the direction of the ceramic nailbomb as opposed to alnico I have.  He said other than that to consider the miracle man.  I think it just works perfectly with my style and amp and should be happy ive found some thing that works perfectly rather than always perving on new gear!

[Dave Sloven]

Yeah the bay area sound is very 'scooped' so I imagine (just looking at the frequency information on the BKP site) that many of the more scooped hotter ceramic pickups would suit, e.g. C-Bomb, Cold Sweat, Miracle Man.  Of course the construction of the guitar is also a factor.

Some of the bands like Sepultura, Possessed, and early Exodus have more mids and I think the A-Bomb is good for those.  Same goes for some of the European thrash of the time, e.g., Destruction.

Old school death metal bands like Autopsy maybe try the Miracle Man or one of the Warpigs.

I think the MM would be a good all-rounder for most '80s thrash and death metal, and of course you can get Ozzy etc out of it too.  Actually I'd be surprised if that MM/Sinner guitar you have isn't perfect for it.

[Dr.Pain]

The best pick up's I have for thrash atm are the EMG Hetfields but my Les Paul with it's classic 57's does ok too.  Hard to go past an 81 though as a lot of them are used.  I remember from magazines back in the late 80's of seeing Kerry King using an ESP V and it had the stock ESP-EMG pick up's in it but I don't know what model they were.  Dave Mustaine used JB's for a long time before his current live wire.  Dimebag used Bill Lawrence hot rails for a long time.  Something a bit different, Chuck Schuldiner used a DiMarzio X2N and I think that they could do thrash well.  Chuck did take thrash to death metal so anything he used would do well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rBJK-k3vPE

[JimmyMoorby]

I cant see why the vhii, aftermath, black hawk, painkiller couldn't be thrown in either to be fair.

I know chris Broderick used the nailbomb but mainly used cold sweat bridges and hes the only pro 'thrashy' guitarist I know of who has used bkp's which makes it harder.

I didn't know chuck used the x2n. Its all over the bonded by blood exile to earth album too very cool guitar tones on that.

[GuitarIv]

AO: It's a very cool documentation in deed. I love movies about music in this fashion :)
Actually the Miracle Man does Thrash very well, especially considering the scooped sound you mentioned and everyone thinks of when talking Thrash. I guess it also depends a lot on the amp you're playing, as far as I know the early Kill em All Metallica was done on JCM 800s with a boost in front of the amp and Cabs that utilized G12T-75 Speakers, hence resulting in boosted and trebly highs and lots of lows. I even remember that Hetfield used a Duncan Invader in his white Flying V before moving on to EMGs.

Jimmy: as far as Thrash goes my reference for the most "modern" tone I like to go for is everything up until somewhere till the ...and Justice for All album (which is the sterile EMG sound) hence everything till somewhere around 1987. I'm not really a fan of 90's metal, that was the thing that always has put me off from getting a Nailbomb. The same goes for the Bill Lawrence L-500XL and the solid state sound by Dime. Not so much my cup of tea.

Regarding the JB I found the Holydiver to be a better version of it, therefor my comment about the MM and the HD both being able to thrash, just executing it in a different way. Whereas the HD is more the early 80's the Miracle Man suits the mentioned later sounds better...

Dr. Pain: I love Death and although their sound is characteristic, it's not what I use. However fellow forum member Toe-Knee did a great sounding Crystal Mountain clip with a Painkiller and I own the pickup, so I'm all good to go if I want to: https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=30325.0

I know Chuck used the X2N in his custom B.C. Rich Stealth, but I never tried DiMarzios and I'm not really tempted either. However Revocation, one of my favourite Modern Thrash Metal Bands uses D-Activators so their certainly has to be something about those pickups that works :P

I cant see why the vhii, aftermath, black hawk, painkiller couldn't be thrown in either to be fair.

I do think those would work, but having more emphasis on the mids it's not what people might connect with Thrash.

So to sum everything up: we have the JB, the EMG 81, the X2N, the D-Activators, the L-500XL and from BKP the HD, the MM, the C-Bomb (and the Cold Sweat?)

Keep em opinions coming, cheers

[ericsabbath]

the cold sweat does a great vulgar display of power type of tone
not really an early 80's thrash tone, though, but it works for that too
chunky low end, not much mids and a focused and bright top
the lead tone and harmonics sound very panterish
you might the miracle man already does that, but you'd be surprised

I'd still go for extra aggression of a c-bomb or painkiller, though

but the alnico nailbomb into a sd-1 boosted jcm 800 is instant old school thrash

[braintheory]

To me the most important thing tonally in thrash metal is for it to be raw, aggressive, dry, and not necessarily super heavy.  That's actually why I love old thrash metal so much.  A lot of new bands and heavier subgenres of metal sound too polished and over produced, and while they may be heavier they actually sound less angry, aggressive and IMO less genuine and convincing.  Also, it doesn't necessarily matter if the tone is scooped or not (slayer, megadeth, and anthrax were all very middy (and that's 3 of the big 4))

For my tastes, most BKP's aren't raw enough for thrash metal.  Out of the pickups I've tried, for thrash metal my favorites are the EMG-81, Motor City Detroiter (I'm sure other Motor City Pickups would be equally awesome, but sadly I haven't tried them yet), and the Entwistle HDN.  I also really like for the thrash my Miracle Man and Sinner, but I have feeling the nailbomb or vhii would be better. 

[JimmyMoorby]

Also, it doesn't necessarily matter if the tone is scooped or not (slayer, megadeth, and anthrax were all very middy (and that's 3 of the big 4))

Agreed.  If you listen to Megadeth you cant honestly you say they have scooped tones.  Slayer have always said they've boosted their mids and I don't see how any one could listen to the reign in blood album and imagine that its any thing but boosted mids.
I cant agree that the nailbomb is 90's metal either whatever that is? Alice in chains, fear factory, pantera, cradle of filth, korn?  Metal was a dirty word in the 90's. Only pantera did well sticking to the old school values every other band carved out a new sound and as eric  said id imagine to cold sweat to do a better pantera tone than any thing else from the bkp range.  Pantera had elements of thrash and I think sepultura were only good when they were ripping off slayer so I cant even put them into 90s metal properly.
80's metal rules the best thing to come out of the 90's for new mainsteam bands were fear factory and alice in chains off the top of my head you had to look to less known bands or prog metal in the 90's to listen to cool up and coming metal.

Thrash has changed from being dominated by marshall jcm800's in the 80's to some bands going off in other directions with gear etc but not all and its cool to listen to testament and megadeth producing newer albums with andy sneap and making them more polished and all bands like bonded by blood and havok with polished production.  I like it all.

If youre picking from the BKP range its obvious which they market as the 'thrash pickup' but you could use many and I could imagine using the aftermath, black hawk, vhii and painkiller and also the miracle man depends on your amp and influences tho I guess.

[Dr.Pain]

90's metal was pretty good but it was changing.  3 good ones here and there were more about.  At The Gates - Slaughter of the Soul is one of the best metal albums ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmnZWhYYMYY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF0U77bm9mc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gVb1sM0Bqc

[JimmyMoorby]

There was some great 90's metal no doubt about it death metal had a strong underground following, lots of Scandinavian metal and all the different genres which came out of it and the bands you've mentioned below, progressive metal really took off and theneven  industrial metal.  I love the 80s and the 90s metal scenes but when you say the 80s it was as if all the metal sub genres were linked or played off each most people can instantly visualize 80s metal.  Priest, Maiden, Metallica and hair metal.

The 90s metal scene is a lot harder to define imo it just went off in all directions and came out with more sub genres.  It seemed as if the Gods of metal had lost something they could never find again from the 80's.

Then you got to the 00's and every thing had 'core' on the end and people seem to think lamb of god aren't just a poor mans pantera.

[Dave Sloven]

Nailbomb is good for S.O.D. - Scott Ian has a more middy sound.  There were a lot of bands at that time who did not have that dry, scooped Metallica sound.  There were some clones in SF around '86-'88 trying to get that scooped sound just as there were a lot of death metal bands in Tampa with the Morrisound thing after Obituary and lots of bands in Sweden in '89-'91 with the Sunlight sound.

The big four each had their distinctive sound.

Personally I've always hated Metallica's sound besides on Kill 'Em All, but that's just personal preference.  My favourites out of the American 'big 4' were Slayer and Anthrax, but I was more into European stuff like Sodom, Destruction, Kreator, and Celtic Frost.

[Dr.Pain]

The 90's was like a shotgun blast, still metal but lots and lots of different genres as you said.  I guess it was bound to happen but I didn't expect the way it did happen.  It's all Metallica's fault!  At the start of something good then that bloody black album killed it.  That said I still play a lot of their songs off Puppets.   :)

But I'm glad two really big bands from the 80's found they way again in Slayer and Kreator.  The past few Kreator albums have been really good.

It's still good and it's interesting where it has gone.  Good range and choice of pick up's too to get a good thrash sound.  The blackouts in my 7 string do a good job with thrash.

[JimmyMoorby]

In the early 80's US thrash bands it was easier to pin the sounds down.
Marshall jcm800 with rat and tubescreamer pedals and emg 81's or Duncan jb/59's.

If you deviate from that youre going away from the sounds of the times.

Slayer have always stuck to their musical style and always kept faithful to emg's and jcm800's.
Mustaine has stayed true to the to the jcm800's and swapped from jb's to active duncans and no massive change.
Bands like Testament and Metallica has changed all sorts playing with boogie's, peaveys, diezels, Buddha amps and even using les pauls often and when you see them live and they play the classics it still feel right. 

I think we all get caught up in this gear stuff and rightly so but at times we're no different to posh folk sniffing wine corks haha!