Best punk pickups

[Kiichi]

The Nailbomb was mentioned multiple times, but I would rather say Rebell Yell, as it is somewhat of a underwound brighter nailbomb, giving you most the nailbomb goodness while being a bit more in the direction of early punk (Clash and such).

[Dave Sloven]

I was wondering about the Rebel Yell set.

I have Cold Sweat & A-bomb combination in my SG, which are the two pickups apparently closest in many ways to the RY set, but it seems that the RY has a quite different character, tending in the more mellow and less abrasive direction away from hardcore etc, so I was thinking that might be a very good set.  Quite a few of my friends here have been experimenting with combining glam rock with '80s street punk, and I imagine that set would be great for that and probably the '77 punk stuff.

I'm wondering though if people have used vintage pickups like the Riff Raff set.  I imagine that might be perfect out of the vintage humbucker sets for punk, more so than the others.

If I find my way clear to ever afford another set of BKP humbuckers on top of what I already have the Rebel Yell and Riff Raff sets would be the most likely ones.

I'm wondering if any of the single-coil users here play in these styles and have any ideas?

Obvious ones to seem to me the Supermassive, Stockholm, Pig 90, and Piledriver.  I don't know much about Strats but I'm guessing either the Trilogy suite or one of the following HSS sets:

Rebel Yell humbucker & 2 Slow Hand single coils
Nailbomb humbucker & 2 Irish Tour single coils
Miracle Man humbucker & 2 Trilogy Suite single coils (or perhaps MM/Sinner for grindcore?)

Like I said though I don't know much about Strats

[Kiichi]

The RY is not something I would describe as mellow, but maybe compared to the NB it is, I canīt tell. As I have written in my review, it has a voicing which scream rock like no other I have ever heard.
The combination of wire and magnet and the way it is wounds makes for that certain modern take on a old school sound, allowing to bridge into both directions any time you want (can super easily be steered into either direction by adjusting height too) while always retaining that certain agressive but mostly super alive and rocking mid character having its peak in the upper mids.

For what your friends are doing I think the RY is absolutly the ticket.

I have it set to what I feel is more the metal side and pop punk is all over this things still. I think I could make it the punk pup with 1-1/2 screw turns max.

If you wanne go true vintage the RR seems like the best option, as all vintage BKPs it can go heavy as heck, probably heaviest of all the vintage.
Vintage / modern = RY
Vintage = RR

If you are talking P90s I would say the MQ / Nantucket are actually my front runners by far, again being a bit more classic in essence (like the RY) but delivering all the body and power you should need. Old school if you want it, new school if you want it too, all depending on the rest of your rig and how you set it.
Something like a SM, SH or Pig90 would in my mind be too fat, modern and agressive in that modern way for what I understand as the punk sound. While they can do modern or hardcore punk sounds with ease I feel the MQ / NT are better as they can deliver both.

Plus I personally would always pair the RY with the IT rather than the SH in at least 80% of the cases. The voicing fits much better. Put the SH with a HD or Crawler.
Nailbomb I would guess rather TS and the MM TS or Sinner in most cases.

Oh and on Teles I have no experience, but there seems to be a lot of choice there. The Piledriver is of course cool, it can do metal like an ace after all, but I would deffo also have a look at the Boss and the Blackguards, they both should be more than capable of doing that more old school flavour while having that lovely hidden power / potential.

[Dave Sloven]

Cheers.  I was definitely wondering about the Nantucket.

Although there is no way I could afford a vintage SG Junior '60s (the recent 'reissue' from a year or two ago) seems decent, even if the pots are in the wrong place and the fretboard a couple of other little things are different.  Not sure how you would intonate one of those bridges though.   I'd probably just install a Schaller bridge as the reissue is hardly vintage spec anyway.

http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/SG/Gibson-USA/SG-Junior-60s.aspx
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailpieces/Electric_guitar,_non-trem_bridges/Schaller_Bridge_Tailpiece.html

A Telecaster is the other guitar I really want, even if it is just a Squier 'Vintage Vibe' with the pine body, just to get a feel for it.  I think I would have to be really picky about the neck though as I really don't like the baseball bat type of neck.

[Telerocker]

Cheers.  I was definitely wondering about the Nantucket.

Although there is no way I could afford a vintage SG Junior '60s (the recent 'reissue' from a year or two ago) seems decent, even if the pots are in the wrong place and the fretboard a couple of other little things are different.  Not sure how you would intonate one of those bridges though.   I'd probably just install a Schaller bridge as the reissue is hardly vintage spec anyway.

http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/SG/Gibson-USA/SG-Junior-60s.aspx
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailpieces/Electric_guitar,_non-trem_bridges/Schaller_Bridge_Tailpiece.html

A Telecaster is the other guitar I really want, even if it is just a Squier 'Vintage Vibe' with the pine body, just to get a feel for it.  I think I would have to be really picky about the neck though as I really don't like the baseball bat type of neck.

I bought a Squier Classic Vibe Custom for my (talented) cousin. It's really a good guitar, nice neck and mature sound. Hard to beat at this price.

[EffigyForgotten]

I wonder how the Miracle Man would work for grindcore or black metal. No one ever seems to talk about these genres here or whenever BKP's are involved in a thread.

[Dave Sloven]

The Miracle Man was discussed as an option for my Explorer for grindcore, but I eventually decided on an A-Pig.  You can read that thread here but the Miracle Man was only discussed briefly.

https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=30213.0

I dare say it might depend on the guitar too.  I think a Miracle Man would probably be great in my SG.

I don't know if it would be that great for black metal.  It would certainly seem likely to be good for all kinds of old school death metal.  The main reason why I went for the A-Pig over the other two options I was considering (C-Pig and Miracle Man) was that I also wanted to use it for doom, for which it seemed likely to have the edge.  I also thought the A-Pig might be good for old death metal stuff like Autopsy.  As I said above it's great for crust, at least in the Explorer.  I'm considering coil splits though to enable a few more sounds.

The best black metal sounds I've heard have come from single coils. A Telecaster with Piledrivers would be the BKP I'd go for if I was planning on doing black metal.

[Hammerheart]

I found the Holy Diver to be a great black metal pup.

[Dave Sloven]

I have yet to really try playing some black metal through my A-bomb.  It handles Celtic Frost reasonably well with the right amp settings.  I was thinking I might have a go at some Bathory today, maybe '13 Candles' ... I presume from your username that you are familiar with Bathory!

[Hammerheart]

Indeed I am. I got "Blood Fire Death" for Christmas when it came out lol.

[Dave Sloven]

I didn't get it for Christmas but I had the first four albums before Hammerheart came out.

A lot of punk influence in the early stuff.  It goes both ways too, you definitely hear the Bathory influence in a lot of crust, especially from Sweden

[Casanova]

Wow this is a pretty interesting topic! I just joined the forum since I'm think of getting a couple of BKP sets and this is gold. I play in a Punk HC band (think CBK, Have Heart, Gallows, American Nightmare) and a regular old school punk "band" which more of a joke between a couple of old friends. I play a thinline Tele with P90s, an SG and i recently got a second-hand LPC that came with some awful SD pickups from a guy named Gus G (they even look bad ahaha. So i'm hoping to switch the SG's pickups and the LP's. I don't know why but for punk-rock the Tele really does it, it has a couple of SDs that sound quite good even though they really lack some bottom end. The SG is a cheap guitar made by a uk based company called Vintage, that plays really well except for it's tuning issues. And the LPC is a japanese Edwards and it plays and resonates heavenly, would be perfect if it wasn't for those active duncans ahaha. I was thinking of getting a set of RYs for the SG (since it's the darkest and heaviest SG i ever played) and something like a Black Dog or a Emerald for the bridge of the LPC since i'm not huge in high output pickups (and for the neck i got a duncan Alnico II Pro laying around that i'm willing to give a shot).
What do you guys think?  :shock:

[Dave Sloven]

I suspect that the Rebel Yell set will work well in the SG.  I have the Cold Sweat neck & A-bomb bridge combo working fine in my SG but as I stated above it has a very hardcore character, really bringing out the 'Nailbomb' character of the pickup (if you remember the band by that name, I'll put a link to the youtube clip of their 'Live at Dynamo' DVD below).  As the Rebel Yell set is based on those two pickups I'd say that it would work well, and the changes to them for the RY set would seem to allow more range in the '77 or Pop Punk directions (as Kiichi indicates above) rather than the hardcore and thrash tendencies of my combo.  You might also consider the C-Bomb, which is a bit less abrasive in the mids than the A-Bomb (this characteristic is compounded by the 'middiness' of the thin SG body).

For the LP I am wondering why you don't go for the Riff Raff?  Those are vintage but the AC/DC sound has a strong resonance within punk, as I am sure you know.  It will give you that edge that punk needs.

Also, if you get the Riff Raff set and the Rebel Yell set and don't like them, swap them between the guitars.  The Riff Raff was designed for SGs and the Rebel Yell for Les Pauls, more or less, so they are a 'no brainer' set-up for each in many ways, as long as your RY is fairly dark.  If your LP is a bit brighter the Riff Raffs would be good for that, having been designed for the SG, which is a brighter guitar in general.

I hear that the Edwards guitars are very good.  Weren't they made by Fujigen, like the old MIJ Fenders?

[Dmoney]

Wow this is a pretty interesting topic! I just joined the forum since I'm think of getting a couple of BKP sets and this is gold. I play in a Punk HC band (think CBK, Have Heart, Gallows, American Nightmare) and a regular old school punk "band" which more of a joke between a couple of old friends. I play a thinline Tele with P90s, an SG and i recently got a second-hand LPC that came with some awful SD pickups from a guy named Gus G (they even look bad ahaha. So i'm hoping to switch the SG's pickups and the LP's. I don't know why but for punk-rock the Tele really does it, it has a couple of SDs that sound quite good even though they really lack some bottom end. The SG is a cheap guitar made by a uk based company called Vintage, that plays really well except for it's tuning issues. And the LPC is a japanese Edwards and it plays and resonates heavenly, would be perfect if it wasn't for those active duncans ahaha. I was thinking of getting a set of RYs for the SG (since it's the darkest and heaviest SG i ever played) and something like a Black Dog or a Emerald for the bridge of the LPC since i'm not huge in high output pickups (and for the neck i got a duncan Alnico II Pro laying around that i'm willing to give a shot).
What do you guys think?  :shock:

I like the RY, but I favour the Alnico Nailbomb over it. I do like a pushy pickup though. The Emerald is really nice. It's like a lower output RY. I'd say its a pickup that doesnt get mentioned enough. It was the first BKP I ever got. It'll do the Have Heart / AN stuff easily and gallows too, they aren't that heavy. I haven't heard CBK since their first ever UK tour, and that old record has a fairly ballsy tone that I'd use a hotter pup for, but you can always use a little boost if you want heavier. The Emerald will be tasteful.
If you have active electronics you'll have to swap the pots too, in case you weren't aware.
what amp are you using?

[Dave Sloven]

I have to admit that I hadn't heard those bands before, but listening to the clips on youtube I'd say either an RY set or an A-bomb set in the SG couldn't go too far wrong.

You could also consider throwing a Supermassive in the bridge position of the Tele.  That might be good for the CBK style.  I think an A-bomb in the SG would handle the rest.

To give you an idea of what comes naturally to the A-bomb/SG combination, I'd say Ratos De Porao, The Exploited, Sepultura, and maybe the more recent poweviolence bands (if you need a more recent reference point!) like Weekend Nachos.  It *can* be more subtle than that, but it has a very pronounced chainsaw-like low-mid sound.  When I am playing darker music like Celtic Frost or Sabbath I have to either fiddle with the volume and tone knobs on the guitar or put an EQ between the guitar and the amp. You can of course change the sound with the amp EQ, but what I am getting at is that if you change from a Gibson 498T to an A-Bomb in an SG that's the direction you are heading in.