Nevermind distortion madness, clean tone, that`s what matters

[Lucas]

Hi all!
Just forget for a while about massive amount of distortion and how certain pickups deal with it and handle it while screaming solos out and crushing walls with huge aggressive sound.
While most people praise pickups how they cope with distortion/overdrive lets chill out for a while and focus on clean sound only.
Those two worlds shares the same characteristic of the pickups without the doubt, but... Nevermind distortion, clean, that`s what matters  8)
What pickups do you find having the most charming/organic/beautiful/rich clean tone?
Haven`t tried many BKPs so far, but from audio clips and youtube clips to my ears following BKPs are grabbing my attention with clean tone:

-VH II set (Full, crystal clear and precisely separated notes with strong bottom-end, beautiful with plenty of details)
-Crawler bridge (has it`s own character, hard to describe)
-Nailbomb (like it the most out of higher-out put pups)
 
and from singles:
-Mother`s Milk set (that`s the way a true vintage Strat should sound like! BKP describes it very well: 'woody character with fantastic snap in the high-end'
-Trilogy Suite set (Strat on steroids, yesss!~ 8)

Surprisingly when loads of people praise Holydivers, I find their clean sound little disappointing in comparison to eg. Nailbombs (HD to me starts screaming beautifully and gets wings with distortion IMHO .

What are your thoughts and opinions?
What pickup in your opinion has the most charming/organic/beautiful/rich clean tone and why?

[Telerocker]

Humbuckers I have:
- Mules-set, absolutely fantastic clean tones, 3D, open, dynamic, lovely crispiness. Single notes blossom. The neck-pu is a gem. Creamy tones with enough topend. The inbetween sound delivers a full, but crispy sound, perfect for rhythm-chops and fingerpicking. You can get a conving Le Freak-sound, just a bit fuller on the low notes.
- VHII-bridge: cleans up to a near single coil vocal quality, great clean/crunchy tones, excellent dynamics, clarity and noteseparation. A tad less classic PAF then a Mule.
- Crawler: cleans up very good, thicker tones then the Mule, great for huge fingerpicking sounds, keeps the beef with the volume rolled down. Splitted: good beefy tele-esque tone.

Single coils I have:
- Mother's Milk: genuine early sixties strattones, instant Frusciante, nice woodiness, snappy (indeed), clear and bright
- Irish Tours: more bass and mids and a little less bright then Mother's Milk, grittier, smokier and more weight behind the tone, but roll down the volume a bit and you get that MM-woodiness. Excellent choice for most strats, great for blues and rock, but covers the funk and pop-idiom very well.
- Old BG50 (now BG52): genuine blackguard-tones, full but twangy at the same time, reacts very well to the tonecontrol. Clean ideal for country, blues, pop, rock. Can handle a lot of gain too.
 

[Dave Sloven]

I like the clean tone I get from my Cold Sweat neck pickup.  When I play clean I pretty much always switch to the neck, avoiding the A-Bomb bridge pickup which sounds too warm and slightly overdriven to my ears, at least through my Peavey 6534+ amp.  Through a lower-gain amp it might sound great.  The Cold Sweat is the only pickup out of the four BKPs I currently have installed (the others are an A-Pig set) that can get a truly clean sound through that amp without rolling the volume pot back.  I would describe the clean sound a smooth and chimey.  I don't know if that helps though

On the other hand the A-pig bridge pickup works fine for the arpeggiated chords in 'Snowblind'. The slightly overdriven clean works well there so I just kick the channel footswitch (with crunch off) there.

[littleredguitars2]

i can safely say that my a-bomb sounds awesome clean. very crisp.

[Dave Sloven]

i can safely say that my a-bomb sounds awesome clean. very crisp.

That's encouraging.  Like I said, it's probably my amp.  Also it's a matter of taste in terms of the kind of clean sound you like, when the output/overdrive issue is taken out via amp choice.  Maybe a need a Delta Blues or similar amp for that stuff ... I know someone who has a new one for sale for under a grand.

[littleredguitars2]

yeah i have no idea if other people would like it but i do. its in an already bright guitar. bolt on neck alder strat with rosewood board. whats yours in ?

[Kiichi]

Mule neck: Wonderful warm, detailed and lifely PAF sound, just one of the goldstandards.
Crawler set: Neck like a fatter, fuller mule and the bridge is the best clean bridge I have ever used, some nice roar in there, splits amazingly
IT middle: classic SC with a little more beef and a tad of raunchyness. Just great.
SH middle: still true SC feeling but nicely beefy and fat, pairs great with the crawler
RY bridge outer coil split + IT middle: best clean strumming sound ever. Between a tele and an acoustic with a certain chime about it.
AM neck: mordern sounding cleans here, works great for those djent style cleans but not as good as the others for the classic ones I like. Still very usable.
MQ neck: Bloody freaking amazing definition on the low strings, like a good acoustic there, midrange ful of character and a SC chime in the highs, great stuff
MH neck: like the MQ, but more natural and sweeter all around
SM neck: again like the MQ but much more modern in voice and much fatter. Generally less good clean therefore, but still works, I am mean it still is a P90.
SH bridge: works for certain clean styles, but modern bridge PUs never really fare well. As far as they go the SH is on the better side though.

The RY and AM bridge I cannot really recommend clean though as those just feel too middy for that.

[Lucas]

i can safely say that my a-bomb sounds awesome clean. very crisp.

Totally agree that Nailbombs have a truly amazing clean sound out of contemporary range. In my opinion one of the most pleasing ones apart from Crawler (but it`s a little bit different animal and drives more into vintage-hot area as far as I know).
I have C-Bomb in bridge and even having hight out-put cleans are really organic and rich, but not crispy at all as you mentioned.
In all mahogany Dean Caddy it tends to be more dark with more mids pronounce. But bottom line is it has great cleans, and A-Bomb has it even better I suppose.

Crawler set: Neck like a fatter, fuller mule and the bridge is the best clean bridge I have ever used, some nice roar in there, splits amazingly

What guitar does it seats in? And when it comes to split coils does it splits better that eg. Cold Sweat neck (have push-push in CS neck but thinking about getting Crawler bridge for Warmoth Tele and can change pot over if Crawler really shines splitted).

[Dave Sloven]

yeah i have no idea if other people would like it but i do. its in an already bright guitar. bolt on neck alder strat with rosewood board. whats yours in ?

A Gibson SG Standard - and just as the name implies, very standard for an SG: mahogany body with mahogany set neck construction, rosewood fingerboard, lots of mids and super aggressive sounding with the volume and tone on full.  I think that this guitar pushes the mids of the Nailbomb very much to the forefront.  Before I put it in the cupboard awaiting a new home and fit a Cold Sweat bridge in its place I am going to try my A-Pig in the SG and the A-bomb in my Explorer, just to see how they sound in those guitars.  I'll also try out the Cold Sweat in the Explorer.  I might as well get a clear idea of how these different pickups sound in my two guitars.  The Nailbomb might very well be great in an Explorer, and I'm interested to find out how I like a Warpig in an SG.

[Slartibartfarst42]

Interesting question. Most of the pickups I've used from BKP have been from the contemporary range where cleans really aren't the top priority so that may limit my contribution. I'll also stick to humbuckers as that's what I know best. However, despite those limitations, here goes:

Neck

I've owned a Cold Sweat, Holydiver, Crawler and Emerald and they've all had decent cleans but my favourites would be the Holydiver and Emerald. I really couldn't choose between them as they're very different in nature. The Emerald is full and warm while the Holydiver is brighter and more jangly. Both cut through well and both are superb.

Bridge

Here, I've owned a Cold Sweat, A-Bomb, Holydiver, Miracle Man, Emerald and Crawler. The Holydiver is surprisingly good at cleans but that's still beaten by a decent margin by both the Emerald and Crawler. Personally, I like the Crawler best. The Emerald was very good but way too bright in my guitar while the Crawler is beautifully balanced, sweet as you like and splits better than any humbucker I've ever known.

Conclusions

Generally speaking I think there are a few broad things I can say based on my experience:

1) Alnico magnets produce MUCH better cleans than ceramics.

2) The lighter the wind, the better cleans.

3) The more 'vintage' the voicing of the pickup, the better the cleans.

I don't think these points are hard and fast rules but broadly speaking they seem to be true.

[38thBeatle]

I tend to use clean or cleanish tones all the time and so the clean tone has always been my primary interest.
I have three sets of single coils:

Apaches : Superb clean and rounded tones that have a richness to them- I always say that they have a plummy tone- but what that actually means I can't put into words, it just seems apt.
Country boys: to me the classic tele tone that I love. A warm vintage tone from both pickups and the combined tone that is shimmery.
Slowhands: A little more mid and a definate Strat "sprang".

All respond well to cranking things up when the moment arrives and seem to excell on the "just breaking up" tone.  The Tele gets the most usage at gigs and only two week ago, I was stopped by a punter to ask me about the Tele and he told me he was blown away by the tone. He thought it was a very expensive tele and not a bog standard MIM 1950's reissue that  I paid Ģ200.00 for .

My adjectives are a bit meaningless and cliched but to describe a tone it like trying to describe a colour.

[Kiichi]

Crawler set: Neck like a fatter, fuller mule and the bridge is the best clean bridge I have ever used, some nice roar in there, splits amazingly

What guitar does it seats in? And when it comes to split coils does it splits better that eg. Cold Sweat neck (have push-push in CS neck but thinking about getting Crawler bridge for Warmoth Tele and can change pot over if Crawler really shines splitted).

Canīt compare it to the CS neck as I donīt have that. Feels a lot nice than the AM neck split though, the only contemporary neck I can compare it too, but then again that is really to be expected. The split AM neck however makes those djent style cleans very nicely, just a very different flavour than the vintage voiced Crawler.

The guitar I have the Crawler SH in is a presentation piece of a korean factory and a good mix of woods (I hope I get em together correctly): Maple with walnut stripes neck through with ash wings and thick ebony back and top, also ebony fretboard. This thing is heavy as shite (I mean my LP is heavy but this is back breaker), but nicely resonant. Deep bass of course, but main characteristic is that it has a bright shimmer in the high end in the way that the acoustic quality reminds you of classic SC (mostly the high end of one). That really translates into the PUs too. Maybe I can do a quick clip sometime, as I feel it very present in every position and I am pretty sure the HBs are not wired wrongly in the series parallel department. Really leads to my Crawler feeling different in the high end than I think it does to most people. But I like it and actually emphesized it by putting on Thomastic Powerbright Strings. =)

[Dave Sloven]

Given the close relations between the Cold Sweat neck and A-Bomb bridge to the Rebel Yell set I'm guessing the cleans for both RY pickups are pretty good.  Anyone have an opinion on those?

[richard]

I never use a clean tone on my single channel Cornford Roadhouse. It's always set to a 70s style crunch with more gain available from the footswitchable boost. I use a set of RYs and rely on the guitar volume controls for cleaner tones. Both pickups clean up wonderfully well from the guitar volumes. For years my main pickup (bridge) was a JB which sounded rubbish when it was turned down. These days I am constantly messing around with the guitar volume and tone controls because there are so many different good sounds available. From what I've read this seems to apply to most BK pickups. I also have coil splits and the bridge RY in particular produces an amazing split tone.

[Telerocker]

In addition to my previous contribution: the amp plays a big role too. A lot of highgainamps have a so-so clean channel. The cleans on my Orange Rockerverb 50 were more than ok, but a pickup like the Mule really shines on my latest purchase, a The Valve 2/50 (EL34, Italian brand), which has a clean channel that is close to a Twin Reverb, just a little thicker in the midrange.