Single coil pickup ( neck position ) for stoner/sludge/doom ?

[Spiritdisease]

Hi,

I was wondering if single coil pickups can actually do the more stoner/sludge/doom genres ( forgive me if this sounds like a stupid question, but I have no experience with single coils, but have a guitar now with a h-s configuration ) especially single coil pickups in the neck position.
I would love to be able to play with a sound more towards those genres of music with a single coil in neck position, and be able to do more modern "brutal" stuff with the humbucker in bridge position.
If this would be possible, wich of the bareknuckle single coil pickups would be best for these genres ( I'm leaning towards the "slow hand" single coil as far as the descriptions go )?

The guitar is a BC Rich assassin (made in usa around 1984-1985 ) with bolt-on neck, probably an alder body ( the person I got it from is quite sure it's alder, otherwise it's mahogany ), maple neck.

Music I love to play in those genres: (early) Isis, (early) Cult Of Luna, Electric Wizard, Church Of Misery, Bongripper, Amenra, etc...

Thanks in advance.

[Dave Sloven]

Depends on whether you are going for the low-output with high gain through the pedals and amp idea - for example, quite a few guys use Riff Raffs for doom - or you want a fat sound coming from the pickup itself.

If you went the latter route I would think two of the bridge Sinner models (assuming this is a HSS guitar) with baseplates together with an alnico Warpig in the bridge would do it.

If you go the other way maybe someone else has some ideas.  Some amps really don't like high output pickups that much when it comes to this genre.  You would need to think in terms of your complete set-up rather than just the guitar.

Normally I would say that the bridge model of the Sinner would be too high just based on output numbers, but have a look at the reviews of the bridge sinner combined with the Miracle Man.  These are of the same set in two different guitars.  At least one review mentions that they found the Sinners a little low compared to the Miracle Man by ear; it is however the highest resistance figure of any of the BKP single coils except the Pig '90.

https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=29859
https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=30291.0

FWIW I have the alnico Warpig in the bridge position of my Explorer and its a massive tone, very Sabbathy.  I have it tuned to C# standard normally and in that tuning as soon as you hit the low string it just makes you think of the first riff in Children of the Grave.  It does a mean Snowblind as well. Not sure how it would work in your guitar, but if you can tell people more about the wood it would help.  Mine is the korina model, which is a little lighter and brighter than mahogany but not by a huge margin.  From what I've read here though the Warpig likes brighter woods.

[Spiritdisease]

Depends on whether you are going for the low-output with high gain through the pedals and amp idea - for example, quite a few guys use Riff Raffs for doom - or you want a fat sound coming from the pickup itself.

If you went the latter route I would think two of the bridge Sinner models (assuming this is a HSS guitar) with baseplates together with an alnico Warpig in the bridge would do it.

If you go the other way maybe someone else has some ideas.  Some amps really don't like high output pickups that much when it comes to this genre.  You would need to think in terms of your complete set-up rather than just the guitar.

Normally I would say that the bridge model of the Sinner would be too high just based on output numbers, but have a look at the reviews of the bridge sinner combined with the Miracle Man.  These are of the same set in two different guitars.  At least one review mentions that they found the Sinners a little low compared to the Miracle Man by ear; it is however the highest resistance figure of any of the BKP single coils except the Pig '90.

https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=29859
https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=30291.0

FWIW I have the alnico Warpig in the bridge position of my Explorer and its a massive tone, very Sabbathy.  I have it tuned to C# standard normally and in that tuning as soon as you hit the low string it just makes you think of the first riff in Children of the Grave.  It does a mean Snowblind as well. Not sure how it would work in your guitar, but if you can tell people more about the wood it would help.  Mine is the korina model, which is a little lighter and brighter than mahogany but not by a huge margin.  From what I've read here though the Warpig likes brighter woods.

Thanks for the reply man!
As for the amps I am using, currently using a Engl e530 preamp for the more "metal" styles I play, and I'm going to get an Orange OR15 somewhere in the near future ( I actually had one some time ago, and thought it was actually pretty good for such a "cheap" amp, but for some reason I sold it and I regret that a lot now ).

It's not a HSS guitar actually, but HS. I think I'm going to go for the low-output pickup with high-gain through pedals and amp thing though I'm not 100% sure yet.

As for more information about the wood of the guitar, I'm quite in the dark about that, since it's a guitar made around 1985 and it's not that easy to find a lot of info about it except that it's "probably" an alder body with maple neck ( the maple is 100% sure ).

Out of curiousity I've placed a bkp warpig ( ceramic version though ) that I had in another guitar in this one, and damn, it sounds really good ( very thick sound without being muddy at all ) !
Not exactly the stoner/doom sound as an alnico warpig would sound I'd imagine, but still very good.

[Slartibartfarst42]

Sinners!  8)

[Dave Sloven]

Yeah, definitely one of those bridge Sinners in the neck with the baseplate option, like you had Slarti, that should be a good match (or at least the closest match) for an A-Pig, right?

The A-Pig is definitely the doomy one out of the high output pickups, otherwise you can go for a lower output and make the amp and boost pedals do the work, some people prefer it that way