My first post - looking for tips for hard rock/metal and PRS Mira

[Dan-d-1985]

Hi folks,

New guy here. My name is Dan and i'm a guitar-o-holic   :)

I've been thinking about changing the pickups in my PRS Mira.

For those who aren't familiar - Hog body + neck with rosewood fingerboard.

It still has stock p'ups at moment, but I'm thinking of changing them.

The Mira stock p'ups are just PRS 245 p'ups (they're rated about 8.9k neck and 9.6k bridge) with coil taps as far as the spec sheets would suggest. They're punchy and have good classic rock power. Mix that with the style of the guitar which focuses the mids really well, and it's peach for late 70's/early 80's rock.

I think it's time to give it some more testicular fortitude however.

I'd like to add a bit more gain and increase the bass and treble sides. The guitar already pushes the mids out the wazoo, I'd like to make it a bit scarier.

I was thinking maybe the nighthawk p'ups or maybe cold sweats. Something that has more punch but won't lose the original character.

I hope some folks here might have some suggestions (maybe you've done this on a Mira yourself?).

Thanks in advance,

Dan.

[Slartibartfarst42]

Three options leap to mind: Cold Sweat, Rebel Yell and Nailbomb.

The Nailbomb (probably the ceramic version given that you didn't want mids) would be the most aggressive and hottest of the three but is open enough to retain that Rock tone you like. The Rebel Yell is a bit like a toned down Nailbomb so it's not as aggressive, is a bit more open sounding and has more upper mids. Quite a traditional sounding pickup but with a modern twist seems to be how Kiichi describes it so in that respect it should be ideal. The Cold Sweat is also relatively open sounding given that it's a hot ceramic pickup that will happily run from Classic Rock to 80s Metal. I've owned one of these before and believe me, it's a very impressive pickup. Less mids in the Cold Sweat and a bit more bass and quite a bit more treble. Should sit very well in your guitar.

All three of these would do what you want but of this group, in your guitar, I'd put the C-Bomb in third place. I think most people on here will direct you towards the Rebel Yell as it seems to be the flavour of the moment right now but in truth, I think the Rebel Yell and Cold Sweat will both do exactly what you want and do it extremely well.

[Kiichi]

Slarti touched upon most things and I wanne underline his thoughts on the Cold Sweat. If you already got mids and want more treble and bass the RY is, as much as I love it, perhaps not optimal, although style whise and such it fits. The CS on the other hand should work nicer for you, so my vote is on that.

The Nailbomb I would cut out. If you were going towards metal I would even say Miracle Man, but the CS can do metal and is more versatile, thus there you go!

[Dan-d-1985]

Thanks for the response already guys. Very much appreciated!

I think so far, the cold sweat seems to be the front runner.

Not that i'm fixated on them, but more curious, would the nighthawks not be as viable? I'm curious how the blade magnet rather than poles would suit. The sound clips sound pretty cool, but I wonder if they're maybe not ideal for the Mira?

Thanks again!

[Kiichi]

The Blackhawk is a whole nother ballpark. Much more modern and metal. Pretty high output as well. The idea was to combine passive and active qualitys. Should make for a good modern prog pickup, but if you like old school and are perhaps more towards rock than metal...CS a lot in front still.

[Dan-d-1985]

The Blackhawk is a whole nother ballpark. Much more modern and metal. Pretty high output as well. The idea was to combine passive and active qualitys. Should make for a good modern prog pickup, but if you like old school and are perhaps more towards rock than metal...CS a lot in front still.

Thanks for the info. I looked at the specs, It does give a big mid boost too which might not be ideal.

I should have probably specified my main reference sounds from the off:

Main writing style a la foo fighters, but love to play alter bridge/creed/tremonti material, GnR, slash, (I try to pla) dream theatre, Ozzy (before Zakk wylde and his black label society band started re-hashing his solos from mafia album onwards) metallica and megadeth.

I love to play along to metal bands, but I write more rock material than anything and would use the Mira as a song writing guitar more than anything so want to get the p'ups right for that.

Thanks again tho!

[Telerocker]

I would go Cold Sweat or Miracle Man. Both should work in an SG-style guitar.

[Philly Q]

Cold Sweats are great in a Mira (or SG).  And (as I've said many a time) there's a nice contrast between the neck and bridge models, which makes up for the fact that the pickups are close together due to the 24-fret neck.

[Lucas]

For that sound like Kiichi said, I would score Ceramic Nailbomb out too. I have that pickup in quite similar guitar (wood-wise) and to be honest mids are really pronounced there as well as you might find that pickup quite dark. And it`s not (especially mids) what you`re looking for as you mentioned before.
Funny enough and suprisingly, the more I play CBomb I find it better suited for beefy and big hard rock-sounds than fast staccato riffing in Metallica/Megadeth style (or maybe it`s only my Orange Dual Terror :D).

But the bottom line is it will have too much focus on mids with warmer highs for your taste (even ceramic version like it happens in my similar guitar)

[Dave Sloven]

The Cold Sweat has more low end beef and more scoop in the mids than the Rebel Yell.  The RY is upper-mids focused with a tight low end.  Either works well in an SG type guitar.  My SG has a Cold Sweat and it sounds great, and Heket has an SG with a Rebel Yell set that she really likes.  These are really the two out of the slightly lower output end of the contemporary range that work well, and then there are the Miracle Man and Warpig in the high-output category.  People seem to be really pleased with the MM in SGs and there seem to be quite a few C-Pigs in them.

If you like Randy Rhoads apparently the Rebel Yell set is the closest, and might well be closest to a lot of the hard rock ones you have listed.  The Cold Sweat is more of an '80s metal voicing but also does '70s stuff like Judas Priest very well, and apparently is the go-to pickup for Pantera sounds but don't let that put you off, as it is quite versatile.  It is closer to the Metallica sound than the Rebel Yell.  The Miracle Man is famous for its early Zakk Wylde sound and does Metallica maybe a bit better than the Cold Sweat.  I think you will find though that the Cold Sweat and the Miracle Man can be seen as on a spectrum, with the CS being cleaner and more precise while the MM is bigger but still very tight, and maybe a bit more scooped.

I'm very happy with my Cold Sweat set but if I were to buy another humbucker SG I would try the Rebel Yell or Miracle Man sets.

[darkbluemurder]

I would also go for the Cold Sweat set in this case.

Cheers Stephan

[ericsabbath]

Main writing style a la foo fighters, but love to play alter bridge/creed/tremonti material, GnR, slash, (I try to pla) dream theatre, Ozzy (before Zakk wylde and his black label society band started re-hashing his solos from mafia album onwards) metallica and megadeth.

I love to play along to metal bands, but I write more rock material than anything and would use the Mira as a song writing guitar more than anything so want to get the p'ups right for that.

except for slash, sounds like a ceramic nailbomb job

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t8dVF4lOrs

but a cold sweat or miracle man should sound great too