bright neck pickups

[Dave Sloven]

Just curious as to which neck pickups in the BKP range people think are bright, especially in the vintage hot and contemporary ranges.

I'm not so much a fan of the traditional wooly neck pickup sound such as you find with Gibsons etc

[Lucas]

I would say Cold Sweat neck is bright enough, no doubt even in LP style guitar like my Dean. And it hardly can be described as wooly  :D

eh... that was the obvious one  :lol: :lol:

[Dave Sloven]

I have a Cold Sweat set ... I was wondering if there are brighter ones in the range to go in one of my other guitars ... Rebel Yell, Nailbomb, or Emerald?  I thought the VHII might fall into this category but then I saw a review of it that called it dark.

[Lucifuge]

Riff Raff?

[Kiichi]

The Holydiver neck is know to be on the brigth side of neck PUs. This is a suprise to most people in the exact oposite way that the Emerald neck is.

[Dave Sloven]

The Holydiver neck is know to be on the bright side of neck PUs. This is a surprise to most people in the exact opposite way that the Emerald neck is.

This is interesting. Do you think that a bright neck complements a warm bridge and vice-versa?

Both pickups in the Riff Raff set seem bright.

I thought people might mention the RR, RY and NB necks as the brighter ones.

[Kiichi]

The Holydiver neck is know to be on the bright side of neck PUs. This is a surprise to most people in the exact opposite way that the Emerald neck is.

This is interesting. Do you think that a bright neck complements a warm bridge and vice-versa?

Both pickups in the Riff Raff set seem bright.

I thought people might mention the RR, RY and NB necks as the brighter ones.

Well it can complement or not, depeding on your taste. In the case of the Holydiver it does in a certain way, as the voicings obviously fit, but the neck delivers a certain livelyness in its own. However there is also a good reason why the HD EM combo has become so popular.

I can see the appeals of both really. Playing on a fat warm bridge, riffing away with weight and then switching to the neck and automatically cut through, immediatly have that brighter cut, hardly any need for a boost or so to make the solo stand out. On the other hand you got bright, agressive, cutting rythm and then the switch to the neck and things get creamy, smooth and singing. In both these examples it is a lot about contrast. Sometimes that contrast is not that giagantic, like with the RR, but there is still some.

All can work depeding on what you want out of your neck and bridge respectivly. Main thing is that the voicings have to work together and the output not be too missmatched. Plus since BKPs are so nice in voicing and versatile the matching ususally is a lesser issue.

[Dave Sloven]

I'm thinking that maybe some would see the NB neck as being brighter than the NB bridges, but I thought the NB bridge was fairly bright in my SG.  I guess it depends on what frequencies are emphasized in a particular guitar.

[metale]

This is interesting. Do you think that a bright neck complements a warm bridge and vice-versa?

I agree with Kiichi that it's also personal preference.

I had the zakk wylde pickup combination for a while and never got along with it, having a bright pickup on the bridge and bassy pickup on the neck. Here comes the solo, switch to the neck... very smooth, but didn't cut through at all. Cleans sounded boomy, not sparkly.

Switched the 85 to the bridge and got a brighter 60 for the neck, and all was good. I'm also ok with matched sets (bassy-bassy or bright-bright).

[darkbluemurder]

I like bright neck pickups, too, especially humbuckers because they tend to get muddy quickly in the neck position due to the increased string movement.

Holydiver neck is quite bright, one of my favorites. Rebel Yell and Cold Sweat necks are bright, too, but the CS has a lot of bass as well. The Black Dog neck is also bright.

Cheers Stephan

[Dave Sloven]

I like bright neck pickups, too, especially humbuckers because they tend to get muddy quickly in the neck position due to the increased string movement.

Holydiver neck is quite bright, one of my favorites. Rebel Yell and Cold Sweat necks are bright, too, but the CS has a lot of bass as well. The Black Dog neck is also bright.

Cheers Stephan

What about the VHII? You have paired that with the A-Bomb rather than a NB neck.  Do you feel that it is a better match?

[darkbluemurder]

The VHII is a very good match to the Nailbomb. Whether it's better than the Nailbomb neck I cannot tell since I never played a Nailbomb neck. It's personal preference anyway.

And BTW the VHII is also quite bright, not quite as much as the Cold Sweat neck.

Cheers Stephan

[darkbluemurder]

Update: another "bright" neck pickup is the Riff Raff.

By the way: is there a common opinion on what is the brightest BKP neck humbucker? And is there one that's really bright, I mean "single coil bright" or "Firebird bright"?

Cheers Stephan

[Philly Q]

By the way: is there a common opinion on what is the brightest BKP neck humbucker? And is there one that's really bright, I mean "single coil bright" or "Firebird bright"?

I've always been under the impression that the Riff Raff is the brightest neck humbucker.

I think the Nailbomb's meant to be pretty bright too, but I may be mis-remembering that, since I've never really considered buying NBs.

As far as I know there's nothing really bright like a single-coil or Firebird pickup.  I guess the physical design of the pickup makes that pretty much impossible, unless maybe you wire it in parallel?

[Slartibartfarst42]

The Emerald neck is one of the warmer ones in the range so I doubt that's for you. The Cold Sweat is brighter and great for shredding but the best is the Holydiver neck model. Bright, clear, has fantastic cleans and takes loads of gain. It's a light wind and has a remarkable musicality about it. For a pickup that looks modern, it has a surprisingly PAF feel about it. If you like your neck pickups bright, nothing comes close to the Holydiver in my experience.