Guitars that work well with Warpigs

[Dave Sloven]

I'm contemplating using my Warpig (alnico bridge) set elsewhere.  It seems a little too dark in the Explorer for the kind of music I am playing in bands at the moment, and I am thinking of moving my currently unused alnico Nailbomb into the bridge of the Explorer (and adding a suitable neck pickup if that works out) so that I have a backup to my main guitar for my current band, which is an SG Junior with a Stockholm in the bridge tuned to D standard.

I like the way the A-Pig sounds tuned to C# standard and I am thinking I'd like to keep it in that tuning, but the overall tonality of the Explorer/Warpig combination is overwhelmingly dark and even at its brightest it still seems dark.  I'd like to put it in a guitar where I can darken it up by rolling it back the tone knob to 5 or 6 for Sabbath etc but still be able to roll it to full for brighter tones (e.g., for Venom). I'm thinking putting this set into another SG might achieve that but I am wondering if others have better ideas.

The only real proviso is that it needs to be a guitar that can use a 50mm bridge spacing and long legs.

The one guitar I saw for sale recently that I thought might be a brilliant match was an all-maple SG Raw Power, but someone snapped that up for $800 and they don't appear on that market very often.  I figure a brighter guitar would be what I need here

[Lew]

I'm no expert on the Warpig but the first thing that hit me was that it wasn't as dark as I was expecting from what I had read. I did turn my amps gain down a few notches and bring the presence up but I found alot more inherent clarity and less of a pushed sound than the RY even though it has more gain. Having said that I am playing a bright guitar made up of ash and maple so I can see why it would be a problem in a fat piece of hog like an Explorer, and then add in the Gibson scale. Did you read the magnet flipping thread? If you like the core tone of the A-Pig maybe try a C-Pig?

[gwEm]

are your saddles steel? might be worth having a check
an aluminium tail piece would be worth a look too
1meg pots will brighten also, try taking the tone control out the circuit too

[Dave Sloven]

I have a volume pot bypass in the guitar, which would be like having 1meg volume pots when engaged, but it just sounded a bit brash with that engaged, not especially great. I've taken the A-Pig out of the Explorer now and fitted my A-Bomb, but it's late and I haven't had  the chance to clean the guitar, install the strings and set it all up and test it yet as I spent a lot of time fiddling with the pickup rings (I swapped out the gold plated brass ones for black plastic Gibson ones that arrived in the post today).  If I like the Nailbomb in it I will have to order a more suitable match for the neck from BKP.

To be honest I was getting some fairly good, smooth heavy tones out of the Warpig/Explorer combination but it was overall quite dark.  When I first installed the harness - before I installed the new pickguard - it sounded better as I was using Ernie Ball strings. After changing the pickguard and tuners I installed some Dunlop Heavy Core strings which were totally horrible (they were horrible on my SG Standard too).  It was sounding good before that for Sabbath type stuff.  I have some Ernie Ball Beefy Slinky strings that I will install tomorrow.

I'm hoping that the Nailbomb will be good as I've been trying to find a good application for it since taking it out of my SG Standard, where it never sounded right. The Warpigs have always been a bit of a compromise in the Explorer, as I bought them thinking I might get another humbucker SG and eventually install them there, but I ended up getting an SG Junior (with a P-90) and so ended up buying a Stockholm P-90.  The Explorer will be a backup for the SG Junior and when I was originally ordering the Stockholm from Ben I said I wanted a pickup that could alternate with an A-Bomb guitar as its backup.  I think that if the Nailbomb works well in the Explorer that should make a fine backup for the SG Junior.  Both will be tuned to D standard and used for rhythm guitar work in a d-beat hardcore band.  I have the Cold Sweat set in the SG Standard for stuff in standard E tuning but I would like another humbucker guitar for C# standard.  I play a lot of Black Sabbath covers at home so that would be a good pairing with the SG Standard in E standard.

The bridge and tailpiece on the Explorer are the standard Epi stuff.  I have a chrome TonePros set with locking studs to go on but other than the locking feature I think it will be similar to what's on there.  I've thought about getting an aluminium tailpiece for the SG Standard, one of those Tonetails, just because it would be better for top-wrapping, but I was worried a lightweight tailpiece might cost me some 'chunk'.

[gwEm]

is it an Epi Goth Explorer? The Epi Goth series were know for being rather dark guitars.

Hope it works out with the nailbomb!

[Dave Sloven]

It's the '58 Korina model in ebony.  I don't know if it is especially dark compared to other Explorers; it's just too dark for what I need. The pickups that came with it - someone had installed a set of Mighty Mite Motherbuckers - were darker and more compressed than the Warpigs, so I have never heard it with bright pickups.  I'm hoping the Nailbomb will give me a good hardcore sound.  We'll see!  I'm sure it will sound better than it did in the SG, where it really clashed with the guitar's resonant peak.  In that guitar I eventually had the pickup set really low with the pole pieces raised four full turns, and still I couldn't get the nasal character out of it.  Other people have had good experiences with A-Bombs in Explorers and I hope I will too!

[p4vl]

Change the capacitor on the tone pot.  .047uf might help, or smaller value caps if you already have .047uf caps in there (I can't remember specific values because whenever I google 'tone cap values', I find threads where are bickering and posting mathematical equations and I feel the urge to start drinking). 

Perhaps there's a site that offers a cheapie variety pack of ceramic tone caps?  It's been a long time since I changed mine but I remember the caps having a much bigger impact than changing the pot to a 1 meg. 

[Dave Sloven]

I was running a 0.022uf PIO cap.

I've since changed the bridge pickup to an A-Bomb and I am waiting for a matching Nailbomb neck pickup to arrive in the mail.  The A-Bomb sounds great in the Explorer, so much better than anything I've had in there before, and MUCH better than it sounded in my SG.  I will put the Warpigs in my SG on the next string change, just to see what they sound like there (I will then go back to the Cold Sweat set after that).  If they work well I will look at getting another SG for the Warpigs.