BKPs for a new 'old' guitar!

[Dethcarnate]

Hey guys !
I'm kind of new here, and kind of a noob when it comes to picking pick-ups for guitars to make 'em sound as good as possible.
I've recently bought an ESP LTD EXP-200 (the pre-lawsuit one) and I wanted to upgrade the pups on it.
Now, I know what some of you might say, it's a bad guitar or something. I really fell in love with it though. I took it on tour with me and it did such a fantastic job, coped with the stress like a real trooper. The only thing that was lacking a bit was the 'kick' from the pick ups. So I've decided to make it my project guitar and upgrade a couple of bits and pieces on it.
So please help me pick a good set for it!
I play mostly melodic death/metalcore with my band, with blends of some old school death metal in it. I'd like some deep punch in the rhythm section of it all, not too bassy however (Think something along the lines of Killswitch Engage, Trivium, As I Lay Dying, Whitechapel etc etc). We play in Drop C :)
The full specs of the guitar are here (if required, bare in mind I'm kind of guessing here haha!)
Bolt-on Neck
24.75” Scale
Mahogany Body
Mahogany Neck
Rosewood Fingerboard
22 XJ Frets
Black Nickel Hardware
TOM Bridge & Tail
Duncan Designed Pickups

[Kiichi]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

For that style and those bands the usual recommendation would be the Miracle Man I guess. It is based somewhat based on the EMG sound, but it far more organic, juicy and full. If you want chugs that shake sh*t up, this one will deliver. It is tight, has a lot of low mids, which makes it crush so much, then the rest of the mids are there to keep balance, but are not that much the focus and then you have a cutting high end which is not shrill though. While it is crushing and agressive it retains a certain musical smoothness.

My main concern with the recommendation is that I am not sure how it will sound in that much mahagony exactly. How would you describe the acoustic tone? I am asking cause mahagony can actually deliver quite a range of tones.

[Dethcarnate]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

For that style and those bands the usual recommendation would be the Miracle Man I guess. It is based somewhat based on the EMG sound, but it far more organic, juicy and full. If you want chugs that shake sh*t up, this one will deliver. It is tight, has a lot of low mids, which makes it crush so much, then the rest of the mids are there to keep balance, but are not that much the focus and then you have a cutting high end which is not shrill though. While it is crushing and agressive it retains a certain musical smoothness.

My main concern with the recommendation is that I am not sure how it will sound in that much mahagony exactly. How would you describe the acoustic tone? I am asking cause mahagony can actually deliver quite a range of tones.

The acoustics... It's fairly loud. I mean I don't have much of a comparison, apart from my old cheapy 7 string and an LTD FX-401SM that I have, and it's louder than both (not by a great deal though) and not quite as loud as my friends Gibson Explorer (I don't believe so at least).

[Kiichi]

Does it feel dark or bright? Middy? Scooped? These things are really can change the recommendation.

Loud is good though, resonant wood is a big plus!

[Dethcarnate]

Does it feel dark or bright? Middy? Scooped? These things are really can change the recommendation.

Loud is good though, resonant wood is a big plus!

I havent played it i a week, but from what I remember its a bit middy darker sound. Definately darker sounding and definately not scooped haha !
Jeez describing al lthis is much harder than I thought ! :P

Also jsut a quick question - Whats the difference between the MM and... Aftermaths lets say for example? Or any other BKPs? Why does it matter so much what woods the guitars are made of and such?
I've been planning on getting AMs for a while but then I stumbled across a few posts on here were people were just as confused as me, and the replies, as helpful as they were to the specific people, confused me about my situation, and made me doubt my choice ha! Now Miracle Man popped up and they sound pretty sweet but I still don't know what would be the best choice :(.

[Kiichi]

Does it feel dark or bright? Middy? Scooped? These things are really can change the recommendation.

Loud is good though, resonant wood is a big plus!

I havent played it i a week, but from what I remember its a bit middy darker sound. Definately darker sounding and definately not scooped haha !
Jeez describing al lthis is much harder than I thought ! :P

Yeah, describing tone is extremly hard, especially at the beginning when you are first listening to things, establishing your points of reference and calibrating yourself.

If it is dark sounding I am not that sure about the MM anymore. It could work cause it has cut and would work great with a middy guitar, but I dunno if it could not end up being too fat. Someone who owns one will need to chime in.

A brighter alternative could be the Cold Sweat, perhaps a Ceramic Nailbomb, but I am honestly not sure what would suit those styles and your guitar best.

[Dethcarnate]

Does it feel dark or bright? Middy? Scooped? These things are really can change the recommendation.

Loud is good though, resonant wood is a big plus!

I havent played it i a week, but from what I remember its a bit middy darker sound. Definately darker sounding and definately not scooped haha !
Jeez describing al lthis is much harder than I thought ! :P

Yeah, describing tone is extremly hard, especially at the beginning when you are first listening to things, establishing your points of reference and calibrating yourself.

If it is dark sounding I am not that sure about the MM anymore. It could work cause it has cut and would work great with a middy guitar, but I dunno if it could not end up being too fat. Someone who owns one will need to chime in.

A brighter alternative could be the Cold Sweat, perhaps a Ceramic Nailbomb, but I am honestly not sure what would suit those styles and your guitar best.

I found a video of a guy using the same guitar on youtube, who didn't change the pick-ups to EMGs yet. The guitar sounds a bit different through my amp, though I thought this is the closest to the 'original' seeing if I post the EMG vids it just wont be the same.
If you need some kind of sample of an'unpluged' tone, I'd need to record something with cr@ppy quality mic when I get home tomorrow.
As I said, it's very hard for me to describe the properties of the woods and stuff, I mean, I've never done this before, this is my first attempt on picking parts and such myself for a guitar.
Here's the vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E154LfBrdA
As I said it sound a bit different plugged through my amp, but I guess it could just be different settings.

[Yellowjacket]

Do you have any way of recording your guitar unplugged?  I recorded my Godin LG and my Gibson Les Paul in the same document and the results were quite telling.  I then performed a frequency analysis to see where the hills and valleys were.  All of this was extremely telling and really helped me understand how the acoustic sound of the instrument was shaping what I was hearing through the amp. 

I've uploaded the MP3 and the Spectrograph results so you can look and listen. 

To describe the sounds, the Godin LG has a mahogany bolt on neck with a mahogany body.  It has a lot of weight in the sound in the lows and low mids and it scoops in the high mids between 2 -4KHz, and quite dramatically 3 - 4KHz.  There is a bump 4 - 5KHz which is high mids / low treble.

The Gibson Les Paul is less present in the lows / low mids with quite a pronounced bump in the midrange.  You'll notice it has a very acoustic guitar / resonant tone. 

Record your instrument and compare the tones, I'm sure this should give you a helpful starting point for choosing a pickup. 

[Dethcarnate]

Do you have any way of recording your guitar unplugged?  I recorded my Godin LG and my Gibson Les Paul in the same document and the results were quite telling.  I then performed a frequency analysis to see where the hills and valleys were.  All of this was extremely telling and really helped me understand how the acoustic sound of the instrument was shaping what I was hearing through the amp. 

I've uploaded the MP3 and the Spectrograph results so you can look and listen. 

To describe the sounds, the Godin LG has a mahogany bolt on neck with a mahogany body.  It has a lot of weight in the sound in the lows and low mids and it scoops in the high mids between 2 -4KHz, and quite dramatically 3 - 4KHz.  There is a bump 4 - 5KHz which is high mids / low treble.

The Gibson Les Paul is less present in the lows / low mids with quite a pronounced bump in the midrange.  You'll notice it has a very acoustic guitar / resonant tone. 

Record your instrument and compare the tones, I'm sure this should give you a helpful starting point for choosing a pickup.

The only ways I have of recording a guitar acoustically is via my laptop mic or a mic attatched to my gaming headset unfortunatelly. I don't yet have any mic+DI box/mixing desk-ish set up yet so it's quite problematic.
I'm not sure how much recording through any of the 2 will show but i can try !

[Dave Sloven]

I'm guessing this will be pretty similar to an Explorer, which I have an example of.

I found the Warpigs to be too dark in that guitar, and I suspect a Miracle Man might have the same problem.

I ended up installing an alnico Nailbomb in it that I really like there, even though I didn't like it where I had it originally (an SG).  I play '80s hardcore with it though, you know, Discharge, Doom, Heresy, Mob 47 blah blah

You might want something different.

Cold Sweat could work, but I would probably suggest taking a closer look at the Black Hawk pickups.  They come with a choice of alnico or ceramic magnet for the bridge pickup.

Another possibility would be a Painkiller.

[Yellowjacket]

Did the MP3 I uploaded help establish some sort of a benchmark?  The first one is more low end heavy and scooped while the second has more midrange and resonance.  Sounds like an acoustic guitar.

Listen carefully with your headset, it should be a pronounced difference.  Does it sound like the first or the second guitar, or is it different from both.  A 'brighter' instrument will sound much different in that there won't be the same low end present. 
If it sounds like the first instrument, you want a very bright pickup with a tight low end.  If it sounds like the second one, you want a flatter EQ.  If it is bright, you want a pickup that is warmer with fatter lows. 

The other thing you can do is take your guitar to a music store and compare it with other similar and different instruments.  Try it against a Strat and a Les Paul.  Strats will be brighter overall  (More highs, more tinny sounding) while a Les Paul will be very midrange focused with a lot of resonance.

Something you can try.  Can you find an EQ you can frequency sweep with?  If you can move the peak back and forth across the frequency spectrum, you can hear what the different frequency bands sound like which will give you a better idea of what to listen to. 

[Dethcarnate]

Did the MP3 I uploaded help establish some sort of a benchmark?  The first one is more low end heavy and scooped while the second has more midrange and resonance.  Sounds like an acoustic guitar.

Listen carefully with your headset, it should be a pronounced difference.  Does it sound like the first or the second guitar, or is it different from both.  A 'brighter' instrument will sound much different in that there won't be the same low end present. 
If it sounds like the first instrument, you want a very bright pickup with a tight low end.  If it sounds like the second one, you want a flatter EQ.  If it is bright, you want a pickup that is warmer with fatter lows. 

The other thing you can do is take your guitar to a music store and compare it with other similar and different instruments.  Try it against a Strat and a Les Paul.  Strats will be brighter overall  (More highs, more tinny sounding) while a Les Paul will be very midrange focused with a lot of resonance.

Something you can try.  Can you find an EQ you can frequency sweep with?  If you can move the peak back and forth across the frequency spectrum, you can hear what the different frequency bands sound like which will give you a better idea of what to listen to.

Hey! Sorry it took so long!
I hava tried to record the guitar unplugged using the 2 mics i have (laptop and headset) and the quality is beyond bad, some kind of weird phasing occurs etc. So I have listened to the mp3 clips you've sent and to be quite honest it doesn't exactly sound like either of them, the acoustics on your guitars are very... sharp..? I think my one is a bit duller and darker in a way. Is that possible for a full (techincally) mahogany Explorer to sound like that?
However, out of the two you've sent on the MP3 it sounds more like the first (Godin) than the LP.

[Yellowjacket]

Well, great.  There you go.  A dark guitar that is even darker than the LG  (Which has that hi mid / low treble spike that you heard.  It gives the top end cut)

So you need a high output pickup that will enhance the top end and tighten the lows.

Problem solved.

So you're probably looking at pickups like Aftermaths, Blackhawks, Rebel Yells, Painkillers, Nailbombs...

[Dethcarnate]

Well, great.  There you go.  A dark guitar that is even darker than the LG  (Which has that hi mid / low treble spike that you heard.  It gives the top end cut)

So you need a high output pickup that will enhance the top end and tighten the lows.

Problem solved.

So you're probably looking at pickups like Aftermaths, Blackhawks, Rebel Yells, Painkillers, Nailbombs...

Thanks so much! I'll look into the pups you mentioned, and I'll pick accordingly. It's probably Between the Nailbombs and AMs from these though, as they were suggested to me already :) thanks again for your help and effort man! Much appreciated

[Yellowjacket]

Rad.  Just be sure to email BEN (BKP) and ask him what he suggests.  He has many great ideas.