HSS for maple neck-thru superstrat

[SkyDog]

Hello everybody, longtime lurker here. I've finally taken the time to register and ask for some help seeing as I'm about to order my first BKP's in the coming weeks. I've read through alot of forum topics here, and have a pretty good idea of what I want, but I figured I should still run it past you guys!

The guitar in question is a '86 Charvel Model 6, so maple neck-thru with poplar wings, rosewood 'board and Kahler bridge. At the moment it's fitted with the original Jackson pickups, which are fairly weak tone-wise, and almost require the inbuilt midboost to sound decent.

I play mostly heavy rock and old school metal, with some more classic rock and blues thrown in once in a while. What I'm after primarily is balancing the heavy hi-mid emphasis of my amp (Soldano Hot Rod 50+). At the moment it gets overbearing with the Charvel through my 2x12, V30 not helping with the brightness. So I guess I'm what I'm after is more lows and lower mids, and less spiky highs and high mids. Since I don't play very modern or extreme metal, I've shot a couple of glances at the vintage hot section. Most contemporary pickups are probably overkill for me, in terms of output and tightness.

So after overthinking this on my own for way too long, I've pretty much decided to get a Holy Diver for the bridge. Seeing as HSS is kinda hard to read up on, I'm less sure there. But at the moment I think it's between the Slowhands and the Triology Suites, with a maybe on the Irish Tours. I mainly use my bridge and neck pickups, and therefore I'm mostly concerned with them matching well both tone and volume-wise. At the moment this makes me lean towards the TS's. What concerns me with getting such a hot set (HD-TS-TS) is that my amp lacks a true clean channel, and the "overdrive" channel is pushed dirty fairly quickly with my current set up.

The other bridge pickups I've been looking at are mainly the Crawler, Miracle Man and Abraxas, though I think they would too dark, too metal and too vintage, in order, but I would be open to any and all suggestions. Since this will be my main guitar for a long time ahead, I'd like it to be versatile, but not in sacrifice of it's original purpose as an awesome rock/metal guitar.

Sorry for the long and rambling post, and thanks for any replies!

Cheers!

[Kiichi]

Hi and welcome!

I totally agree with your bridge idea. While I was reading that the HD was my main thought. Crawler is great too, but more rock focus compared to the more metal focus of the HD. The HD meanwhile is also very versatile and really a lovingly hotrodded HB. Miracle Man does not do enough rock, very late 80s metal focus here. Abraxas is not bad, very versatile and all, but the HD just fits better all around. With the tone you describe and the style  you are looking for it just hits the nail on the head.

For the SCs I would actually recommend the ITs, though I am not as sure as with the HD. The ITs are classic single coils (based on the Mothers Milk) with added mids and growl, slightly tamed highs, more warmth and bottom end, and a good pinch of magic rock and blues dust. Loves some dirt and is just something special. The SH does the same thing to the IT the IT does to the Mothers Milk. Both never loose sight of the woodyness and vintage flavour though, but handle gain better and sit more in unison with most HBs.
I would stick with either of the two to get a really nice organic set with vintage flavour and a lot of versatility. Would fit your guitar and preferneces in tone very well and they do work with your styles.

Having the bridge a little on the metal side and the SCs a little on the rock side would make for a great all around set in my mind. So yeah, HD bridge and either IT or SH middle and neck, depeding on how warm and round you want it.

Cheers,
Kiichi

[Sarkasis]

I think you can set aside the Miracle Man, it's supposed to be rather bright, and more voiced for metal rhythms than what you may need.

The Holydiver is the most outwardly metal of the remaining three.

Don't discount the Abraxas. It can definitely do more traditional metal, if it doesn't need to be too modern and aggressive. I would recommend you give more thought to this one.

[darrenw5094]

I have a few Model 4's and a Model 6. The pups are not bad, the bridge is scooped with the mid range rolled off, but sounds decent with the mid knob up 25% or so. It's a medium rock gain pup, maybe on the same level as the Abraxas. The HD would be the next step up alright, although the mid boost would probably be redundant after it's installed.

[darkbluemurder]

Given your tonal requirements you can't really go wrong with the Holydiver for the bridge.

In a H-S configuration I would have considered the Trilogy Suite as a neck pickup. But for H-S-S I think vintage hot would be more appropriate. The only BKP single coil I played so far is the Slowhand bridge. I used it in the neck and middle spots together with a Holydiver in the bridge. It worked well in both positions. I would opt for  flat magnets and baseplates.

Cheers Stephan

[Guitarteach]

+1 on the Holydiver... I have one of those in a guitar and Rebel Yells in a thru-neck Ibanez - the RYs would likely be too bright for your setup. The HD is nice and rounded

I personally thought I made a mistake pairing a very hot single coil with my HD as the single coil is quite dark and lacks the nice sparkle and bell like tone of a more vintage style single coil - the vintage hot Irish Tours could be good as others have said. That will likely be among my next BKP purchases

[Telerocker]

Considering your wish to tame the high mids of the Soldano, I would pick Slowhands for the single coils. IT's have this uppermid presence. I think Slowhands are a better option here. They will pair nice with the Diver.

[SkyDog]

Thanks for all the responses!

So my suspicion that the HD would be a great fit has pretty much been confirmed then. As for the SCs, at the moment I'm leaning towards the Slowhands, but I'm still considering Trilogy's... What would be the pro's and con's of them in this case? And how does baseplates fit in here? What I'm really asking is if the Slowhands are recommended more for their voicing or for the increased versatility? Because up to a point, I think it would be worth sacrificing versatility for specialization. Or am I completely off with the Trilogy's?

Cheers for all the help so far!

[Telerocker]

Thanks for all the responses!

So my suspicion that the HD would be a great fit has pretty much been confirmed then. As for the SCs, at the moment I'm leaning towards the Slowhands, but I'm still considering Trilogy's... What would be the pro's and con's of them in this case? And how does baseplates fit in here? What I'm really asking is if the Slowhands are recommended more for their voicing or for the increased versatility? Because up to a point, I think it would be worth sacrificing versatility for specialization. Or am I completely off with the Trilogy's?

Cheers for all the help so far!

No, you're not off at all. It's a matter of personal preference if you want a bold vintagehot vibe with the Slowhands or a more modern sound. The darker TS has to a certain degree some P90-flavour. If you want to play blues and classic rock too, I would personally pick Slowhands and use the HD for the heavy rock and metal-styles.

[darkbluemurder]

So my suspicion that the HD would be a great fit has pretty much been confirmed then. As for the SCs, at the moment I'm leaning towards the Slowhands, but I'm still considering Trilogy's... What would be the pro's and con's of them in this case? And how does baseplates fit in here? What I'm really asking is if the Slowhands are recommended more for their voicing or for the increased versatility? Because up to a point, I think it would be worth sacrificing versatility for specialization. Or am I completely off with the Trilogy's?

If your main tones are bridge humbucker and neck single coil, then Trilogy Suite would be good. If you use the in-between sounds a lot, then a vintage hot middle pickup would be the way to go. The point is that the Trilogy does not sound like a vintage single coil at all. If you want such a tone also for the neck position, go with Irish Tour or Slowhand.

The bassplate adds a bit of volume and punch. There is a BKP youtube tutorial on that.

Cheers Stephan

[SkyDog]

After listening to the BKP video on baseplates and some more clips on the SH and the TS, as well as reading the comments here again, I've swayed back in favour of the TS, at least momentarily. Since I mostly use the neck either as lead pickup or clean, and I seem to prefer the more modern clean of the TS in the neck, I think it would be a better fit for me.

My question now would then be how a SH with a baseplate in the middle would fit in? I mostly use 2 and 4 for the occasional clean, and 3 for some blues rock once in a while, would it be overpowered by the HD and the TS or would it fit in nicely to add versatility to the more unused areas of my pickup selector?

If it makes any difference, I'm looking to replace all the pots and caps, rewire the controls to volume-volume-tone, rip out the midboost, and replace 2 of the mini-switches with a standard 5-way one.

Cheers!

[darkbluemurder]

After listening to the BKP video on baseplates and some more clips on the SH and the TS, as well as reading the comments here again, I've swayed back in favour of the TS, at least momentarily. Since I mostly use the neck either as lead pickup or clean, and I seem to prefer the more modern clean of the TS in the neck, I think it would be a better fit for me.

In that case I agree.

My question now would then be how a SH with a baseplate in the middle would fit in? I mostly use 2 and 4 for the occasional clean, and 3 for some blues rock once in a while, would it be overpowered by the HD and the TS or would it fit in nicely to add versatility to the more unused areas of my pickup selector?

The HD as full humbucker will be significantly louder than the SH in the middle. The HD split is only slightly louder than the SH. I did not have any problems insofar. And if you use the bridge + middle combination for clean(er) tones the drop in output may even be welcome.

No idea how a TS in the neck will match with a SH in the middle. Personally I would not care too much - the neck + middle combination is a place I rarely go on strats. I usually play straight bridge (about 70%), straight neck (about 10%) or bridge + middle (about 10%) and 10% on other combinations. So the combination HD - SH - TS should give you strong bridge and neck tones and a very good split bridge + middle combo.

Cheers Stephan