Reverend Sensei w/ The Mule and Abraxas maybe?

[Skaven]

Hy guys,

it's my first post here and I have the typical question "Which pickups tp choose?".   

I'm from Portugal so I'm really sorry if my English isn't perfect. 

I've been using BK's for a long time but exclusively Single Coils, I have sets of Slow Hands, Irish Tours and The Boss on all my Strats and Teles and I must say I absolutely love BK's. I don't believe much on the influence of the wood on my Tone but I do believe (by experience) that a good set of pickups does make a bad guitar sound good, and the BK's are magic to me, I have them on Squiers and American Fenders and all of my guitars have a great Tone, ty Tim!

However, this time I'm looking for HB's to replace my Reverend Sensei's RailHammers and I have no clue on which ones to choose, from the website's description  it seems that The Mule on the Neck position and Abraxas on the bridge would be the best ones but... I could use some help here please.   

Not that I do believe in the influence of wood in the sound but if it helps, my Reverend has a Korina body and an Ebony Neck.

I'm replacing my Railhammers because it's away too much punch for me, they are not bad pickups but they do miss the typical BK's clarity and definition, they work well with high-gain but if I want to play my blues or jazz it's away too much power and Bass and Midds for my taste, playing with volume and with bass contour helps but I do believe that my guitar would benefict a lot with a set of BK's.

So I'm looking for:
Neck Position: Something that would be as close to single coils as possible because I use this position mainely for playing Blues with a clean sound or light Overdrive pedals, coil-split is something that I wanna avoid because it never convinced me, I mean, splitting a coil works fine but it's not the same as having SC's, there's always something missing (IMHO) so my bet is to have HB's that work and sound as close to SC's as possible, something along the line of Seymour Duncans' Jazz would be fine, "low output", "transparent", "clear" and not too bassy and full of midds.

Bridge Position: This is the tricky one, it would be nice do have the in-between position working well and balanced and I would like to avoid having a pickup with a lot more volume (output) that the other but I do like to have the bridge pickup with more power so I can play Hard-Rock to "Light Metal" let's think on something that would allow me to go from WhiteSnake to Van Hallen to AC/DC and Mettalica (I know it's not easy...).

ty very much in advance for your kind help. 

[Telerocker]

Abraxas/Mule-neck would work very nice in your Sensei. The Abraxas - more or less an overwound Mule - can handle heavier styles, so can a Mule-bridge by the way. I do not agree with your idea that wood that does not influence tone much. Sound is about the right materials, hardware, setup and total chain, from guitar > amp > cab. We often overlook the influence of speakers, which can make actually quite a difference.

[MrBump]

Howdy, and welcome to the forum.

Have you thought about the VHII neck?  I have one in a Charvel, it's relatively low output, and to my ears sounds very Stratty.

[Skaven]

Hi Telerocker ty very much for yout kind help,  in your opinion, the Mule would be the perfect match for Abraxas and will still provide me a sound as close to an SC as possible? I mean close in terms of clarity, less mids, sparkle and output mainely?

About the influnce on Tone, I have no doubts that hardware does have a huge influence on your tone, specially the Nut the Bridge, the Scale of your neck (stretch of the strings) and eventually the Tunners which are in fact in contact with the strings, even the pick you use does matter, but I'm talking about the guitar itself, not talking about amps ou speakers or pedals or anything that goes after the guitar that will of course affect the Tone a lot.

The wood, I don't see how it can have any influence since pickups are waxed (correct word?) so they are made this way exactly to cut all the sound coming from the outside and therefore avoid unwanted feedback, but let's say that wood does matter for some reason that I really can't understand or explain than it would be something like 5% if such and the pickups would be like 75% maybe?

There's already some studies made by Universities that proove what I'm saying, and altough I understand why Guitar Factories do want to make us believe that wood matters in Tone I know that tecnology will sooner or later solve this completely, just like when we discovered that after all the world was round... .

However, I do agree that the quality of the wood  is essencital to have a good guitar in terms of playability and longetivity only. 

MrBump,
ty! 
Although the Output of the VH II is more or less the same as the Mule I didn't thought about VH II on the neck because when I read the applications of the VH II it says: Funk, Garage, Classic Rock, Heavy Rock and Fusion so... The Mule seemed like the best bet but... . 

To me the neck is vital, I'm looking for an HB that sounds as close to an SC as possible, so I mean clarity, less mids, sparkle ... .

[Telerocker]

The Mule-neck is open and musical with a good amount of treble, but not as bright as a RiffRaff-neck.

[Skaven]

I will study the Riff Raff as well but, in your opinion Riff Raff will get me closer to SCs than? It might however not match the Abraxas as well as The Mule would? Ty very much!

[Telerocker]

I will study the Riff Raff as well but, in your opinion Riff Raff will get me closer to SCs than? It might however not match the Abraxas as well as The Mule would? Ty very much!

Personally I would prefer a Abraxas/Mule-neck combo, having both AIV-magnets would provide a more harmonious match. You could also think about a calibrated Abraxas-set and change the wiring to split them. Then you will have a splitted humbucker in the neckposition too, which will bring you closest to a single coil-tone.

[Skaven]

I understand your opinion but splitting coillings never sounds quite as sweet as a true single coil because there are huge volume imbalances and the tone simply falls short,  a lower output HB might do the job better.

What I ask is very difficult to match without compromising something... oh well... I'll keep researching and studying  the possibility of buying (instead) a Riff Raff Set even knowing that the bridge might lack some punch.

Ty very much for your help.

[darkbluemurder]

For the bridge: I can confirm that the Abraxas bridge can do everything from Blues to Hard Rock (say John Sykes in Whitesnake) and does it very well. It's one of my favorite bridge BKPs.

For the neck: this is more difficult. I have tried various neck BKPs but none of them sounded like a single coil to me in the way like e.g. a vintage style Firebird pickup would. They sound good but they sound like humbuckers, especially in the low end. The brightest of them were the Riff Raff neck and the Holydiver neck. Both are brighter than the Abraxas neck. Never played a Mule neck so I cannot be of help here.

The VHII neck is not low output. It is in fact the hottest neck pickup in the hot vintage category. Very good tone though - love it in my PRS Custom.

Regarding your concern that the Abraxas bridge would be much louder than any of the low output humbuckers - I don't think that will be a problem because strings vibrate more in the neck than in the bridge, giving more output and low end there.

Cheers Stephan

[Skaven]

ty Stephan.

[metale]

I understand your opinion but splitting coillings never sounds quite as sweet as a true single coil

Un-split mode will not get closer. My split Abraxas is as close as I've got with anything-humbucker.

[Skaven]

All the guitars I tried with Spit-Coils never convinced me, I mean it's ok, definitely better than coil tap but it's not the same, they miss the brightness or the spark or whatever you wanna call it.

What I would really like would be an HB as close to an SC as possible, and so far the only one that I tried that really convinced me was Seymour Duncan Jazz although my preference goes by far to Bare Knuckles so I'm really inclined to go for the Riff Raff on the Neck and Abraxas on the bridge and than I'll pray that as stated the volume won't mismatch much and the in-between position will eventually sound good which is a lucky shot really.

I will probably buy the version with 4 conductors because it will add more versatility although by experience I know that I probably will never use it... . 

[Kiichi]

Have you spend some thought on a P90 neck then? Power and fullnes of a humbucker with the attack and full frequency response of a single coil (cause it is a super fat one). Also stays open, super defined, and has a lovely midrange growl.

[Skaven]

It's an idea that might work, I'll go and study that too, ty.

[Telerocker]

Actually the OP wants a stratocaster. 

What brings me close to a stratty tone is the inbetween sound of my Mules-set in a St. Blues Missisippi Bluesmaster. Since it's an all mahogany bolt-on guitars, the lows are fuller and not really as percussive as a strat, but on a Fender-type amp you get some Nile Rodger-esque tones.