Replacing EMG HSH set in Vigier Excalibur Ultra

[andyg_prs]

Hi,

I recently acquired a beautiful old Vigier....maple neck and fingerboard, alder body, maple cap, non-locking trem, 24 fret bolt on.  It has EMGs which I cannot stand.  I am looking for passives.  I play everything from funk and reggae to my prog rock originals band that has every kind of clean and crunch to high gain and drop D riffing, liquid solos etc.  My tech asked me to try to describe my likes and dislikes in sounds.

Based on what I've said here and the description below, what pickups would you recommend for me?

Cheers,
Andy

"I love single coil sounds, particularly neck, neck/middle, middle on a Strat.  I had a beautiful example of that recently on a Suhr Pro S3 2009 that sounded much nicer than my strat.  The Suhr had JST FL Single coils.

So I am looking for as close to those/classic Suhr Pro S3 strat type tones in my single coil selections - position 4 being nice for country licks too.

For humbuckers I would use the neck, neck/bridge, bridge combinations.

I love the PRS/Gibson style neck HB tone.  And actually my PRS CE-24 with Vintage Bass and HFS pickups worked nicely in all 3 positions - as in balanced volume and tones in all combinations; all very usable.

In general, I want to be able to go from organic clean tones to crunch to very high gain and for the pickups to work well for all of those things.

I like:

A good amount of bass
Hearing the guitar's tone rather than it being masked by the pickup (no generic Mesa Boogie grind for me)
But, still being able to be tight enough for high gain, riffing, fast picked passages.

I dislike:

Too much middle, particular on the bridge pickup.....some HBs, more so on clean but also with some gain, sound a bit nasal to me.  I don't want to confuse suggesting less middle for the neck pickup....I'm guessing the middle gives some of that classic neck tone...so it's really about the bridge HB.

Ice-pick....too much treble."

[andyg_prs]

Anyone?  I have to make my choice by Tuesday....

[Kiichi]

I am not that sure, but I will throw something in the ring to get this started. Itīs a process after all.

Bridge could be a Holydiver. The body does not look that thick and the woods are not the darkest either, so I expect it to be on the bright side. The HD plays well with that being a hotrodded 80s bucker. Tight enough for modern prog metal a la Dream Theater and ruling 80s metal and rock. Crunch, yep. Very organic feel and lovely mids with that slightly more coarse grainstructure. High end is present and cuts, but is musically rounded, which plays well in such guitars. That also makes it one of the best clean bridges.

Middle could then be either the IT or the Slowhand. The IT in essence takes the archetypical single coil in the mothers milk and adds mids, output, bottom end, while cutting high end a tad, and adding a beatiful magic rock dust. Woody if clean and comes alive with some gain. The Slowhand does the same thing just with a bit more of everything. Both can keep up with the HD.

Neck then could be easily either HD neck or Emerald neck, but in this guitar I might be inclined to go with the Emerald. This is a proven combo, which I have myself, and if you look in the review sticky you can find Slartis great writeup on it. The Emerald neck is an amazing intersection between classic magnet and modern wire, combining character and cut of both. Great cleans and one of the absolute best shred PUs around. Liquid, lovely, and full of character.

All these PUs also really let the guitar shine through still since they are BKPs and from the middle of the output range effectivly. So maybe read some reviews of these and listen to soundclips.

[andyg_prs]

Great info, thanks.  I'm taking my guitar to be serviced by an authorised Vigier repair guy who is also a BK dealer......plus he uses a Holy Diver in his Frankenstrat.....so he'll be familiar with them....

Cheers,
Andy

[seancorker]

Great info, thanks.  I'm taking my guitar to be serviced by an authorised Vigier repair guy who is also a BK dealer......plus he uses a Holy Diver in his Frankenstrat.....so he'll be familiar with them....

Cheers,
Andy

I found HD's to be to saturated and overwound. Going by what you said in terms of the P/U not dominating the wood, I think the HD is based on the late 80's saturated rack tones then the early 80's guitar + Marshall.

I had a Crawler Bridge, Slowhand Middle Cold sweat neck which covered everything my function band could throw at it from G'n'r to Chic to Motown. The 2 and 4 split positions (5way) were very stratty and handled Nile Rogers tones easily.

[Telerocker]

For a big part I support Kiichi's advise. Crawler of Diver will do both in the bridge, IT for the singlecoil, neck: Emerald or Holy Diver.

[andyg_prs]

Oops, edit, Sean Walker - what guitar construction did you have for that pickup combo?

Cheers,
Andy

[seancorker]

Oops, edit, Sean Walker - what guitar construction did you have for that pickup combo?

Cheers,
Andy

Late 80's Kramer Pacer C2 with Floyd, Alder body, maple neck and rosewood board