Suggest me a pickup combo

[Cimmerian]

Hey everyone,

I've only just joined the forums, but I've been following BKP for a while now, and they never cease to impress!

When I first got my guitar, I was playing much lighter rock, like Foo Fighters, QOTSA, and Cold War Kids. However, I'm now really into much heavier and more technical genres like prog. metal, death metal, and djent.

I currently own a Schecter Pete Dee signature with a Seymour Duncan Design FG-101 in the neck and a Schecter SuperRock Custom in the bridge. I need to know if the pickups will fit, as I am worried that the FG-101 cannot be replaced by any current pickup made by BKP. Would a guitar tech be able to just make the hole for the pickup bigger, or would it be a wiring issue?

Also, I need suggestions for pickups. I need something very mid heavy for the bridge, that'll sound very heavy and has a high output, but that can also handle shimmering cleans. For the neck, I need a fairly mid and treble heavy pup with a high-ish output. I was thinking Aftermath for the bridge, but I'm stumped for the neck choice. What're your thoughts?

Thanks!

[Lucas]

Hi and welcome!

I would say Painkiller set

[Dave Sloven]

I think you are definitely looking at routing.

Doesn't seem like anyone's had much luck replacing these pickups

If you are lucky you might be able to squeeze three full-size humbuckers with pickup rings into it like on a SG Custom.

Separate routes like on an Epiphone SG Custom, not the big bathtub rout.

[JimmyMoorby]

Alnico nailbomb for me.  Lots of bottom end which stays tight and lots of mids and but clear and organic.  The naibomb is all about low end and hi mids.

You could play foo fighters and QOTSA with the nailbomb and it will also cover bands like Dream Theater, Opeth, Mastodon well.  If you're looking for a different sound to those artists then some thing else might be more appropriate but the nailbomb straddles classic rock to prog to very heavy metal extremely well.  Any thing higher output than the nailbomb will sacrifice clean tones including the painkiller etc
The cold sweat neck matches well with the nailbomb and works perfectly in mahogony.....good for shred and cleans.

If the focus is on death metal, djent over the above there may be better things.

[Dave Sloven]

Sorry I misread the first post and thought it was referring to the three-pickup variant; I would say the same except apply it to two pickups

I also agree with the A-Bomb suggestion, especially regarding the cleans

[ericsabbath]

how about blackhawks?

[Telerocker]

Blackhawks are certainly an option here. They have tremendous output and a bold tone, yet still good shimmer.

[Cimmerian]

Blackhawks are certainly an option here. They have tremendous output and a bolt tone, yet still good shimmer.

I was thinking about a black hawk, Juggernaut, or miracle man. I need to be able to create shimmering cleans and fluid vai -  esque leads for the neck pup, and bright, snappy cleans but lo-mid fueled, aggressive chugging and sharp lead tones for the bridge.

[JimmyMoorby]

Blackhawks are certainly an option here. They have tremendous output and a bolt tone, yet still good shimmer.

I was thinking about a black hawk, Juggernaut, or miracle man. I need to be able to create shimmering cleans and fluid vai -  esque leads for the neck pup, and bright, snappy cleans but lo-mid fueled, aggressive chugging and sharp lead tones for the bridge.

From my experience you need to make a choice on the following :

Alnico nailbomb / Cold sweat neck combo.
Describes the tone you're after but as per the above more classic rock to modern metal vibe.  Can pull off the classic stuff, extreme stuff and shred.  An extremely versatile set.  Lots of bottom end and grind with the bridge and good cleans...the neck is awesome for cleans and shred and well just nice leads for any style.

The juggeranut bridge has the best clean tones of any BKP bridge in my opinion. The neck sounds like a higher ouput vhii neck.
The Juggeranut is tight enough for technical metal styles and as a set is perfect for virtuoso type playing like Vai, Petrucci etc
Very good for chugging if you dig in too.  This set has a much more modern feel more in line with modern rigs and modern production if that makes sense.  A polished agression if that makes sense.

Black Hawks just have a lot of every thing low end, mids, treble but IMO less dynamics but still more than other actives.  Telerocker says they're bold and i'll say that's an underatatement.....they're in your face  .  They create the illusion of high output but when I compare it to other hi outputs I think it;s more down to the unique nature of the black hawk than any thing......compressed maybe.  The juggeranuts are more open sounding than the black hawks but tighter.  There are no other pickups out there like the juggeranut or the black hawk.

All will sound good but I think you need to decide whether you want to go with the nailbomb/cold sweat which can convincingly pull off any style (IMO) or the Juggs which have a modern polished metal feel which can lend itself to other styles but always sounds modern and polished if that makes sense........For a band like QOTSA for instance the juggs aren't autentic enough and for a band like periphery/meshuggah there'd be better choices than the nailbomb.

If it were me...........if you're in standard E/D go nailbomb cold sweat.  Any lower definitely go for the juggs.

[Cimmerian]

Blackhawks are certainly an option here. They have tremendous output and a bolt tone, yet still good shimmer.

I was thinking about a black hawk, Juggernaut, or miracle man. I need to be able to create shimmering cleans and fluid vai -  esque leads for the neck pup, and bright, snappy cleans but lo-mid fueled, aggressive chugging and sharp lead tones for the bridge.

From my experience you need to make a choice on the following :


Alnico nailbomb / Cold sweat neck combo.
Describes the tone you're after but as per the above more classic rock to modern metal vibe.  Can pull off the classic stuff, extreme stuff and shred.  An extremely versatile set.  Lots of bottom end and grind with the bridge and good cleans...the neck is awesome for cleans and shred and well just nice leads for any style.

The juggeranut bridge has the best clean tones of any BKP bridge in my opinion. The neck sounds like a higher ouput vhii neck.
The Juggeranut is tight enough for technical metal styles and as a set is perfect for virtuoso type playing like Vai, Petrucci etc
Very good for chugging if you dig in too.  This set has a much more modern feel more in line with modern rigs and modern production if that makes sense.  A polished agression if that makes sense.

Black Hawks just have a lot of every thing low end, mids, treble but IMO less dynamics but still more than other actives.  Telerocker says they're bold and i'll say that's an underatatement.....they're in your face  .  They create the illusion of high output but when I compare it to other hi outputs I think it;s more down to the unique nature of the black hawk than any thing......compressed maybe.  The juggeranuts are more open sounding than the black hawks but tighter.  There are no other pickups out there like the juggeranut or the black hawk.

All will sound good but I think you need to decide whether you want to go with the nailbomb/cold sweat which can convincingly pull off any style (IMO) or the Juggs which have a modern polished metal feel which can lend itself to other styles but always sounds modern and polished if that makes sense........For a band like QOTSA for instance the juggs aren't autentic enough and for a band like periphery/meshuggah there'd be better choices than the nailbomb.

If it were me...........if you're in standard E/D go nailbomb cold sweat.  Any lower definitely go for the juggs.

I really do like Cold Sweats and Nailbombs, but I don't actually need or want to play classic rock stuff anymore. I'm leaving QOTSA behind :D

I'll be tuning all the way down to drop A on my six'er, so I'll need a pickup that can handle that.

A few ideas I've got so far (Bridge/Neck):

Juggernaut/Cold Sweat
Juggernaut/Black Hawk
Aftermath/Juggernaut
Aftermath/Black Hawk
Nailbomb/Black Hawk

[Dave Sloven]

I would also consider Warpig/Juggernaut

The alnico Warpig bridge delivers strong mids and bottom end

Not sure how it would handle djent though

[ericsabbath]

why not a calibrated blackhawk set?
both ceramic and alnico versions seem to do exactly what you described

a blackhawk set with camo radiator covers would look really good in your guitar

[Slartibartfarst42]

To me, it's the shimmering cleans that are part of the problem because most of the pups you look at for modern Metal simply don't do good cleans. I know a lot of people wax lyrical about the Juggernaut but it's just never sounded quite right to me and I think there are better options out there that do the same thing, The Aftermath is very dry and being ceramic the cleans will be OK at best. For shimmering cleans you need alnico magnets and to my mind, for the tones you're describing, that gives you just two options; the A-Bomb and the A-Hawk. For greater versatility the A-Bomb would be the best option but there are a lot of upper mids in that pickup so I think you need to exercise some caution when putting it into an alder bolt-on with a maple neck. Having said that, you're tuning so low, to me you're practically a bass guitar anyway so it could still work and remember with the A-Bomb, just because it can do Classic Rock, that doesn't mean that's what you have to use it for. It will do modern Metal perfectly well and is very tight for an alnico pickup. In many respects the obvious choice would be an A-Pig and if it wasn't for the very low tunings I'd have said that was ideal but I think your tuning is too low for that to work. The only other option that leaps to mind is the Miracle Man as that works really well in the type of guitar you have. Being ceramic, you lose some of the clean quality but the cleans are surprisingly good for a ceramic pickup.

So, to sum up, for the bridge I'd go with either an A-Bomb or a Miracle Man. For the neck I'd agree that the Cold Sweat would be an ideal choice.

[Dave Sloven]

why not a calibrated blackhawk set?
both ceramic and alnico versions seem to do exactly what you described

a blackhawk set with camo radiator covers would look really good in your guitar

Yeah I can see how this could work, especially with the alnico option

[Cimmerian]

Okay, I now know for certain that I want an Alnico Hawk as my neck pup, but a lot of people are saying that the Aftermath just won't do cleans well. I really do need something that can achieve 'djent' sounds, so will a Nailbomb really be able to achieve that? The cleans on the demo sound almost identical to the Aftermath, which is why I'm questioning that choice of pup. The problem is, very few production guitar use BKPs, so it's hard to try and them out to find the one I like most. I have pretty much narrowed the bridge choice down to an Alnico Nailbomb or a Aftermath at this point.