HSS setup for Suhr Pro S4

[Alfi27]

Greetings fellas! I have taken a huge leap in my infinite quest for achieving a good looking, sounding and playing swiss army knife guitar, and traded my Suhr Classic for a beautiful Suhr Pro S4 with HSS-setup! The guitar is on its way, but it has the same pickups that my Suhr Rasmus had so I am very sure that they will have to go, unless they for some reason will sound ridiculously different in this guitar.

The guitar has an unusual wood combination; basswood body with maple top. Not my favorite (on paper at least), but I do have limited experience with it and I will naturally give it a chance. So what do you think will sound good in this guitar? I will list up a couple of things I sent to the BKP support, when Ben recommended 63' Veneer Boards and the alnico Nailbomb:

"the bridge pickup (humbucker) has to be tight, but versatile for an extended range of gain sounds. It will never be used alone without overdrive, except when split in combination with the middle pickup. A ceramic pickup would be nice if you do not think it would be too bright in this guitar

- the neck and middle have to work well for red hot chili peppers, srv, dire straits type of music. The neck will also be used for smooth, fluid lead tones so it got to have some output as well

- versatility is more important than "nailing" a specific sound"

I also mentioned that I like mids, hate thin, brittle sounding pickups. Especially thin sounding singlecoils are very high on the list of things that I really, really cannot stand.. I want to achieve a kind of a "big" sound, at least with the humbucker. The Crawler I used to own was maybe a bit on the warm side, but it would have been a magnificent pickup if it was tighter.
The humbucker does not need to do anything heavier than Metallica, but certainly as heavy, and the hard rock and heavy metal sounds are the most important.

The Cold Sweat sounded extremely nice in my mahogany/maple Mayones Setius, but he (and I) thought that it might be too thin and scooped for this guitar, but just to give you an idea of what I am looking for. The Nailbomb was very nice as well in a mahogany/maple Ibanez RG2020x, different but equally as nice, especially for metal. It handled downtuning better as well, but that won't be a concern in the Suhr.

When it comes to the single coils, I am not sure about those... The Suhr I traded for this guitar had V60LPs, really, really nice strat pickups. Actually so nice that I was a bit unsure if I wanted to do the trade. It was kind of a classic strat tone with a bit more fatness to it. I used to own a set of 63' Veneer Boards a couple of years ago, but I was very inexperienced at the time and could probably not appreciate a set of good singlecoils because I was so used to humbuckers. They came off as a bit thin, but that might have been due to the amp as well. But if you think the Veener Boards or others in the BKP range might fit my description I am eager to try (again)!

Please note that I am not in any way unsatisfied with Ben's advice, I just want some different inputs and alternatives 

Thank you very much for your answers!

[Kiichi]

My first instict would be looking at an Abraxas bridge, as it seems to be liked by people who like the Crawler too, but is more towards what you like from what you write. Heavyness is not really an issue with it and it should just work well there.

For the single coils you have to look at the Irish Tour and Slow Hand. Both have more mids and output than your usual single coil while keeping the mojo. You might even think IT middle and SH neck for a load of versatility and balance. Both work well with the Abraxxas too.

[Alfi27]

Is the Abraxas tight? I have heard the Alnico IV magnets are quite weak, which is not what I am looking for...
What do you think about a Black Hawk + Cobra set? The Cobras are certainly very versatile from what I have heard, but not sure about the hawk...

[Telerocker]

Greetings Alfi

SRV, RHCP, Dire Straits would be in the range of the Sultans, Mother's Milk, Veneer Board 63 and Irish Tours. But, you mention the Cobra's, which are modern voiced, high output single coils. So that's a little confusing. I understand Bens recommendation. He just following your descriptions.

I think you have to consider what is most important: power, thick tones or vintagestyle singlecoils which have that classic single coil hollowness, especially in the neckposition. And lower output.

I try to imagine what you're looking for and think these suggested sets could possibly float your boat:

1. Juggernaut-bridge - Slowhands middle- en neck singlecoils (vintage, but with enhanced mids, less topend and quite hot for a vintagestyle singlecoil)
2. Juggernaut-bridge - Trilogies single coils - more modern voiced, higher output, still single coil chime
3. Juggernaut-bridge - Cobra's - modern, high output singlecoils, not that classic chime and depth, so clean not the best of the bunch, but they will eat gain for breakfast.

4. Alnico Nailbomb - Slowhands
5. Alnico Nailbomb - Trilogies
6. Miracle Man - Trilogies or Sinners (Sinners hot, deep bass, screaming, grinding, great for leads, not the best for Dire Straits, but I think you've got the idea already).

[Alfi27]

I understand that might be a blt confusing, but when I was looking for new pickups for the Suhr Classic (SSS) Ben claimed that the Cobras in fact could work well for RHCP kind of music.

"No I don't think they are too hi output for that. I love mucking around with Chilis type stuff (Blood Sugar was my era) and I borrowed Tim's Cobra Strat for a few weeks and really loved the versatility. The neck is pretty fruity and juicy but still 'strat'. Overall I felt I could get most 'strat' tones from them (maybe not vintage 50s), but they also had this power on-tap, ready to be driven hard. I liked all 5 positions. The bridge was bright and tight and when driven hard, the tone and crunch came across as an aggressive, modern humbucker."

But yeah, I understand I might have to compromise something, somewhere. If the bridge pickup is fat enough I will probably use it for leads as well with little need to switch to the neck pickup. That was the case with the Crawler at least, but as I mentioned it was maybe a bit too fat. Sinners are too bass heavy for this purpose, and I already have a guitar with a set of Sinners ;) the in between positions are actually useful to get a nice clean tone, but not my first choice for clean tones. Really nice distortion though! Considering maybe replacing the Sinners with Cobras because I changed the bridge to one with narrow string spacing due to string slipping, so the poles on the Sinners are a bit off. The guitar also looks a bit boring as it is, the Cobras will definitely «spice it up» 

Don't you think the Miracle Man might be too scooped and bright for a strat?

[Telerocker]

Miracle Man sounds a little midscooped due to the huge bass, but the mids are there, just not so pronounced as the lower register. The upper register is bright, but in a pleasant way, not shrill. The MM performs very good in basswood.

I can imagine the Cobra's will do a sort of RHCP, but it will be a different flavour/character than a true classic single coil. Vintage purists would not pick these. I had rails pickups in my tele in the past and were not really my cup of tea, but each to his own. The advantage of the Cobra is it's capability to deliver great modern solotones as well. So they might the right choice for you.

[Alfi27]

I see. I got some good advice from a nice guy here on the forum, he recommended Creamery pickups in Manchester, who can make pickups entirely to my specs. Sounds very tempting, but I did notice one thing about the stock pickups today (still have not received the guitar, the people at the Norwegian postal service are clearly on vacation): the singlecoils are ML Standard, and not Classic.

The Standards are supposed to be fatter with more output than the Classics. Not sure which variation my Rasmus had, but I would certainly never use the word «fat» to describe them... Very bright, fits the description of the Classics quite well. So yeah, if they sound decent I will probably only upgrade the humbucker because I will use it about 80% of the time, and then I doubt I will go through the hazzle of waiting 21-28 days for the Creamery to make my pickup. Then I will just go for a BKP, but still do not know which one...

Miracle Man sounds very much like my cup of tea, tight and powerful as hell! I know you say they are in fact not that midscooped as BKP advertise, but I am not entirely convinced.. And I guess they won't be as versatile as for example the Nailbomb. Juggernaut is also tempting, maybe a bit metal as well but probably more versatile than MM.

[Dave Sloven]

If you think the CS would be too mid-scooped for this guitar then the MM would have the same issue.

Apparently the ceramic NB and WP are less scooped than the CS and MM, but I know from personal experience that the alnico versions have plenty of mids, especially the A-Bomb

[Alfi27]

Alright, I finally received the guitar! The pickups are worse than I thought, they need to be replaced asap. And the humbucker, even though a little fatter and powerful than the V60LP bridge, still sounds like a strat. However, I am not entirely sure if I want to keep the guitar. It is a nice guitar, but I did not get that "wow, this is a really nice guitar"- feeling that I got with the Suhr Classic... Don't get me wrong, it is a really nice guitar, but.. Not really sure how to describe it... So I have to figure that out first, if I replace the pickups and then sell it I could just as well have thrown the money out the window.
I have also figured out that singlecoils are nice, but they got to have some beef! Suhr MLs are just shrill and thin sounding, they are trebly as hell even with bass maxed and treble at zero on the amp...

[Telerocker]

Alright, I finally received the guitar! The pickups are worse than I thought, they need to be replaced asap. And the humbucker, even though a little fatter and powerful than the V60LP bridge, still sounds like a strat. However, I am not entirely sure if I want to keep the guitar. It is a nice guitar, but I did not get that "wow, this is a really nice guitar"- feeling that I got with the Suhr Classic... Don't get me wrong, it is a really nice guitar, but.. Not really sure how to describe it... So I have to figure that out first, if I replace the pickups and then sell it I could just as well have thrown the money out the window.
I have also figured out that singlecoils are nice, but they got to have some beef! Suhr MLs are just shrill and thin sounding, they are trebly as hell even with bass maxed and treble at zero on the amp...

If you're worried about the MM's 'midscoop', but want a full sounding agressive pickup with mids and bottom, go alnico Nailbomb. Personally I hate the ML's as much I like V60's. I think you will be quite happy with Slowhands.

[Alfi27]

The Slow Hands sound nice, yeah. I figured out the strangest thing today: lack of balance between the singles and the humbucker might actually be a good thing with my new amp, an EVH 5150III 50 watt combo! If you are not familiar with the amp, the clean and the so called "mid gain" channel (it is actually quite high gain) share eq, volume and gain. Because of that, keeping the clean channel clean and getting some decent drive from the mid gain channel is not possible without some volume roll off on the guitar, but I it is also possible to do with a HSS-setup with low output singles and a high(er) output humbucker! Very nice!
And, well, because of the amp I won't have money for pickups yet.. Haha.. Worth it though 

[Telerocker]

The Slow Hands sound nice, yeah. I figured out the strangest thing today: lack of balance between the singles and the humbucker might actually be a good thing with my new amp, an EVH 5150III 50 watt combo! If you are not familiar with the amp, the clean and the so called "mid gain" channel (it is actually quite high gain) share eq, volume and gain. Because of that, keeping the clean channel clean and getting some decent drive from the mid gain channel is not possible without some volume roll off on the guitar, but I it is also possible to do with a HSS-setup with low output singles and a high(er) output humbucker! Very nice!
And, well, because of the amp I won't have money for pickups yet.. Haha.. Worth it though 

Keep saving bro!