Time to upgrade the pickups in my Steinberger Spirit

[ohomps]

A few months back I bought a Steinberger Spirit GT-Pro Deluxe (the name that keeps on giving) as a practice guitar, since I need to be out of the house a couple of nights a week and needed something easy to carry around.

It is fine for that, practice on a modelling amp/usb interface, but it's quite meh for any other use.

I would like to transform this baby into a real guitar I can use for other applications, as it plays nicely, I like the feel of the neck, and it could offer something different to my two other axes, a MIJ Strat modified to be a gilmour replica, and a SG 15 standard.

I play mainly classic rock, hard rock, blues and a bit of metal.
I'd be looking for something that would warm the tone a bit, as I find it quite bright at the moment, bordering on the brittle.
It will still be played mainly through a THR5 and/or a USB interface type irig or straight into guitar rig, but otherwise, it will be used with a Laney cub head driving 2 tonkers.

I think that's about it for now, hit me guys, and thanks in advance

[darrenw5094]

Abraxas

[Telerocker]

The Crawler would be spot on here. It's medium output, has the mids, a rounded, but not dull topend, and sounds beefy and big. This pickups cleans up great and that way even jazzy tones can be achieved. Splits are stellar too.

[ohomps]

Forgot to mention: It's a HSH setup.
Edit: And the electronics are quite, err, limited. One volume pot, one tone pot, and a five way switch.
I'm open to making modifications, but I'm a complete beginner at that level, however, suggestions are welcome.

Got an email back from Ben @BKP who advised A-Bomb or 'divers for the humbucker spots, and Irish tour or trilogy for the single coil.

Listening to all the clips, the a-bomb sounds great, but reading the forums a fair bit, a lot of people say they can get awfully bright. Which is clearly not what I'm after.

The trilogy does sound like the real deal for my middle. For the others, the search continues.

The crawler tonal spectrum looks like it could work very well. And it sounds like there's a nice pair of cojones attached to it.
The abraxas doesn't seem to have as much output, and might be a bit more limited for metal?

[Telerocker]

Crawler, Irish Tour, VHII- or Emerald-neck would be my trio in that guitar. The Diver is good option too, just less big sounding than the Crawler. The Nailbomb has quite some topend en aggressive uppermids you have to like.

[darrenw5094]

Actually, i forgot about the Crawler 

[gwEm]

I have a Spirit by Steinberger as well. In fact, its one of my main gigging guitars.

I will say, those EMG Select pickups they fit are the worst pickups I have ever tried. Nearly any decent after market pickup will be better than those things.

In my case, I went through a series of different pickups on it:

DiMarzio Super Distortion - actually very nice, I was happy enough
BKP Miracle Man - By far the best, ballsy hard rock tone. Really like the sound.
BKP Painkiller - Too much attack for my taste
Gibson 500T - It was alright, but I was missing the BKP richness
BKP Cold Sweat - Good, but not as ballsy as the Miracle Man, a thinner Iron Maiden sort of tone

So after this journey I returned to the Miracle Man set. The guitar will stay in this configuration.

I'm not sure it will be the right choice for you on the more mild end of the spectrum, but ceramic pickups do work well with maple neck-through bodies. I like the feeling that this little guitar has crazy high gain pickups in ;)

[Slartibartfarst42]

That's a surprising choice from BKP because I certainly wouldn't use the A-Bomb for what you're after. It's got bottom end but it also has a load of hairy upper mids that makes it sound very aggressive and limits its versatility. This guitar just screams out for a Crawler in the bridge as it's the most versatile BKP I've ever tried, will easily go from Blues Rock to 80s Metal, has the most sublime splits I've ever heard, adds loads of body to your guitar, has a beautiful growl to it and simply does every single thing you're looking for perfectly. Honestly, get the Crawler and you'll never want to stop playing this guitar, it's that good.

For the neck, I'd go with either an Emerald or a Holydiver. The Emerald has more body to it and is more modern while surprisingly, the Holydiver is more vintage and brighter. For the middle, I think any of the Irish Tour, Slowhand and Trilogy Suite would work fine but personally, I'd go with the Slowhand.

[ohomps]

Alright, loads more input, perfect! 

After more listening, and taking into account the opinions, the bridge is defo going to be a crawler.
Fine.

Neck: more listening, hard internal debate. Emerald won that one.

Middle: more listening, a lot of to'ing and fro'ing. I still prefer the trilogy I think. My only concern could be of it going muddy, but considering how bright the guitar is, I'd be surprised.

So, verdict - Crawler - Trilogy - Emerald

gwEm: Have you made any changes to the electronics apart from the pups on your Spirit? Pots upgrade? Any black magic you'd care to share?

Thanks everyone for the contribution, I'm not in a hurry, this is going to be a post X-mas job I think, so, more opinions to change my mind are always welcome :D

[gwEm]

gwEm: Have you made any changes to the electronics apart from the pups on your Spirit? Pots upgrade? Any black magic you'd care to share?

Yeah, I've done a load of stuff.

The zero fret has been swapped with a stainless steel item.
The neck pickup is permanently parallel wired
All the pots have been upgraded. The original ones were pretty naff anyway and eventually broke.
Orange drop tone capacitor
Switchcraft switch and jack
Bridge upgraded from R-Trem to hardtail.
Dunlop straplocks

[Telerocker]

Alright, loads more input, perfect! 

After more listening, and taking into account the opinions, the bridge is defo going to be a crawler.
Fine.

Neck: more listening, hard internal debate. Emerald won that one.

Middle: more listening, a lot of to'ing and fro'ing. I still prefer the trilogy I think. My only concern could be of it going muddy, but considering how bright the guitar is, I'd be surprised.

So, verdict - Crawler - Trilogy - Emerald

I don't think the Trilogy matches the vintage character of the Crawler and Emerald. I'd take a Slowhand in the middle, if you want more mids from the single coil.

gwEm: Have you made any changes to the electronics apart from the pups on your Spirit? Pots upgrade? Any black magic you'd care to share?

Thanks everyone for the contribution, I'm not in a hurry, this is going to be a post X-mas job I think, so, more opinions to change my mind are always welcome :D

[ohomps]

Alright, loads more input, perfect! 

After more listening, and taking into account the opinions, the bridge is defo going to be a crawler.
Fine.

Neck: more listening, hard internal debate. Emerald won that one.

Middle: more listening, a lot of to'ing and fro'ing. I still prefer the trilogy I think. My only concern could be of it going muddy, but considering how bright the guitar is, I'd be surprised.

So, verdict - Crawler - Trilogy - Emerald

I don't think the Trilogy matches the vintage character of the Crawler and Emerald. I'd take a Slowhand in the middle, if you want more mids from the single coil.

gwEm: Have you made any changes to the electronics apart from the pups on your Spirit? Pots upgrade? Any black magic you'd care to share?

Thanks everyone for the contribution, I'm not in a hurry, this is going to be a post X-mas job I think, so, more opinions to change my mind are always welcome :D

Fair point if there was ever one. It's hard to figure that out just with some sound samples.
The quest keeps going, and i'm back to listening to the said clips!

[ohomps]

gwEm: Have you made any changes to the electronics apart from the pups on your Spirit? Pots upgrade? Any black magic you'd care to share?

Yeah, I've done a load of stuff.

The zero fret has been swapped with a stainless steel item.
The neck pickup is permanently parallel wired
All the pots have been upgraded. The original ones were pretty naff anyway and eventually broke.
Orange drop tone capacitor
Switchcraft switch and jack
Bridge upgraded from R-Trem to hardtail.
Dunlop straplocks

Wow, you have really transformed it completely.
Right, I need to give Jon@Feline a call. 

[gwEm]

the pickups are the big change really, everything else helps but are the icing on the cake.

the first time I ever swapped a pickup was on my Spirit. When I changed those EMG Select for DiMarzio Super Distortions my mind was blown and I've never looked back in guitar customisations. I couldn't believe they were SO MUCH better.

Feline has done a bit of work on this Spirit - he did the zero fret.

[pac90]

Sounds like a great combination you settled on. Just revamped mine, its addictive to change pups

I used to have mules with a veneer 63 in middle of mine but moved mules to my bernie with a freeway switch.

Now have stockholm p90  neck, same 63 middle and MQ p90 bridge, which works for me to have 3 distinct sounds and mixes well too, suprisingly. I tried stkckholm bridge but preferred the MQ.