VHII Bridge Revisited

[darkbluemurder]

Recently I scored a BKP on the bay. The seller described it as "bridge pickup, 9k ohms". It also said '"bridge" on the black BKP label that was attached to the single braided wire. The only bridge pickup with these specs is the VHII.

When I tried one a few years ago in a Les Paul I did not really like it. I knew that the pickup would sound well in a different guitar but I had to send it back so I did not try. This time I replaced the Cold Sweat bridge in the Soloist type guitar (mahogany body and neck, maple top, 25 1/2 scale, tune-o-matic bridge and stop tail). Neck pickup is a Firebird type.

Wow - that VHII bridge rocks in this guitar. Compared to the CS bridge it has about the same bass punch, less compression but a more open midrange and more bite in the top end, which is an excellent match to the Firebird pickup in the neck. The VHII bridge enhances the strong midrange focus that the guitar acoustically has, making for a hard driving rock sound. You have to be careful with the highs though but that's what tone controls are for. The guitar was fun to play before but now it is even better.

Cheers Stephan

[metale]

I was bidding for that one too  Yeah, It should be a VHII from what I gathered at the time.

Just shows how important it is to match the guitar to the pickups. Glad it worked for you.

[pcarrion]

I have an stratocaster and for a long time It had a SD hot rails in the bridge. Finally I decided to change the pickguard and go for a standard HSS configuration and the pickup choice was a VHII. It changed completely the guitar. Actually, I have a Charvel EVH art series. There's no much detailed information about the pickup (it seems customary with everything concerning Ed VH gear), but being both pickups in the same ballpark I prefer the Bkp. I think is an issue of clarity typical of every BKP pickup. The EVH Charvel has a little more high mids, a bit more hairy, but I think is a matter of the maple fretboard. Acoustically the Charvel has more snap and the rosewodd fretboard-ed stratocaster is more warm.

Great pickup, not warm enough for fat-blues, but  covers from classic rock  onwards even early 90s metal. It's not my cup of tea because I lean to middier and thick pickups.

[littleredguitars2]

i totally agree that not every pickup is the best match for a guitar. i had a vh2 in a les paul and i was not happy with it. but yeah i bet it sounds great in what you have now.

[pcarrion]

And I would even say that you can have a perfect pickup to get a wonderful sound  in a guitar, but this is not your sound. (.. are we getting to philosophical for a monday morning?) My VHII sounded great in the stratocaster, and my Charvel EVH almost nailed the brown sound, but it's not my sound and I ended changing pickups. Actually it took me a time to decide to do it because both sounded great but... horses for courses!

[darkbluemurder]

i totally agree that not every pickup is the best match for a guitar. i had a vh2 in a les paul and i was not happy with it. but yeah i bet it sounds great in what you have now.

Was that the same pickup set that you recorded the youtube video with - that one sounded great.

Cheers Stephan