Pickup Suggestion for my First Ever Set of BKPs!

[SeabaSquad]

Greetings!
I’m a guitar teacher over here in the states, and I have taught professionally for a little over a decade. I am having my first “fully custom” guitar built (a Warmoth HSH Strat) and I will be purchasing my first ever set of Bare Knuckle Pickups to put in it. I am looking for suggestions on which pickups to choose, so hopefully you can help me! Any feedback is so greatly appreciated.

What I will do is list information about the guitar these are going into, my personal play-style, and what I am looking for tonally or what sounds I am looking for, and hopefully that will help to determine which set would be best for me.

-   The Guitar: The guitar is a Warmoth HSH Stratocaster. Ash body, maple neck and fretboard, Floyd bridge, and I plan to have it wired with the Tosin Abasi wiring scheme to allow for maximum versatility from the pickups. As such I will never be using the middle pickup solely by itself. As a side note, this guitar will be played primarily through a Blackstar HT-40.

-   My Play-Style: As a rough breakdown, I would say I play 50% blues/blues rock, 30% metal/shred (no djent or post-metal,) and 20% progressive rock/fusion. I have always been more of a lead guitarist than a rhythm player.

-   The Sound I’m After: I will try to keep this short but please forgive me if I type a novel. The goal of this guitar is twofold: 1) Genre versatility, 2) The ability to switch between modern-voiced humbucker tones and sweet, glossy Strat tones. It is a Strat, after all. I want it to retain those glossy, chimey Strat tones in positions 2 and 4 as well through various coil split options. But I also want it to satiate my metal side; I want the neck humbucker to be thick and creamy, and I want the bridge to really have a snarl to it when it’s pushed. With that said, though, I equate high gain pedals to salt on a steak; the nicer cut of meat you have, the less seasoning you need to use. I don’t intend to oversaturate these pickups with gain to the point where there is no recognizable tone. In fact, quite the opposite; I want something where the tone can shine through even with a bit of gain in the mix. Something overflowing with harmonics.

Again, any feedback, suggestions, or ideas are greatly appreciated. And I can certainly provide any more information necessary to make a suggestion or to settle a decision between two. Thanks, everyone!

Cheers!
-   J.R.S.

[darkbluemurder]

I am familiar with the Holydiver neck and the VHII bridge. The HD neck is bright but still has all the characteristics one would expect from a humbucker in the neck position. It does not sound like a mini humbucker, let alone a single coil. I think it works well with a stronger bridge pickup like the Rebel Yell, Crawler or Cold Sweat.

The VHII bridge is stronger than the DC resistance reading indicates, but it is also a lot brighter than one would expect from an overwound PAF style humbucker. I have mine in a guitar where I have a Firebird in the neck spot - there it works well since both pickups have a lot of brightness and cut. I can also imagine that it would work well in an HSS configuration. In HSH with the HD neck the contrast between bridge and neck could be too strong and you may have to set the amp for one or the other to get optimal results.

Cheers Stephan

[Chris Rowberry]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Could you let us know a little more about the type of music you're playing? It would help give a better recommendation.

Kind Regards,
Chris

[SeabaSquad]

Thank you for your help thus far! 

I've revised the thread to be more general, rather than inquiring on a certain set. I've included details that should be helpful in determining which set would be best.

[dani]

i would suggest either the abraxas or holydiver.

the abraxas is perfect for blues/heavy blues up to rock and 80's metal. holydiver is slightly hotter and imo, the most versatile bkp humbucker. both pickups sounds good split too.

bear in mind swamp ash has good lows and highs with a somewhat scooped mids on paper. the hd will balance really well with it.

[Slartibartfarst42]

My first response to this thread was to think it was a job for the trusty Holydiver/Emerald combo. The Holydiver will cover all the Metal and Rock tones you want and has a beautiful lead tone but it will retain its more modern tone when it comes to Blues and Blues Rock so its suitability would depend on whether you're prepared to live with that when playing those styles. As Blues and Blues Rock constitutes 50% of your playing, I'm not sure you would.

The next option would be to go with a Crawler/Emerald combo. The natural home of the Crawler is Blues Rock but it will also do Blues and anything up to early Metal. The tone is very rich and very thick and will make your Strat sound that bit more like a Les Paul. The splits on the Crawler are simply the best you will ever hear. For your needs, I'm inclined to think that this is a better option for your needs than the Holydiver. Issues? It's not as tight as the Holydiver so will struggle if you use a lot of gain but for most applications it's fine. This is probably my favourite bridge humbucker from BKP because it sounds so incredibly good and is so extremely versatile.

If you wanted something between the two, I'd look at an Abraxas/Emerald combo because the Abraxas seems to sit nicely between the other two. People have a lot of success with this pickup playing Metal but it has a lot of PAF in there so also sits nicely with your Blues playing. The tone is smooth, like the other two, has more PAF tone to it than the Holydiver and isn't as thick, dark or loose as the Crawler. This pickup's getting a lot of love at the moment and that might be affecting my judgement here but I genuinely think it would be a great choice for you.

You may have noticed a common theme in my suggestions - the neck pickup should be an Emerald. If you want thick and creamy with loads of articulation in the bottom end, this is what you want.

[Alfi27]

The Abraxas set together with an Irish Tour or Slow Hand in the middle would make a magnificent setup! Most likely the most versatile pickups in the entire BKP range, and they sound equally great for lower gain stuff as well as higher gain stuff! Not quite sure how it would work in an ash guitar, but I have the impression of it not being particularly picky about the guitar.

[SeabaSquad]

Thank you for the help so far everyone! A few follow-up questions:

- I haven't been able to find many samples of the Emerald in either position, but I have read that it is very "classic PAF" or that it is best suited for an LP, so I haven't really researched it too thoroughly. How are its cleans? Does it pair well with a middle single coil?

- Which single coil would pair best in the Emerald/Holydiver setup to achieve that quack in positions 2 and 4?

Again, I do really appreciate all of your input thus far!

[darkbluemurder]

-   My Play-Style: As a rough breakdown, I would say I play 50% blues/blues rock, 30% metal/shred (no djent or post-metal,) and 20% progressive rock/fusion. I have always been more of a lead guitarist than a rhythm player.

-   The Sound I’m After: I will try to keep this short but please forgive me if I type a novel. The goal of this guitar is twofold: 1) Genre versatility, 2) The ability to switch between modern-voiced humbucker tones and sweet, glossy Strat tones. It is a Strat, after all. I want it to retain those glossy, chimey Strat tones in positions 2 and 4 as well through various coil split options. But I also want it to satiate my metal side; I want the neck humbucker to be thick and creamy, and I want the bridge to really have a snarl to it when it’s pushed. With that said, though, I equate high gain pedals to salt on a steak; the nicer cut of meat you have, the less seasoning you need to use. I don’t intend to oversaturate these pickups with gain to the point where there is no recognizable tone. In fact, quite the opposite; I want something where the tone can shine through even with a bit of gain in the mix. Something overflowing with harmonics.

After having read the above I will revise my earlier comments slightly:

Neck pickups: "Thick and creamy" are not the first attributes i would describe the Holydiver neck with. That sounds more like the Abraxas, VHII or Crawler. My pick out of these would be the Abraxas or VHII if you want a bit more tightness in the low end. A good alternative if you want something a bit more modern voiced, Rebel Yell or Cold Sweat.

Bridge pickups: "Snarl" - the Holydiver bridge has that to some extent, so does the Abraxas bridge but there are pickups in the BKP range that have more of it - the Rebel Yell comes to mind. Unfortunately I have never split mine so I cannot comment on how it sounds split whereas I can confirm that both the Holydiver and the Abraxas split well.

Cheers Stephan

[Dave Sloven]

The Emerald neck will give that feel.  I installed one on a friend's Les Paul and it is a sublime pickup for blues rock.

I tend to think that a Holy Diver / Irish Tour / Emerald combo or a Holy Diver / Slow Hand / Emerald combo will probably do most of what you want.

[Slartibartfarst42]

- I haven't been able to find many samples of the Emerald in either position, but I have read that it is very "classic PAF" or that it is best suited for an LP, so I haven't really researched it too thoroughly. How are its cleans? Does it pair well with a middle single coil?

- Which single coil would pair best in the Emerald/Holydiver setup to achieve that quack in positions 2 and 4?

The website can be very misleading about some of the pickups. The Emerald is very PAF in nature and is best suited to a Les Paul IF it's the bridge pickup being referred to as it is very classic sounding and very bright. However, the neck version is a different beast entirely as it's thicker, creamier and darker sounding than the bridge so is far more flexible about which guitar it works in. It's also a bit less 'classic' in that it's quite a hot wind for a neck pickup and uses the more modern 43AWG wire so the AIV magnet helps to give it a strongly vintage feel but it has far more articulation than a traditional PAF. I find this to be a fantastic compromise and gives you a very versatile pickup. The Holydiver does something similar by using an AV magnet with 42.5AWG wire so the magnet is a bit more modern but the wire is a bit more vintage. I love both of these neck pickups and was so impressed with the approach of combining vintage and modern that I had a neck pickup made for me using an AII magnet with 42.5AWG and it's fantastic. In your case I have no doubt you're describing an Emerald neck pickup and I think a Slowhand would be an tremendous option for the middle or if you want something hotter because the middle pickup tends to be lowered further, the Trilogy Suite would be ideal.

[dani]

just a thought in the name of versatility.

'thick and creamy' neck tones can be had with a clear and bright-ish neck pickup with a turn of the tone knob. you can always roll off the highs for a creamy tone but you can't add them. a .015 cap does that really well.

[Slartibartfarst42]

Agreed. One of the reasons I use my Les Paul so much is because I can leave the tone for the bridge pickup maxed out all the time, where I like it, but have the tone for the neck pickup rolled back a bit. I find I make quite a lot of use of the tone control for the neck pickup for just that reason, whereas I never really use it for the bridge pickup.