Irish Tour vs. Mother's Milk for HSS Parker Fly (mahogany body/maple neck)

[nikosteph]

Hi everyone, I just recently purchased a guitar build project: a Parker Maxxfly mahogany body, birdseye maple neck guitar:

https://res.cloudinary.com/reverb/image/upload/a_exif,c_thumb,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_south,h_226,q_auto:eco,w_226/v1473482443/dmd0jsdlampaups5dqhz.jpg

I have a VHII for the bridge, but am debating between the Irish Tours and Mother's Milk single coils for the neck and middle PUs. I want this to be a versatile guitar, with the ability to do cleans, jazzy stuff, and dirty/overdriven blues, as well as the occasional high-gain solo on the neck or neck/middle positions (I'm gonna do the classic Strat 5-way).

If this had a mahogany neck to go with the body, I'd probably go MM to give it a bit more brightness/sparkle, but it has a maple neck and stainless steel frets, which should make it brighter than a typical mahogany guitar (not to mention it's a rather slim body). So I'm confused as to which PUs would "fit" better.

Any thoughts? Experience with these pickups in a similar guitar? Thanks so much in advance for the help!

[Telerocker]

You can't go wrong with an Irish Tour-neck. It will provide a better balance between the VHII, which is quite powerful voor a vintage PAF. The IT is not far away from the MM, it's an overwound version, with more bass, a tad more mids and less topend, but still quite vintage. Roll the volume on the guitar a tad back and your are in Mother's Milk-territory, although slightly less woody than the MM.

[nikosteph]

Thanks, that's really helpful! Yeah, I was leaning IT cuz I want this guitar to be able to get a bit dirty and snarly if I need it to, but was hesitant due to the mahogany body. But these guitars tend to run bright so it'll hopefully be fine.

[Piplodocus]

I thought this must have been one of my posts revived for a sec there!!!

My midifly is basically a Nitefly with mahogany body and extra electronics with a Irish tour neck. And I have a Nitefly M (mahogany) with Mothers milk neck. So...

The Irish tour is probably a better match in output?
There's just something about the mothers milk which made me glad I tried it in my latest. It just sounds kinda more of the stratty sound in my head.

So which would I choose next time? A mothers milk by current reckoning. I only did that recently though and so I'm wondering if I should play with my Irish tour height a little more to see if it gets it slightly nicer. They're both great in reality, depending whay you want, but depending what and how you play "matching the others" may be of great or little concern to you. But the MM sounds "woodier" to my ears. To be honest it could be honeymoon period still though and I should probably do a real and proper comparison before I start posting stuff I might change my mind about, but that's my gut feeling at least. I'm sure the nailbomb sounds nicer in the new guitar too though so maybe it's all psychological! Either way they both whoop the ass of the DiMarzio's standard in the midifly or my 3rd Nitefly SA. (The Nitefly M came with 2x HBs so can't compare - but it's always been one of those that sounded extra great, and now even better though - that's my current avatar pic).

The other SA Nitefly is a different story though as its swamp ash and was gonna get bare knuckles too if I hadn't just spent twice the cost of them on a new washing machine.  I'm currently hanging about the forum looking at things for that though for when I'm not skint again...

[Piplodocus]

P.S. Have an old bad phone mic recording with YouTube compression, so may not have heights set correctly, so is probably useless... https://youtu.be/bBnZm9YJ2Y0 :)

[nikosteph]

Haha, of course it's Murphy's Law of the pickups that as soon as I pulled the trigger and ordered a pair of ITs, someone would chime in (single-coil pun not intended) and suggest the other option :). I guess in the end, I decided on the ITs because I want to get some grunt and bluesy dirt if needed (the "SRV tone" to put it another way), and the thinness of the guitar and brightness of the maple board and stainless steel strings made me worry about the MMs. And as you point out, perhaps I can play with the pickup height, etc. to tune the sound.

Thanks for the video though! It's quite helpful, and I do indeed dig the sound of the ITs there, so in the end I'm sure it'll be all good. I've never been disappointed with any of the BKPs I've tried, and I guess if the output is a little too much for some applications, that's why I have that funny knob named "volume" just an inch away :).

[Piplodocus]

You're gonna be really happy with them anyway. I love my ITs and so it's only really a case of subtle differences and taste anyway! :)

[nikosteph]

Nice, looking forward to it, and will definitely report back for posterity's sake :).

[Telerocker]

IT's are great and they are not so far away from MM's. Just an overwound version, roll down your volumeknob a bit and you're close to MM's. I can nail that RHCP-Mayer tone with IT's (and the right amp).