Guitar: Fender Am std 2013 Strat with a FU upgrades brass block and a maple fretboard.
Amps: Victory VX Kraken, Budda Superdrive II 18 watts, Egnater Tweaker.
A while back I found a second hand Black Dog that I could buy for a decent price. So I though, let’s make my SSS strat into a SSH strat. The BD was zebra, and I love the look of a zebra bucker and 2 singles.
The guitar with the Black Dog in it initially sounded uninspiring, a bit flat, lacking some life.
After some help from Ben from BKP I upgraded the electronics from 3x250k pots (with a tone pot for the bridge) to a 500k volume and 2x250k pots for both single coils.
This opened up the guitar a lot!
Side note: I emailed BKP to ask what they would recommend for this guitar. I was basically looking to buy new pickups. But Ben was initially hesitant to give me the advice that I wanted. Instead he gave me the advice I needed............so thnx Ben!!
I can't say I am in love with this guitar yet, the single coils (Fat50s) are OK, but not really what I'm looking for. Therefore I ordered 2 63's. Once they arrive I'll write another review for those.
But, back to the Black Dog.
The Black Dog is a very nice pickup!! I does what it says on the tin! And it does it well.
If you play a lot of complex chords in a low to medium gain situation, this is your pickup.
The BD makes chords Rock! They are a little dry, dynamic and fat.
For leads it's not my thing. The BD does not make my guitar sing like the HD and Jugg do.
When I switched to Channel 2 of my Kraken (and by this point I was tuned to Drop C#) I started to get a big grin on my face.
The BD does low tunings really well!!!! As in fat, thick, defined and never flubby.
The low end is not super tight like the C-Bomb or the Jugg, but nice and chubby, in a good way.
The mids carry some weight, the mids kinda remind me more of the Jugg than of the C-Bomb or HD.
The highs are a little subdued, but it's not a dull pickup.
Things got a little problematic for me though when I plugged into the Budda.
This is a fat sounding amp, with a very fat sounding speaker.
But when cranked, this amp has a lot of sag, at home this sounds nice and fat. In a band this did not work out well for me.
All in all I really like this pickup. But maybe not in this guitar.
But if it is a riffing monster you are looking for, this is it!
I am looking to get a baritone in the near future, I think this would be an ideal pickup for that.
After sorting out the Pots issue, Ben later advised me to look into a Rebel Yell for this guitar.
