Pickups for Drop D super-strat

[capac]

Hey,

I wanna replace those yuck duncans (nazgul/sentient) in my mayones duvell... They sound like shite for anything above C IMO. Nazgul is way to bright and tiny.

I like music such as Tool, dream theatre, opeth, gojira, KSE... I tend to play quite some complex chords under high gain and I want something that's a bit more backed off than nazgul.

I am open to suggestions.

Not my thing: aftermath, black hawk, painkiller, impulse, juggernaut

You can also recommend neck pickups, but I think VH2 will do the trick.

[djpatb]

Holy Diver.

[capac]

I heard holy diver is a bit soft on rhythms. What other BKPs are good for thinner sounding guitars (everyone has les paul...).?

[Dave Sloven]

I would have a look at the new Ragnarok.

Even though it is marketed as a Misha thing it seems very different to the others, more like a Miracle Man with more mids.  Alternatively consider a Miracle Man or a Cold Sweat.  You might also like the VH2 bridge

[darkandrew]

I'm going to be following this thread with interest. A little while ago I asked for suggestions for a slightly more aggressive, more modern version of a Crawler for my ESP Eclipse. The Eclipse, despite being mahogany bodied with a maple cap and Les Paul shaped, is a about 3/4 the thickness of a Les Paul and is actually quite a bright guitar, probably in a similar way to your guitar and although I am very happy with the Crawler set in one of my Eclipses, I was looking for suggestions to replace either the Nail Bomb or the EMG 57/66 set in one of my other Eclipses. As I've made reference to on another thread, the guitar doesn't quite have enough body to carry the Nail Bomb bridge (which is a great pickup in a warmer guitar by the way) and I was looking for something that had the thickness of the Crawler but also with a bit more aggression to it. So far, in that guitar I've had:

Mules: neck OK, bridge too bright (but, as with the Nailbombs, great in a warmer guitar)
Nail Bombs (Alnico): neck great (nice and woody), bridge a little too bright at the top end and lacking warmth in the bottom (see note above for the mules)
Rebel Yells: neck OK, bridge OK - not a bad set for this guitar and to be honest I can't remember why I took them out of it
Crawlers: a good match of pickup and guitar all round - great string separation with both the bridge and neck sounding full bodied without being muddy, however, they are also very smooth and lack the grit and aggression that I sometimes want.

So, it will be interesting to see what suggestions you get and whether any of them will differ from the ones that I got (by the way, the guys at BKP recommended the Holy Diver but having listened to the examples, I wasn't entirely sold on them).

[capac]

Isn't warpig like extra thicc? I just don't want a really thin pickup, I'm afraid warpig is just too much for me.

[Dave Sloven]

In a bright guitar the Warpig can be really good.  It does have a lot of output though

[ericsabbath]

miracle man

[capac]

What is VH2 like? How about black dog? I'm really interested in vintage hot models.

Miracle man and cold sweat sound too scooped in pretty much every demo. I like a pickup to have some mids to it.

I'm looking for something that's a bit backed off (not super hot ceramic pickup). I like it around mid-high output - preferably not hotter than aftermath.

[Dave Sloven]

From what I have heard the VHII bridge sounds like a less scooped, alnico version of the Cold Sweat

[darkandrew]

From what I have heard the VHII bridge sounds like a less scooped, alnico version of the Cold Sweat

When I tried a VH2 in a basswood superstrat, it was quite bottom heavy and didn't have enough top end to compensate for the guitars treble sucking character (even the CS in the same guitar struggles to hany treble) but that's probably got more to do with the guitar than the pickups. I haven't tried them with a brighter guitar, so they may sound completely different in yours.