Pickup Recommendation Needed: Black Dog, Blackhawk, Silo?

[veritas0aequitas]

Hi Everyone,

Long time BKP player here. I primarily have played Gibson Les Pauls over the past 10 years or so. I found my wheelhouse with a calibrated Riff Raff sets in my Gibson Les Pauls through my Diezel VH4 and 4x12 with Vintage 30s. I found that lower output Alnico V pickups work best through higher gain amps (they don't push the front end of the amp as hard), especially the VH4 channel 3 and the crystal cleans they give are amazing through channel 1. So, the calibrated Riff Raffs have worked best for me. They, along with the Les Pauls with the thick mahogany and maple cap, give me that clarity, punch, beef, and harmonic richness that speaks to me.

However, I am looking to branch out because in the band I'm currently in we are tuning lower (Drop A#), which means I am moving to baritones, playing lead, and trying lighter double cuts because of my poor back. To boot, I'm also playing more lead and don't want to compete with my rhythm player. I think really, I just want to try something new. We are playing music like A Perfect Circle and Tesseract. Essentially ambient/ethereal/atmospheric, alt rock, alt metal, with some djent influence. See my description if you'd like to check it out.

I am trying some double cut, swamp ash guitars (Schecter KM-6, Apocalypse) to see if they cut better through the mix. Plus they allow more access for higher register lead and are easier on my back. Because of that I have looked at the Black Dog, Blackhawk, and Silo because they would give a nice bump to the bass/midrange and balance out the trebley nature of the swamp ash. As well as not being too hot with the Silo being the exception. They are all A5 which is what I seem to like best.

Does anyone have opinions on the Black Dog, Blackhawk, and Silo in general? With swamp ash guitars or even with mahogany/maple? Based on my post does anyone have any other suggestions for me?

Thanks in advance!

[Dave Sloven]

Check out the Impulse, you will be glad you did.  Swamp ash a Black Hawk will also work well, especially the alnico version, but with those tunings you might prefer the Impulse

[RobAbrams84]

I don't want to give you too many new options to think about, but if you're tuning that low you might want something like an Emerald bridge pickup, which is the tightest bridge with probably the least amount of bass in the vintage hot range.  I would think that it would handle that stuff better than the Black Dog for instance.  I actually haven't tried the three sets that you're asking about though, sorry! 

[ericsabbath]

hey, brother!

I've walked a quite similar path
tool/aic fan, les pauls and hot rodded amps
had a lot of hotter bkp models (holy diver, miracle man, cold sweat, c-pig, a-bomb, c-bomb, aftermath, and also black dogs and vhii's), mostly in les pauls, until I found the riff raff/mule set, that served me well for almost a decade

few months before the covid pandemic, I decided to try something hotter again, and emailed BKP about the true grit and rebel yell to replace my beloved riff raff
ended buying both, but kept the rebel yell cause it sounded a lot like a riff raff boosted by a tube screamer
maybe you might like that if you wanna keep the riff raff vibe

the true grit has similar output, but sits between the black dog and holy diver instead
punchier and more modern than the rebel yell, but not as punishing in the mids

[veritas0aequitas]

I ended up getting a set of Impulses and Emeralds. Thanks for the recommendations! I will try some others down the road but this will hold me for now!