blades/screws/caps/slugs.......????

[Miracle Man Matt]

Question really for the BKP staff here.

What effects do blades tend to have on PU's performance. Im led to believe it makes them a bit tighter and trebly but im not sure.

Plus what effects do double screws and double cap heads do to the tone?

cheers

MMM

[TwilightOdyssey]

Steve recently that addressed this ... lemme see if I can find it. :)

[TwilightOdyssey]

Found it!

He said:

The shape of the allen bolts, and the fact that they are more prominent from the cover will affect the tone. The shape will spread the magnetic field over a wider area, which will pick up more string movement. This will increase the bass response. Get the bolts too big (you know which P/up im talking about!!) and you will get too much bass, and more string pull, which will result in less sustain.

Steve was refering to well-known pickup that invades your ears with bad tone!!! ;)

[Miracle Man Matt]

cool cheers for that but im still interested in what blades do?

[Ratrod]

Most blade pickups sound trebly, I think. I once heard a bar equipped single coil that sounded very phat (yes with ph), almost like humbucker.

[wixomwhat]

hmmm....

I don't think I agree with the Invader and string pull/ loss of sustain.

I've had one in my Explorer for over a year now and the guitar new goes out of tune and can still play some kickass solos and stuff and haven't noticed loss of sustain at all.

But at the same time I really haven't been liking the pickup much lately and am going to replace it soon lol, I'm starting to get rid of all my Duncans.

[PhilKing]

I have a lot of Duncans, PRS's and Tom Holmes to get rid of too  x)

Once you start to fit BK's, then you start to have this problem of too many other makers pickups around  :P

[demonic_rebel]

Most blade pickups sound trebly, I think. I once heard a bar equipped single coil that sounded very phat (yes with ph), almost like humbucker.

The Bill Lawrence XL500 is one of my favorite pups.

[Ratrod]

I once had a XL500L. Great pickup. Dime's original tone. Wich is trebly, but not in a bad way. The cobra head demo brought back some fond memories of it.

[B3]

Hi, it's difficult to generalise about how blades affect the tone since it depends on so many factors - the dimensions of the blade, the material of the blade, whether the pickup has one or two blades etc.... The tones of blade pickups are as diverse as any other kind of pickup.

[Tim]

Like B3 says, there are lots of different blade types out there...........some are mild steel others actually magnets.They all do the same job and aim the magnetism up towards the strings and the argument for them is that, as on continuous pole, you don't get any drop out.I must admit I think I smell b/s on that one, I've never heard dropout from string to string, no matter how hard I bend, on standard 6 pole pickups.The tone of a blade is very focused and ,IMHO, not suited to vintage applications but as several of you have pointed out, they have their fans.The 'real' XL500 is a good unit, don't be put off by the fake Korean ones, they sound weak and are very unreliable.

[Ratrod]

I heard Setzer playing his pin stripe Gretsch. It has the new blade equipped Filtertons (Supertrons). Sounded bigger and more aggressive, but still vintage.

[carlaz]

I believe Roy Z uses the Bill Lawrence L-500s, and I dig his playing, but I've always been leary of "weird" pickups (including active pups) ....

[_tom_]

my Dimarzio Chopper in the bridge position of my strat has blades in it.. What other people have said is true, I dont really like it for vintagey sounds, but its still better than a stock strat bridge pup imho.