I take your point, Iommi is certainly a very heavy sound but seems to me to be a little muddier in nature than the MM would give, hence I was also considering the Warpig. My son is very keen for me to have a Synyster Gates sound and I'm guessing that his would be more like a Warpig too, though I may be wrong in that.
OK, I'm not familiar with Synyster Gates, but thanks to the magic of the internet, I found a few clips .... Yeah, I'm thinking, hmm, maybe the Ultimate BKP Beast, the ceramic Warpig, could be the way to go! :twisted: Take it all the way .... 8)
I was only considering the Mule for the neck position due to its PAF nature, which I know Dave Murray favours. Likewise, I was only thinking of a Coldsweat for the neck as it would match up well with the MM but I was concerned that the sound may be a little too clinical for what I'm after. I keep picking out Dave Murray, not because he's my favourite guitarist, but because I simply love that well defined yet warm and creamy tone he has when he plays his solos. As you can guess, I like playing solos at the neck rather than the bridge. His is a general neck sound that I like rather than a specific song, as is Carlos Santana so obviously I'm intrigued by the suggestion of an Abraxis in the neck. The neck pup is an area where I really want to get it right as it will need to do a wide range of styles, from Metal to Blues.
Well, I'm going to stick with an Abraxas/Crawler neck pup recommendation here. It very much has a classic PAF vibe, like the Mule, but is hotter than the Mule. Here are some of my notes from Tim I saved from when I was researching my pups:
It's a wind I really like, DC7.6K Alnico IV and I use it on both Crawler and Abraxas sets as a neck so it's bang on for the Santana tone. I just have a general vibe this pickup would also work out for you, and the extra output will help it keep up with a Warpig or MM perhaps better than a Mule (though I've certainly read reviews from people who are very happy with Warpig/Mule combos).
]Any other thoughts would be welcome and in the meantime I'll try to find some neck clips of an Abraxis.
Since as Tim notes, he uses the same thing for the neck in Crawler and Abraxas sets, check the clips for Crawler neck samples as well. There are some official clips from Geoff Whitehorn on the Products page for the Crawlers, and I posted a kind-of-out-of-tune downtuned Crawler clip a good while back that had a short lead noodle on the neck that people quite liked (apart from it being out of tune :) which I blame on the half-bottle of Chilean Cab I'd had when I recorded it ;)). Darned if I remember what it was called, but just search the Players forum for Abraxas and Crawler and eventually you'll find everything!
Edit: OK, that clip is
here, and the Whitehorn clips (inc. clean and overdriven neck) are
here.
IMO, the Abraxas/Crawler neck is one of the finest "hidden treasures" of the BKP armoury. Sure, it's great if you like Santana of course, but it does
so much more than just that!
