Vintage Hot Bare Knuckles for Queens of The Stone Age?

[bloody_sunday]

Hello people... this is my first post here. I need your valuable help and opinions on a Bare Knuckle pickup choice for all around use (blues - alternative - a bit of higher gain stuff as well), but excelling specifically on the sounds by Josh Homme from Kyuss and Queens Of The Stone Age. I will try to be as specific as I can.

I want to change the humbuckers on my Eastwood Ultra GP ( http://www.myrareguitars.com/ultraGP.html ). Its body is a mahogany one with maple top, with a set neck of mahogany with rosewood fretboard. The pickups are made in Korea and are modelled after the high output Dimarzio Super 2s ( http://www.zzounds.com/item--DIMSUPER2BK ). These are basically DiMarzio Super Distortions with a heavy emphasis on the treble freqs. They are ceramic, their output is 425mV and their DC is 8.70.

Now, the reason I want to change them: I always liked the good and healthy output they have, but the bridge pickup is too harsh to my ears and the neck pickup too muddy. I like the fact that they can work well with amps, distortion pedals and the Fulltone Ultimate Octave fuzz (they "push" them nicely and get many Kyuss and QOTSA tones), and they obviously "treble up" the guitar which is a bit muddy, but I also like my cleans to be nice, which unfortunately only happens when I blend them together in the middle position...  :(

So what is your recommendation? I've read many posts here, so I would like to have a vintage hot pickup without covers (NOT a ceramic one please), one that would have nice cleans, that would be an all - around pickup but preferably hotter than the vintage choice of a calibrated Mule set, and that would be able to liven up a muddy guitar (hence the Alnico IV or V choice instead of Alnico II).

I also adore the nice fat bluesy sound of neck PAFs in Les Pauls. I KNOW I can't have everything...  :oops:  but please try to think of the best option!!

Finally, I would also like my neck pickup to be hot in order to be able to switch to it for a solo and give a nice extra fat but also cut-through-the-mix tone. Do you think that I should go with the new Rebel Yell ones, a custom order for an Alnico V Mule set, an Abraxas, an Emerald, a Holydiver...?

The funny thing is that all of these recommendations have a higher DC from my Super 2s (8.70 - it doesn't appear to be high as the Dimarzio Super Dist. at 13.68, but I can guarantee you they both have the same huge output at 425mV). I am really puzzled!! Your help will be really appreciated, as well as the specialist opinion of Tim himself if possible... thanks in advance!!!



Just to note something more, Josh Homme was using the combination of Seymour Duncan SH-11 Custom Custom in the bridge (DC 14.4, Alnico II) and SH-PG1 in the neck (DC 7.3, Alnico II). I think you can tell I am a Josh Homme freak! I know almost everything about his setup after an intensive and ongoing 4 year research...

[MDV]

A2 Mules.

[ericsabbath]

josh homme uses duncan custom custom and 59
troy van leeuwen uses duncan custom, custom V, sometimes a jb
so i'd say something close to the duncan custom winding (maybe a cold sweat with alnico 2 or alnico 5 magnet)

[Philly Q]

i'd say something close to the duncan custom winding (maybe a cold sweat with alnico 2 or alnico 5 magnet)

Which would give a BKP equivalent of the Custom Custom or Custom 5 respectively!

[ericsabbath]

i'd say something close to the duncan custom winding (maybe a cold sweat with alnico 2 or alnico 5 magnet)

Which would give a BKP equivalent of the Custom Custom or Custom 5 respectively!

ya!  :good:

so... alnico 5 if you want few mids for that hollow and dark PAF response or alnico 2 if you want a smooth bass, lot of brightness and sweet mids

or maybe alnico 4 (i don't know it's characteristics, but tim loves it)

[bloody_sunday]

Thanks for your answers! I've heard that Mules using Alnico 2 are somewhat incapable of powering up a muddy guitar like mine properly, so I am thinking of ruling out Alnico 2. The question is, can Alnico 2 work with overwounding or should I use something in the Alnico 5 category? And if this is the case, which specific model would you recommend? One recommendation is the Cold Sweat calibrated set with Alnico 5? Any more? I think I'll stick with Alnico 4 or 5. As I asked before, do you think that I should go with the new Rebel Yell ones, a custom order for an Alnico V Mule set, an Abraxas, an Emerald, a Holydiver, a pair of Riff Raff bridge and Black Dof neck, a different combination...?

Oh, and the info on Josh Homme's pickup choices is not accurate, and neither is the Seymour Duncan site correct either... anyway, god knows what he is using now. Bear in mind that I don't want to emulate his sound with the pickups (it would involve a whole chain of other things anyway - fingers, amp, pedals, post amp effects etc). I just want something that I tried to describe in my post above...

[Philly Q]

...I would like to have a vintage hot pickup without covers (NOT a ceramic one please), one that would have nice cleans, that would be an all - around pickup but preferably hotter than the vintage choice of a calibrated Mule set, and that would be able to liven up a muddy guitar (hence the Alnico IV or V choice instead of Alnico II).

I also adore the nice fat bluesy sound of neck PAFs in Les Pauls. I KNOW I can't have everything...  :oops:  but please try to think of the best option!!

Finally, I would also like my neck pickup to be hot in order to be able to switch to it for a solo and give a nice extra fat but also cut-through-the-mix tone.

Since you've said you're not tring to directly emulate Josh Homme, based on your original description of a vintage hot type of sound, I don't think you'd go far wrong with a set of Crawlers (A4 neck, A5 bridge, PAF-ish but with extra power).

The Rebel Yell bridge is brighter and tighter than the Crawler, but I don't know if the RY neck does bluesy PAF tones or not - I think it's similar to the Cold Sweat neck, which is usually described as a great shred-type pickup.  I have a RY bridge and Abraxas/Crawler neck combination, which I think works pretty well.

I'm guessing here, but if your guitar's a bit muddy, as you say, I would think (based on what I've read) that the Abraxas or HD bridge models might be a bit too warm sounding.  The Riff Raff or Black Dog probably aren't as hot as you want, and I don't know about the Emerald - it's meant to give a 70s-style Les Paul tone.

I personally wouldn't bother with the A5 Cold Sweat idea, unless that's what Tim recommends.  There are loads of A5 models in the standard line to consider, before going down the custom-wind route.

[ericsabbath]

holy diver is not "too warm"
it's tighter than most alnico pickups i've played
even the warpig is just a bit tighter than it, just having more output
i wouldn't recommend it for what he's looking for cause it's too massive and it has too much mids
it wouldn't get muddy on his guitar cause it's the clearest pickup i've tried, but i don't think it would be a good choice for what he's looking for
the bridge rebel yell is too middy too
i think he's looking for something with paf hollow mids and medium hot output
that's why i suggest an alnico 5 cold sweat
maybe the crawler

[Philly Q]

holy diver is not "too warm"
it's tighter than most alnico pickups i've played
even the warpig is just a bit tighter than it, just having more output
i wouldn't recommend it for what he's looking for cause it's too massive and it has too much mids

Fair enough, I described it badly.  I was under the impression it's a big/fat-sounding pickup with lots of low mids, that's what I meant by "warm".

[bloody_sunday]

Thanks again for all your answers. I have the recommendation from Tim, and I believe you would be interested to see what he had to say:

...having read through your thread I'm going to suggest Rebel Yell humbucker set... Yes, the DC is higher than your old pickups but DC is only a rough guide and no use at all when comparing different wire gauge. Your old pickups are hot and treble bias only because they are ceramic and I think you wouldn't find a loss of output if you swapped to the RY set.

The RY bridge is a classic hard rock humbucker, DC14.45K
Alnico V and will really excel at the tones you're after. The RY neck, DC8.35K Alnico V, is warm and fat but hotter than say a vintage voiced Mule or Stormy Monday neck. The RY set will give you the power, the vintage edge and retain clarity in the high end.

...and I think I am just one step away from being a very happy BKP user!!!