Help choosing Bare Knuckle pickups.

Roadrunner

Roadrunner

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So…it's time for a pickup swap, I do it on every guitar I have every few years.
I'm on the traditional line for more than 20 years, using always Dimarzio, Duncan and EMG's and its time for something totally new and different.
So, the victim now is 5A book match mahogany body with quilted maple top, the bolt on neck is also book matched made of maple and maple finger board.
Pickups are H/H.

What I'm looking for? Clarity and clean, when driven hard, full on metal with big chords including high strings I would like to hear each note.
Good articulation when playing rhythm, tightness.
Clean have to be round (when running full humbוcker) rich and crisp when coil spited.

Very important is versatility, ability to play cleans on the edge of breakup, and hear it well.

I play in a cover band so I don’t want to make it a one trick pony…

I got some recommends for Aftermath set but I'm not so sure this the right choice for me.
So, what do you guys use?
 
I have a Les Paul Axcess with Rebel Yells and series/parallel switching. That is my most flexible guitar that I play most of the time in my mostly cover band. I also have a Les Paul with Riff Raff bridge and The Mule neck - this is an awesome combination for a great classic rock Les Paul. My Suhr SSH strat has a Crawler in the bridge with series/parallel switching together with DiMarzio Area single coils - just a very well matched set for a very flexible setup as well. And finally a Maton BB1200 (semi hollow) with a Riff Raff set that works very well as well. I've also tried Abraxas and the Mule sets in my Les Paul Axcess. The Mule had a bit too little output to split well, apart from that all BKP have worked very well. It sounds though that you're looking for higher output pickups and can't really help you with that and all BKP pickups I've tried have had great clarity, probably coming from them being scatter wound and hand wound. They work great clean, edge of breakup and handle pretty high gain as well (all I need). To me it has been more to find the right flavour for each guitar.

I would recommend emailing the guys at BKP, I've never been disappointed following their recommendations.

Enjoy your Bareknuckle journey, I love mine :).
 
I have only tried the aftermaths,playing downtuned stuff they really growl and bite! They sound quite mid-focused and cut through a heavy live band scenario really well and sounded great in clean, they clean up completely. I am guessing they will sound great at any tuning though as i didnt hear any bad part of the neck at all.

I'll be keeping my eye on this thread as i am curious to know other people's opinions aswell.
 
I wanted the same, so I wrote to Bare Knuckle to ask about Riff Raff. They recommended alnico Nailbomb or Rebel Yell since Riff Raff is mostly for Gibson type of guitar and has less output (I have a Carvin DC727), not enough for metal. I liked the audio clip of the Rebel Yell the most among all hot modern pickups that Bare Knuckle offers, so I ordered an open calibrated set and I'm still waiting for them. I hope they'll arive this week. As soon as I have them built in and get to test them, I will share my impressions....if you can wait that long :)
 
Sounds like you may be looking for either a Rebel Yell or VH2 set.

For reference, I have owned Bare Knuckle sets of Cold Sweats, Holy Divers, Miracle Man, Rebel Yell and the VH2 bridge pup. With the exception of the RY and VH2, BK pups seem either too mid-focused like the Divers, or too mid-scooped, like the Cold Sweat and Miracle Man. I really like the VH2 in my bolt-on Charvel San Dimas with Floyd Rose bridge (Duncan '59 in neck) and the Rebel Yell set in a Les Paul (both without covers), probably because they aren't middy or scooped by nature. They both do great cleans, and can do classic rock to full-on metal with excellent clarity. Not recommended for down-tuned metal or the really heavy scooped stuff. The VH2 is a bit more vintage sounding, while the RY more contempary, hence their categories on the BK website. I think Tim's EQ illustrations on the web page for each pup is really accurate. Either one would probably work in your setup.
 
I have the Painkillers installed on my Les Paul. I also emailed them years back (about 4-5 years ago) and they recommended the Painkillers. Never looked back; love them!

PJ
 
You should email them. Tell them everything you can about your guitar and what you want out of the pickups. (What sound you're going for, what you don't like about your pickups now, sound clips, etc.) Their support team is extremely helpful!
 
I love my Bare Knuckle pickups, I have the Supermassive Humbucker-Sized P90's in the neck of my LesPauls and the Black Dog in two and Aftermath for my Drop-c guitar. Planning to try the Holydiver. I play Hard Rock and Classic Rock. The HS-SMP-90's sound so big for cleans. Black Dogs have nice smooth overdriven sound heavy but clean and clear.
 
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Just email them what you're looking for and they'll tell you the best pickup for your guitar. I have a set of Nailbombs for my Ibanez RG550 and they sound great.
 
Hey guys thanks for the useful info.
So few things:
First, the application is changed, as always my go to with pickups selecting is modern approach and so was this time BUT then after few e-mails with Bare Knuckle who BTW have great service, I realized that this time I have to try it different way as I need this specific guitar for my cover band and we are playing many old AC/DC, Deep Purple, Zeppelin etc.

So, I need it to be not to vintage but not a modern killer.
Something that will serve well on both worlds, both classic and modern rock tones.

After many email and vids over tube, I think that NAILBOMB set (Alnico magnets) is a good choice for my needs.
What do you think?
 
sandmannn69 said:
(…) BK pups seem either too mid-focused like the Divers
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Strange, I have a Holydiver in the bridge of my Ibanez RG, and I could use a little more mids… But I probably like low mids too much.
I ordered a Holydiver (bridge) and Emerald neck after telling them I wanted something versatile enough to cover everything from modern blues/rock to metal (not djent) through classic rock. This combo works well for that, it's just a tad more bright in positions 2 & 4 than I expected, and I wanted the Holydiver a little more fat too. But they are really clear and precise pickups
 
I guess the Juggernauts is what I would try myself. It's not just a djent pickup. I think Misha said that he replaced his PRS pickups with them and the Juggs made the PRS pickups sound thin. Now that itself should tell you something since PRS pickups are known to have a huge low end. :)

To be honest I've had bad luck with BKP pickups. I had the Black Hawks in an Evertune VGS guitar which to me sounded cheap. Well they were in a cheap guitar but I bought those pickups as an upgrade and I didn't really notice a huge difference. It's definitely not something like you'd expect after putting a JB in a cheap guitar. I also had Painkillers in my EBMM JP6 at one point and I returned the guitar back to the luthier because I thought it was wired in a wrong way. Turns out it wasn't. The presence in that particular pickup sounded almost single coilish. I dunno if it's just my playing/picking style though. Once again there are so many huge artists making amazing music with those pickups. That's all the proof you need. :)

But sure.. I would suggest Juggernauts.
 
pjrake said:
I have the Painkillers installed on my Les Paul. I also emailed them years back (about 4-5 years ago) and they recommended the Painkillers. Never looked back; love them!

PJ
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I also have Painkillers on my Les Paul.
What's your INSTR IN level?
 
BKP Juggernauts are by far my favorite pickups. They remind me of the original dimarzio custom wound set petrucci had on the first iteration of the EBMM JP's but with a little more beef. They're very dynamic and just to give you an idea, I used them in my church worship band. It's not just a metal pickup.
 
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Yes the guy from BK pickups told me that a Juggernaut pair would be the other option for me, and sometimes I regret not going for these instead
 
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