boutique pickups??

[Stonge]

sorry if this post has been covered recently..I usually do not post in this section of the board. BUT:

just curious to know what kind of boutique pickups anyone here may recommend. I am in the market of getting some better pickups for my LP.
I currently have burstbucker2s. Not too fond of these.
I have tried a good amount of pickups to know that I don't want duncans, dimarzio, EMG etc.
However, I have heard of people combining different humbuckers together. (physically) not combinations.
I was looking into the tom anderson H1 and H3s. These are what mesa supposedly tests their stuff on the line with.

Might I add that I play in a metal band that is pretty versatile in terms of touching on a lot of levels. We are not afraid to play clean and crunch. Jazzy, Bluesy and kind of king crimson breakdowns.
I want something that stays heavy with less noise and more articulately defined notes.
I should say that I am a pretty good player, and as every musician can/will always get better.
But nothing is worse than not liking the pickup you have. Almost nothing can fix that. thanks for any and all help.
cheers

 

[iFreedom]

Take a look at Stephen Design pickups.

 

[Stonge]

Do you have a link?

 

[gonzo]

Bill Lawerence Pickups.


boutique tone, for HALF the price of all the others.

http://www.billlawrence.com/
http://wildepickups.com/

info:
http://guitarsbyfender.yuku.com/forums/11

 

[elvis]

If you really want to fix this, be prepared to go thru a few sets of pickups. DiMarzio will let you trade until you find what you like. I don't know if any of the boutique guys will, but it's worth checking.

Don't be afraid to call the builders and talk about it.

Everybody's tastes differ. Everybody's ears differ.

 

[lesterpaul]

you are bound to get a million suggestions , and there are heaps of good pups out there..

I LOVE the Anderson pickups,BUT I have only my Tom A hollow T to gauge it with..dunno about dropping it in a Paul..I DO know Tom himself will reply to you personally if you send him an email...he will be able to tell you better than anyone else,of course

and...when I replaced my BB's with a set of BAre Knuckle "Rebel Yells"...wowdamn!its a smokin' modern AV pup that cleans up well...blues and metal no prob-sits well in a Standard-sweet and open sounding with plenty of harmonics/the highs are so much better than the BB's in my book
I now have B Knucks in almost all of my guitars-I will not be replacing the Andersons,however-they are perfect right where they are!

 

[rjf]

I just bought and installed a Motor City Pickups solution with an alnico magnet. Pretty happy with it as it has really great highs and it's pretty darned crunchy. It's like an organic sounding EMG.

 

[fishyfishfish]

Suhr makes some good stuff that is priced right, as well as Anderson, and I have read good things about Motor City, but never have tried them.
Why boutique by the way?

 

[DC5a]

Have you tried changing out the guitars capacitor(s) to improve your pickup(s) tonality. I spent a lot of time and effort researching better pickups for my Les Paul Deluxe, bar getting another guitar. Tried swapping out the ceramic caps with some russian caps from axegrinder on ebay, and after getting used to redialing in my tone am now much happier with the tonality.. just a thought...
cheers

 

[endless_mike03]

I recently replaced the pickups in my Ibanez S7320 with Bare Knuckle pickups (a Nail Bomb in the bridge, and a Cold Sweat in the neck). The Nail Bomb is very rich in harmonics, and articulates pick attack well, and the Cold Sweat seems like it articulates like a strange mix between a humbucker and a single coil. Weird, I know. I got mine with 4 conductor wire so they're splittable, giving me more tonal options. Both are very good pickups.

 

[Moby1]

http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/

Amazing!!

 

[gonzo]

those are all mostly overpriced.

are they really that much better?

 

[lesterpaul]

those are all mostly overpriced.

are they really that much better?

the knucks kick ***-they were exactly what i was looking for, so "overpriced" is , I suppose, a relative term-i am sure there are pups that kick *** for less( I had some duncans back in the day), but when I find something I dig, then $$ be damned
-I wouldnt have 6 sets of them now if the first didnt knock me in the dirt 8)

 

[Stonge]

Well I decided to stick with my gut and get the TomAndersons. I did what I thought was pretty good research on these, and the one thing that sold me was the fact that supposedly mesa uses these pickups in the final testing stages of their amps (H1neck and H3bridge).

I gotta say..I am not 100% digging them. I put them in a 57 goldtop reissue LP ("bumble bee" caps or whatever). *all recordings I am TALKING about are raw guitar with no EQ* I did some high gain stuff and was not completely impressed. I felt the guitar became more buried and at times sort of muddy. It's a nice tight A and D string sound with a sort of Low E flubb. Maybe I am not in-tune to the pickup yet. I am still going to give it a few more trys before i get rid of them.
On the Clean side of things. Beautiful!!! Amazing!! The H1 sounds great and clear on a clean setting. Not the typical darkness you get out of a LP. The H3 had nice break up with that old kind of chuck berry/rockabilly tone.

Maybe I was misguided into thinking that these pickups were sort of an all around thing but, I really don't like them for high gain at the moment. I should also mention that I am playing a Stiletto. And when it comes to high gain with that thing, my V w/ the 500T in it just kills.
Any input would be nice. Anyone else using these pickups?? Thank you all in advance.

 

[RectoStudioGuy]

Looking at trying out a set of Bare Knuckles

 

[KH Guitar Freak]

Never say never. Sometime a manufacturer you dislike might just have something you like...

On the other hand, I hope you are not getting pickups to change the tone of the guitar, only to get a set that accomodates the natural tone of the guitar...

 

[lesterpaul]

Well I decided to stick with my gut and get the TomAndersons. I did what I thought was pretty good research on these, and the one thing that sold me was the fact that supposedly mesa uses these pickups in the final testing stages of their amps (H1neck and H3bridge).

I gotta say..I am not 100% digging them. I put them in a 57 goldtop reissue LP ("bumble bee" caps or whatever). *all recordings I am TALKING about are raw guitar with no EQ* I did some high gain stuff and was not completely impressed. I felt the guitar became more buried and at times sort of muddy. It's a nice tight A and D string sound with a sort of Low E flubb. Maybe I am not in-tune to the pickup yet. I am still going to give it a few more trys before i get rid of them.
On the Clean side of things. Beautiful!!! Amazing!! The H1 sounds great and clear on a clean setting. Not the typical darkness you get out of a LP. The H3 had nice break up with that old kind of chuck berry/rockabilly tone.

Maybe I was misguided into thinking that these pickups were sort of an all around thing but, I really don't like them for high gain at the moment. I should also mention that I am playing a Stiletto. And when it comes to high gain with that thing, my V w/ the 500T in it just kills.
Any input would be nice. Anyone else using these pickups?? Thank you all in advance.

well, TA's sound killer in ...TA's....never seen/heard them in a Paul...the H3 in a TA drop top would be plenty high gain..difference in guitar wood/mass/board,etc....I may be wrong, but I don't see them as aftermarket LP pups..of course, if you did research, you may have seen where lots of people have used them in pauls with great results!they are great pups..I have heard a couple of different versions up close and personal, and they sit perfectly in a TA..

 

[pipedwho]

I find I have to back off the bass a little and enhance the mids when running my H3 (in an Anderson Drop Top). These pickups have a very extended bandwidth that seems to have more lows and highs than typical PAF derived humbuckers. Anderson does have some humbuckers than sound more mid enhanced than the H series. But, it really comes down to making sure the amp is set appropriately for the guitar/pickups. Not all amps can handle the huge amount of bass that the Anderson pickups can muster.

The HN series are very clear like the H series while adding more mids to help keep high gain running clear. The HO and HF series have that PAF sound with the usual narrow bandwidth that people are used to from a PAF (ie. more mids with rolled off highs and lows). The HF series has a bit more sparkle than the HO series, but share a similar traditional characteristic sound.

 

[Stonge]

OK..
I take everything back from previous posts about the TA H1 and H3. These really are very nice pickups. I never really cared too much about pickups in the past until recently because I couldn't stand the gibson humbuckers that I had in my LP. Well I got these things wax-potted and holy ****. much more controllable and clear. Ya know in the end it's not about the car, its about the driver - but when a good driver has a really nice car...look the **** out!! Check these out if you are looking for nice aggressive but clear humbuckers. From high gain to sparkling cleans. For sure the best sounding neck pickup I have heard in any LP with the clean channel engaged w/ raw guitar anyway (h1).

 

[bermuda_]

I'm planning on replacing my bridge pickup, but I can't decide on what pickup I should buy.

I was thinking of purchasing one of those Bareknuckle Painkiller pickups, I know there expensive to buy but they seem to be very promising pickups, one thing I noticed about these pickups are they sound very tight, for palm muting, and have a nice sounding mid range them, which is a plus for me.