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Bare Knuckle Buyers Guide
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BAREKNUCKLE PICKUP BUYERS GUIDE VINTAGE TONE MONSTERS TO CONTEMPORARY WAR MACHINES PLEASE READ: TIM MILLS on BKP AUTHENTICITY Any Bare Knuckle pickup is going to sound very musical and can be considered a sonic upgrade to your current stock or mass produced pickup. All these pickups sound very good. I cannot state that plainly enough. There are inherent similarities across all Bare Knuckle pickups. Bare Knuckle's have a 'soul' with sensitivity, liveliness and great natural overtones. This organic nature is largely due to the fact that they're scatter-wound by hand and the high quality components used.
HUMBUCKERS VINTAGE HUMBUCKER SERIES When Gibson scatterwound pickups back in the 50's the machine that released the wire to the person winding the pickup sometimes went over the number of winds it was supposed to stop at. The Bare knuckle Vintage Hot series are reproductions of these overwound PAFs. The sound of all of these sets gives great classic rock and excellent blues tones with no lack of clarity at all. STORMY MONDAY PG BLUES THE MULE RIFF RAFF BLACK DOGS BKP Black Dogs are based on the original PAF humbuckers that have been overwound. A straight up Bare Knuckle PAF is called the Mule. The black dogs are a more muscular take on this design. It's a hotter PAF pickup. I really do think of the Mules as being equivalents to the Gibson PAFs (unaged of course). I mean they are duplicates in every way and they are scatterwound by someone who knows how to wind very well. A PAF pickup like the Mule can be every bit is versatile as the original pickups in vintage Les Pauls. The Black Dogs are based on this pickup but they are hotter and their eq curve or frequency spectrum is voiced different. The Black dogs are full bodied and strong with classic mid range detail. You can also think of the Black Dog as a PAF specially wound to achieve the classic tones of Led Zepplin (ie the sound of Jimmy Pages guitar on the song Black Dog). VINTAGE HOT SERIES VHII The VHIIs are GREAT pickups. I use them in one of my Heritage 140s along with a Mule in the Neck. This is my most versatile guitar. The VHII is very warm and dynamic. If your pots are good you can roll back the vol and go from PAF pure blues up to EVH and joe satriani . The VHII is widely overlooked because mostly only EVH fans pay attention to it. But its truly a great pickup. I really like the Mules and the Black Dogs, the more traditional PAFs, but when it comes time for something with more kick I like the VHII. The Rebel Yell is also cool and in the same ballpark. The VHII is more of an old school sound though and the Rebel Yell is more modern sounding; but its still very much a PAF sounding pickup. The Nailbombs are also PAF based but with these pickups (Miracle Man, Painkiller, etc) the EQ curves and voicings are changed to suite the styles. I like the more traditional PAF voicings and I think the VHII is in that category and the Rebel Yell Rides the line. The Warpig is for brutal hardcore distortion when you just can't get enough gain. This pickup can go head to head with any active pickup including the new Black series. The Warpig is so warm and organic however that it makes these other hi gain pickups sound like transistor radios. The Warpig also cleans up very well and is more versitile and has more tones in it that ANY other high gain pickup. So, in a Nutshell, the above is a good description of what the BKP humbucker series is like. I am leaving out a lot though. Just ask me any questions you need. ABRAXAS CONTEMPORY SERIES HOLYDIVER Some players relate the sound of this pickup to the original Super Distortion however the Holy Diver is not plauged by the problems that the Super Distortion has. Its a much better pickup so I'm careful about downgrading BKPs by comparing them to pickups that aren't anywhere near as tonefull. In short, if your looking for the Super Distortion vibe check out the Holy Diver. COLD SWEAT MIRACLE MAN NAILBOMB Metal players start with the Nailbombs. If you want something fuller, go for the Painkillers, and fuller still, the Warpig. Tim says the Nailbomb is perfect for copping the tones of Joe Satriani and another pickup for doing the Satch tone would be the VHII.
WARPIG "Brutal" is too simplistic a word for the dirty tones produced by the Warpig. It's like calling an exquisite, complex ale "tasty." With a distortion signal engaged, the Warpigs have shown themselves capable of gorgeously wailing lead tones and hammerstriking chord voicing, with lengthy and singing sustain. Good for detuning. With a simple scale-back on the volume knob, kate 70's/early 80's true Heavy Metal territory, evoking shades of Schenker and early Vivian Campbell, but with more harmonic character than those guys or most of their contemporaries were ever able to achieve back in the day. On a clean channel, with a Les Paul pickup selector switch in the middle and both volumes at about 8 o'clock, very organic clean tones, like a deep bell being chimed softly in a canyon. "Recently, I wrote a comparison article pitting my Charvel/Warpig combination against a friends Gibson Les Paul Custom with Seymour Duncan Blackouts; one of the hottest active pickups around. The Duncans shook the ground a little more, but mine maintained much greater clarity and individual note definition. It shakes the ground, too; just not quite as much as the Blackouts. At the end of the test, I liked the Warpig better and my friend liked his Blackouts. So we both won! [Ed. from Harmony Central User Review]". PAINKILLER SIGNATURE SERIES REBEL YELL, Steve Stevens Signature CRAWLER, Geoff Whitehorn You can really make your amp roar with CRAWLERS, though the vintage characteristic is still present. Very versatile and effective. They've got a bottom which is pretty much what you would expect from a hot PAF, though more mid-range than a real hot PAF (like an Abraxas) would have. SINGLE COIL PICKUPS VINTAGE SERIES SINGLE COILS Apache Bare Knuckle Apache single coils are based on the original Fender Stratocaster single coils (1954 -1959). Hank Marvin being a fine point of sonic reference. These pickups are true to the orignals in everyway. Construction materials are as close as possible to the orignals. If the orignal componets could not be sourced them BKP made it themselves. No retrofit pickup manufacture comes this close. That's a fact. For instance the cloth covered wire comes from the same vendor and is of the same spec as Fender used in the 50's.Using Alnico III magnets with a 1956-style polepiece stagger,these are truly authentic 'pups get better sustain, less string pull and less colouration. Expressive and dynamic, with a set of transparent tones that sing sweetly when played clean and dirty up magically. Words don’t quite manage, to describe this excellent set of pickups. Mother's Milk Bare Knuckle Mother's Milk single coils are based on the single coils in John Frusciante 1962 Fender Stratocaster. These pickups give the ultimate classic sixty's strat vintage tone. Mother's Milk are probably the best all around choice for your strat. These pickups will go beyond your expectations. No gimmicks, just pure tone. You can cover a lot of sonic ground with a set of Mother's Milk pickups. The sweet clean tones of Hendrix, the growl of SRV, or the crystal sophistication of Knopler. Afer putting these pickups in your strat you will understand why your guitar has a 5-way switch. Each position will come alive and is sonicly distinct from the next. VINTAGE HOT SERIES SINGLE COILS Irish Tours Bare Knuckle Irish Tour single coils are based on the legendary tone of Rory Gallagher's battered Fender Stratocaster as heard on the infamous Irish Tour CD. These pickups give the ultimate overwound strat tone. These are the pickups for achieving the hot Texas Blues sound. A lot of players going for the SRV tone use Irish Tours. Dig in with these and rip somebody's head off! Irish Tours sound good. They are overwound examples of the classic 60's pre CBS fender pickup sound (think Mother Milk). Not the late 50's springy sound, sound the higher output sound of the late 60's and seventies but the warm and woody classic sound of the early 60's (1960-1962) Fender single coil pickups (e.g. Mothers Milk). Thus this is the neck pickup that will demonstrate the real bell tones that made the Fender Strat famous. The IT bridge perfecly nails Rory's classic bridge sound heard on so many of his studio and live recordings. The accuracy of the reproduction o this tone is just stunning. With the bit of overwinding added to the Irish Tour you get the hotter Rory Gallagher and SRV sounds in a bottle. SRV used pickups from this era as well as earlier pickups. His tone came from large strings and big hands, brute force, and lots of amp power. I think this was his secrete more than a special overwound pickup but it is accurate to say that it is a lot easier to get those tones with Irish Tours and you can do it without Stevie's Fingers and a while keeping your .10's on. Shame on American strat players who are not familiar with Rory Gallagher, his amazing heritage of authentic blues playing, and his tone. Fender Released a really nice set of pickups only available in the Rory Gallagher Custom Shop strat and I have first hand seen Irish tours not only out perform these pickups but also better capture the essence of Rory's strat sound (he used the same strat throughout his 30+ year career.) He was the real thing and so are the Irish Tour pickups that Tim at BK perfected in his honer. Now go download Rory's classic live Irish Tour CD and decide for yourself . These pickups also easily get the SRV tones as well. SRV in a bottle I call it. These overwinds are not as effected by the muddiness of most lower end over wound pickups. Actually, they are not that overwound based on their measured output but they are a bit hotter than the Mother Milk BKPs. They will get the job done and they retain the sweetness of lower output singles that most overwounds loose looking for all that artificial eq changing and extra bite. No, these are the real thing. Just good pickups that will let you coax or hammer your own tones from them. We have sold many Irish Tour sets and customers love them. CONTEMPORARY SERIES SINGLE COILS Sinner (Bridge) The Sinner is a very special pickup to say the least. Do you love the sound of your stratocaster but you find the bridge position/pickup to be to thin and weak? Ultimately a bridge single coil falls short to providing the gain structure needed for hard rock under many circumstances. You can use a humbucker type pickup in this position but then you lose the single coil clarity. Overwound single coils intended to beef up the bridge also suffer from a drop in clarity and the frequency response is not as wide. The solution: The Bare Knuckle Sinner. This single coil pickup can bury most humbuckers when it comes to tone and distortion. Yet, it still sounds like a single coil! It retains all the clarity and warmth of single coils, but provides tons of output and sonic character without putting an ice pick in your ears. This pickup is truly amazing. The Sinner cleans up very well. It can go from clean, to classic rock, or brutal. Do not think of this as a modern sounding pickup verses a vintage sounding pickup. This Sinner coil can do either amazingly well depending on the rest of your gear. That, my friend, is a cardinal feature of a great pickup. Think of the Sinner as a high output single coil that does not compromise on clarity and definition. The only way this pickup could be any better would be to make a P90 -- Still can't make up your mind or have other questions? CONTACT US at Peerlesstone and ask for our opinion. Include an accurate description of your rig and what sort of sounds you want.
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