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elvis said:
Ordered some BKP Nailbombs for my JCRG7. Can't wait to try them!
Did you ever get these installed? I have a set of BK Nailbomb alnicos coming for the Les Paul and would like to hear your opinion of yours and any tips to tweaking in the p'up height, coil tapping opinions etc.

Dom
 
Ha, Nailbombs are like a slightly hotter version of the Rebel Yells and they have a hair more bass. If I was to buy more Pickups for a Les Paul, I'd probably get a nailbomb for the bridge (depends on the guitar) and something like an Emerald or a Riffraff for the neck. Les Pauls have bassy neck pickups so the idea is to try and balance the tone so that you can maximize your 'colours' you get from your guitar. That being said, the Bare Knuckles are well calibrated so pickup placement will help a lot!

IN a Les Paul, you say?
What model of Les Paul are you using?
Have you upgraded your electronics?

Stock electronics sound sterile and choke off a lot of the upper harmonics that make these pickups really shine.

Step 1
Upgrade your electronics. I cannot stress this enough. 500k CTS pots and paper in oil caps. I used 0.22uf caps on both pickups.

Step 2
I went with 50s wiring. Snake oil or not, it sounds great!

Step 3
Pickup setup.

I run my bridge pickup fairly high. If you stick a penny on top of the bridge pickup and you fret the strings at the 20th fret, the height of the strings are the height of the penny above the pickup. That's really HOT and gives a lot of output. For the nailbombs, you'll have more output so you might have to back off the height slightly. If it gets too overwhelmingly bassy then lowering the pickup a bit tightens up the bass.

I run my neck pickup LOW. It is below the level of the fingerboard and I use the pole pieces to adjust the output. I have the E string pole piece fairly low to really minimize woofiness for clean and crunch chording with the neck pickup. The other pole pieces get higher towards the skinny strings to maintain an even output across the neck.

I haven't tried coil tapping but this doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Have fun!! :D
 
Sadly, no, I have not installed them yet. They don't fit the screwy route that Ibanez used and I have been looking for a way to keep from cutting the flame maple top to get them in.

:(
 
YellowJacket said:
IN a Les Paul, you say?
What model of Les Paul are you using?
Have you upgraded your electronics?
They are for the '73 Custom in my sig. Electronics are far, far gone from stock LOL, CTS 500K Pots that measure ~515K, Mallory .22uf caps. and a CAL Redeemer (buffer).

I don't buy into that Tone Cap mojo, the audio signal that goes through the cap never makes it to the amp, it goes straight to ground via the tone pot as you bleed off the high freq's, YMMV. I chose the Mallory's for quality & reliability.

I've owned the guitar since 1984 & had tried just about every imaginable mainstream pickup both active & passive before I settled on the Bill Lawrence 500's a few years ago. It's not that I'm unhappy with the L500-XL/R config, I'm just looking to try something different in my Ol' Norlin and I hear great things about BK P'ups.

I can't wait to give the Nailbombs a run!

Dom
 
They're very interesting pickups. They're quite bright with very even high end harmonics and a very wide pick attack. They maintain clarity with high gain very VERY well and they really breathe for cleans. I don't know if I'd say they're definitively better than another pickup brand but I will say that their tonal characteristics makes them sound fantastic and co-operate very well with Mesa amps in particular.

As you know, they won't completely change your tone but they'll add a very attractive crispness to it.

RE: Paper in oil caps. You have to understand that a ground that bleeds off frequencies still is 'in' the circuit and affects tone, although it is probably pretty **** subtle. It really depends WHICH frequencies the cap bleeds off, that is ultimately what colours the tone.

I personally noticed a night and day difference between the ceramic disc cap and the paper in oil cap. The stock electronics choked the tone of the guitar and rolling back on the tone knobs removed tone and made the tone sound muddy and dead. The new setup I have emphasizes more midrange as I roll back the tone control and it shapes the sound, creating something more warm and midrange heavy which is really useable, especially for Jazz.

I agree with you that the difference between Paper in Oil caps and other caps isn't so much, but I don't think it does nothing. You have to understand that the difference between 50s and modern style wiring also isn't so much. The difference between one high end pickup to another isn't so much. The difference between high quality patch cables isn't so much. The difference between high quality speaker leads isn't so much. BUT, when you add them all up, it can make a much bigger difference down the line.
 
Well, I always try to keep an open mind, I have a pair of Vitamin Q PIOs on the way. I'll let you know if I notice any advantage over the Mallory's.

I have always used the 50's wiring, and all my cables are George L or Canare/Neutrik ;)

Dom
 
Interesting.

Can you possibly record before / after to see if there really 'IS' an audible difference? I changed pots, caps, and wiring at once so I cannot attribute the whole change to the caps alone. For recording, it would be best to record with the tone on 10, 7.5, 5, 2.5, and 0. I suspect that you will notice the most difference when you roll off your tone knobs.

Re: Rebel yells. I adjusted the pickups and the pole pieces more and I got the low end back under control with the neck pickup. Definitely great pickups for a more modern tone from a Les Paul. Similar to a set of Burstbucker Pros but the neck pickup has a more controlled low end, the bridge pickup is fatter and doesn't sound thin when it cleans up. There is more output, especially from the bridge pickup. The tone overall is brighter, more open, and it takes gain like a champ. Very articulate with a great pick attack. Very awesome!

Still kinda thinking about another set for the Godin LG, but I could get a whole second LG used for the price of the pickup set.
 
YellowJacket said:
Re: Rebel yells. I adjusted the pickups and the pole pieces more and I got the low end back under control with the neck pickup. Definitely great pickups for a more modern tone from a Les Paul. Similar to a set of Burstbucker Pros but the neck pickup has a more controlled low end, the bridge pickup is fatter and doesn't sound thin when it cleans up. There is more output, especially from the bridge pickup. The tone overall is brighter, more open, and it takes gain like a champ. Very articulate with a great pick attack. Very awesome!

Still kinda thinking about another set for the Godin LG, but I could get a whole second LG used for the price of the pickup set.
Rebs-my fave -great modern LP tone!
 
lesterpaul said:
Rebs-my fave -great modern LP tone!

Exactly. Tones of tight throaty clear midrange crunch. Bare Knuckle pickups in general are like crack cocaine. I'm seriously thinking of putting a set in my Godin LG as well as my Les Paul. I LOVE the duncans in there right now but the thought of a more harmonically rich and clearer pickup with the same voice seems almost irresistible.
 
Everything is in for the swap. I'm keeping the CTS pots, 3-Way switch & Output Jack I have now, everything else is new.
The Sprague PIO's are .01uf for the Neck, .022uf for the Bridge.

I'll try to get to it this week.

BKpups.jpg

spragueq.jpg


Dom
 
I got the p'ups into the Paul last night, everything works as planned, I wired the Neck p'up coils on a DPDT switch so I can choose the coils in series or parallel.

I quickly set p'up/coil height and noodled for 10 min or so at low volume through the MKV. I'll wait until I get to our practice studio (singer's basement :wink: ) so I can fine tune through my Roadster & get a real good impression of the p'ups through the rig I play 95% of the time.

The Neck p'up is very similar to the BL L500-R it replaced. When the coils are in parallel I get a great "single-coil" type tone from them (with no hum), and in series the pickup is very full, with a much tighter bottom than the L500-R. I get the impression that solo's are going to be a lot of fun on this p'up.

The Bridge p'up is quite different from the L500-XL it replaced. It is very "throaty" in the mids and I got great harmonics and picking dynamics right out of the gate. Palm muted runs were tight and very percussive, and high-gain chording is very clear.

I'll post my full impressions of the Nailbombs in a few weeks after some practices with the band.

However, my tone controls seem to work exactly the same with the Sprague PIO's as they did with the Mallory's :lol: .

Dom
 
Ha, those Bare Knuckles are magic, huh? They're so AMAZING!
You're going to be having fun at rehearsal when you get a chance to crank the gain!!!!

As for the PIO caps, I noticed a huge difference but I also changed the pots and the wiring at the same time so there are a lot of confounds. So you tried rolling back the tone controls? I get such fantastic jazz tones doing this whereas before, the tone controls sucked the life out of the guitar.
 
I think the drastic change you heard is more from component values then component composition. I changed the p'ups & caps, but the pot values, cap values & wiring scheme remained the same.

The tone controls "feel" the same to me. I can't comment on how they sound because I changed p'ups.

Dom
 
So you'd have to do a proper AB test to figure this out. I suspect they 'feel' the same because you have the same pots in the guitar still so the taper is still the same. The Caps are probably far more subtle and I would postulate that they are most noticeable when the tone control is almost off. But yes you are right, the pickups make a huge difference.

The Nailbombs sound AWESOME! Let me know how things go for your rehearsal. My Rebel Yells also have a throaty midrange but the bottom end is tighter and the pickups sound clearer in general, with a really wide pick attack. They're more "ROCK" than the Nailbombs are.
 

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