(10-27-2014, 08:20 PM)Big Flannel Wrote: I have not played an Invader yet. Its been on my radar for a while but I always put off trying it. I hear that its either the greatest sledghammer of a pickup ever or a steeming pile of assmud.
Isn't the Warping essentially BKP's take on the invader?
the assmud thing comes from noobs who think "OMG I WANT TEH MATULZ!" and buy the most metal looking and most metal-named pickup they can find (the Invader), they stick it in whatever low end jackson, ibanez or bc rich they have, completely ignore the fact that they are using assmud pieces of shit line 6 spider amps, and then jump on forums to complain about how their sound is assmud.
If you have a happenin' amp, it will be a sledgehammer in a meat market.
I have no idea about the warpig though.
(10-27-2014, 10:30 PM)Big Flannel Wrote: Addendum:
I consider myself a high output kinda guy, but the Hovercraft foes have gobs of gain. Is there any point in using high output pickups with a really high gain amp?
I'm sorry for the remedial question, but out of all of us, I'm probably the least experienced when it comes to replacement pickups.
Thanks for your help so far, guys.
IMO yes and no. A lot of old farts on SDUGF will tell you that you can play metal with PAFs. They are technically right, but also wrong. You can play metal with anything. You can take some low output lipstick pickups that jangle like a spring reverb and play metal on it. It'll sound like shit, but you can play metal on it.
PAFs weren't designed to project the heft and viciousness that good metal tone demands. They WERE designed to accurately reproduce the sound of the strings, and they do that quite respectably. But in a metal context, they end up sounding too clean, polite and weak. They don't growl and froth at the mouth. But hell, you could play venezuelan sheep herding music on it... you can play anything you want, but that doesn't mean it'll sound good.
Anyway, I digress. With amps with gargantuan amounts of gain, getting distortion is not a problem. The only problems left in terms of the pickup are expressiveness, EQ and feel.
In recent years I've found myself leaning more towards moderate output pickups rather than high output. They are easier to control in a live situation, they're lower output thus generally more articulate with less compression, but they have enough attitude to light a fire under my amp's pants, so to speak.
End result: Mean sounding metal tones that are blazingly expressive, EQ'd perfectly, cut like a razor, and still punch like mike tyson. As a result of them being moderate output, they are also able to be FAR more versatile than high output pickups and can drift in an out of many genres effortlessly.
But I probably like a different sort of metal tone than you're going for. If you want a thick, meaty, sloppy, crusty mess, my approach is not one you should take.