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Hatsubai « Slightly vintage-esque »
Published on 05/18/11 at 15:37The Irish Tour is a vintage hot pickup that Bare Knucke Pickups offers. The pickup is a two conductor pickup and comes with an Alnico V magnet and staggered pole pieces for that ultra vintage look. It also has various different colors you can choose from.
The Irish Tour set is for people who are looking for that almost Stevie Ray Vaughan kind of tone. They have that ultra overwound kind of tone that really overdrives an amp without sounding too modern and aggressive. The low end on these things is absolutely amazing. They’re super fat sounding, and the low end just seems to really bloom. The midrange is slightly scooped, and that helps keep everything clear sounding as opposed to being overly boxy and narrow. The treble is bright with some nice spank, but it’s not terribly brittle.
The calibrated set seems to work great for strats, but I also found that these pickups pair nicely with humbuckers in the bridge. When you have a humbucker in the bridge, the split tones with the humbucker sound great. It definitely has that super vintage overdrive sound with that well known “quack” going on. These can also work nicely with the hotter singles such as the Trilogy or the Sinner. It all depends on what you’re going for in terms of sound.
Since these are strat style pickups, I’ve only tried them in alder. They seem to be suited for neutral sounding woods like alder or maybe basswood. However, they’d probably work just as nicely in mahogany or swamp ash.
If you’re looking for that SRV kind of tone from the BKP lineup, you’ll definitely want to check these pickups out. If you find that these don’t have enough output or are not powerful enough for you, check out the Trilogy or the Sinner.
The Irish Tour set is for people who are looking for that almost Stevie Ray Vaughan kind of tone. They have that ultra overwound kind of tone that really overdrives an amp without sounding too modern and aggressive. The low end on these things is absolutely amazing. They’re super fat sounding, and the low end just seems to really bloom. The midrange is slightly scooped, and that helps keep everything clear sounding as opposed to being overly boxy and narrow. The treble is bright with some nice spank, but it’s not terribly brittle.
The calibrated set seems to work great for strats, but I also found that these pickups pair nicely with humbuckers in the bridge. When you have a humbucker in the bridge, the split tones with the humbucker sound great. It definitely has that super vintage overdrive sound with that well known “quack” going on. These can also work nicely with the hotter singles such as the Trilogy or the Sinner. It all depends on what you’re going for in terms of sound.
Since these are strat style pickups, I’ve only tried them in alder. They seem to be suited for neutral sounding woods like alder or maybe basswood. However, they’d probably work just as nicely in mahogany or swamp ash.
If you’re looking for that SRV kind of tone from the BKP lineup, you’ll definitely want to check these pickups out. If you find that these don’t have enough output or are not powerful enough for you, check out the Trilogy or the Sinner.