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King Loudness « Overpriced and overhyped... »
Published on 04/18/11 at 15:40These were without a doubt some of the worst Strat type of pickups I've ever used.... I purchased a heavily modified Jimmie Vaughan signature Fender Strat with these installed at the tail end of last year. I had heard so many good things about BKPs and was hoping that a $300 set of pickups would sound at least passable... I was wrong. The nature of the pickups was extremely hot and scooped sounding, not at all what I was looking for. The name to me implied reference to an Yngwie Malmsteen type of sound. For those that don't realize, Yngwie uses very low output pickups into a cranked Marshall with a boost. These do not do his tone, or any other classic "Strat" tone justice in my opinion.
For starters, they had FAR too much output for a pickup that was apparently (given its name) supposed to ape a classic "Yngwie" tone. This made for a very muddy and bad sounding set of pickups. To me, the idea of high output and Strat pickup together is never a good combination and these pickups prove why. Clean tones were far too bass heavy and fairly flat in the treble, with no midrange to speak of. There was none of the glassy top end and shimmer that make a Strat pickup shine. Compared to my '79 Strat that had stock greybottom Fender pickups, my JV Strat with these pickups just sounded dead out of the water. Also, the fact that they were extremely scooped in nature was a huge annoyance and frustration to me. I like pickups that have a neutral frequency response that allow your picking dynamics and amp texture to come through. With these pickups, all I noticed was a sound that scooped the mids out to a point that all I felt I could use them for was thrash metal... very disappointing.
I wouldn't be so harsh if it wasn't for the fact that these pickups are around $300 for a set. Handwound or not... they're absolutely terrible and I feel bad for anyone paying for the $300 hype. If you want good Yngwie esque tone, look into the DiMarzio HS3s, YJMs. or the new Seymour Duncan YJM Fury pickups. All of them are much cheaper and sound much better than these abominations.
For starters, they had FAR too much output for a pickup that was apparently (given its name) supposed to ape a classic "Yngwie" tone. This made for a very muddy and bad sounding set of pickups. To me, the idea of high output and Strat pickup together is never a good combination and these pickups prove why. Clean tones were far too bass heavy and fairly flat in the treble, with no midrange to speak of. There was none of the glassy top end and shimmer that make a Strat pickup shine. Compared to my '79 Strat that had stock greybottom Fender pickups, my JV Strat with these pickups just sounded dead out of the water. Also, the fact that they were extremely scooped in nature was a huge annoyance and frustration to me. I like pickups that have a neutral frequency response that allow your picking dynamics and amp texture to come through. With these pickups, all I noticed was a sound that scooped the mids out to a point that all I felt I could use them for was thrash metal... very disappointing.
I wouldn't be so harsh if it wasn't for the fact that these pickups are around $300 for a set. Handwound or not... they're absolutely terrible and I feel bad for anyone paying for the $300 hype. If you want good Yngwie esque tone, look into the DiMarzio HS3s, YJMs. or the new Seymour Duncan YJM Fury pickups. All of them are much cheaper and sound much better than these abominations.