To D-activate or not?

JJLipton · Post by **JJLipton** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 3:35 pm

So i've been unsatisfied with the dimarzio crunch lab in a mahogany body PRS lately. I was thinking about replacing the pickups with Dimarzio D-Activators. I was concerned however that the pickups will be a bit too high output for my tastes though. Since this board seems to favor high output humbuckers (jb, super distortion, etc) I was wondering what you thought about this? Some other options i was considering are Bare Knuckle, but the U.S. price is crazy.

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 7:50 pm

I've always wanted to try the Bare Knuckle War Pigs but they only come in that awful finish. Supposed to be pretty dead on an 81/85 set except passive.

Thom · Post by **Thom** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:00 pm

BacchusPaul wrote:I've always wanted to try the Bare Knuckle War Pigs but they only come in that awful finish. Supposed to be pretty dead on an 81/85 set except passive.

You can get warpigs in whatever finish you want, covered or open poled. I've never heard of them referred to as 81/85 equivalents, that's more the Miracle Man territory.

Edit: JJ I've never been disappointed with Bare Knuckles, but yeah they are expensive. If you want more info on them let me know what sort of sound you are after and I can give you some suggestions as to which model might suit.

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:44 pm

Thom wrote:
BacchusPaul wrote:I've always wanted to try the Bare Knuckle War Pigs but they only come in that awful finish. Supposed to be pretty dead on an 81/85 set except passive.
You can get warpigs in whatever finish you want, covered or open poled. I've never heard of them referred to as 81/85 equivalents, that's more the Miracle Man territory.

I'm pretty much going off a Total Guitar review from about six years ago that said they were designed to replicate Zakk Wylde's Les Paul sound in passive form, and that they only came in that distressed finish. That was ages ago mind, I think that wasn't long after BKP were started up and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn things had changed.

chemistforhire · Post by **chemistforhire** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:51 pm

Have you considered some Tom Anderson pickups? Like and H1- and a H2+ or H3? They sound kind of hi-fi and split well which is something I think PRS guys always consider.

Tom Anderson Pickups

JJLipton · Post by **JJLipton** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 1:47 am

Thom wrote:
BacchusPaul wrote:I've always wanted to try the Bare Knuckle War Pigs but they only come in that awful finish. Supposed to be pretty dead on an 81/85 set except passive.
You can get warpigs in whatever finish you want, covered or open poled. I've never heard of them referred to as 81/85 equivalents, that's more the Miracle Man territory.

Edit: JJ I've never been disappointed with Bare Knuckles, but yeah they are expensive. If you want more info on them let me know what sort of sound you are after and I can give you some suggestions as to which model might suit.

I heard BKP's are 600 bucks in Japan. Crazy stuff right? I ended up ordering the D activators, since they were half price of the BKP coldsweats i was lusting after. Crossing my fingers. I love the band Between the Buried and Me, which uses the D activators in PRS's so who knows. Thanks for the help!

dub · Post by **dub** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 2:37 am

I stuck a Warpig in my SG2000, which was kind of silly, since the original bridge was great. Hot but not at all compressed, it even seemed louder than the BKP because of that. I'll probably switch it out again at some stage. I was always playing with a boost on, and mistakenly thought having a ridiculous output would remove the need for the boost.

But if you're going for crazy stupid overkill. The warpig brings it.

JJLipton · Post by **JJLipton** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 5:43 am

Damn the warpig is 21.5k resistance. That is pretty extreme. The dimarzio X2n is 15.83k, the D activator i ordered is around 11k, and i seem to remember the JB being around 14k?

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 5:21 pm

I was just looking at these, JB is 16 something. SuperDistortion is 13.6

ahnkhanu's G&L strat got me thinking about humbuckers that sound good when split.

Gabriel · Post by **Gabriel** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 6:17 pm

Mages wrote:ahnkhanu's G&L strat got me thinking about humbuckers that sound good when split.

This is also something I'm interested in, the Castwhisker S bucker looks like it might be perfect. It's basically a strat pickup that has a coil tap that leads into another reverse wound bobbin. So rather than splitting it like a usual pickup, when the tap is engaged you have a humbucker and when the tap is disengaged you have a proper strat single coil. I have no idea how they'd sound but they sure look interesting.

Linky

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 3:24 am

yeah that does look perfect. it looks like he's really tweaked it to be just right. it's 10.9k/7k for the bridge pickup which sounds great. I really like bridge single-coils right around 7k. and the full humbucker isn't so much more that it's just gonna blow you away.

JJLipton · Post by **JJLipton** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 2:47 am

Gabriel wrote:
Mages wrote:ahnkhanu's G&L strat got me thinking about humbuckers that sound good when split.
This is also something I'm interested in, the Castwhisker S bucker looks like it might be perfect. It's basically a strat pickup that has a coil tap that leads into another reverse wound bobbin. So rather than splitting it like a usual pickup, when the tap is engaged you have a humbucker and when the tap is disengaged you have a proper strat single coil. I have no idea how they'd sound but they sure look interesting.

Linky

This also gives you the noise too doesn't it? I would love put one of those in an ibanez or charvel 2 humbucker guitar.