# DiMarzio vs Bare Knuckle pickups



## xlabambax (Dec 17, 2010)

I was thinking of getting new pick ups for my Ibanez 7321. I have heard good stuff from DiMarzio's Neck: LiquiFire and Bridge: Crunch Lab. I have also heard some good tones from Bare Knucle pickups Neck: Painkiller and Bridge: Cold Sweat. I am not really sure which set to get. I was also wondering would I have any problems installing them? I never changed pick ups before.


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## MaxOfMetal (Dec 17, 2010)

I'd say go DiMarzio, considering you live in the US, so you'll be able to try out several pickups before you choose the set you like the most. Just order a set you're interested in, if after trying them out, if you're not satisfied, DiMarzio will exchange them for another set, FREE of charge. Not to mention, DiMarzio makes some awesome pickups, easily on par with a lot of the "boutique" ones that are so popular on this site. 

inb4 BKPZ RULZ


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## yellowv (Dec 17, 2010)

I really like BKP's but after spending several hundred dollars trying bunches of them out I don't have any left. They are really good, but honestly I think a CL/LF set for $150 will make you just as happy as a $300+ set of BKP's. I know for instance I personally like the Tone Zone 6 as much as any BKP I have tried, and I have tried most of em.


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## onefingersweep (Dec 17, 2010)

CrunchLab/LiquiFire vs Painkiller/Coldsweat are so different so it's stupid to compare. Totally different voicing and qualities to them.

In general (please note, IN GENERAL) Bareknuckle have better clarity and sound more full than Dimarzio's does.

If you're going to compare at least compare between two pickups with similar voicing, otherwise it won't make sense.


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## geofreesun (Dec 17, 2010)

i have to say, for my carvin dc727, i did not notice the slightest difference when i tried bkp nailbomb and painkiller, i have no idea why. then i put a d-sonic in, i was instantly happy. pickup is but a small part of your tone equation. i feel guitar itself tends to dominate the sound. i have similar experience with all my 5 guitars. no matter how i switch pickups, i can tell there is something in the tone that never changes


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## SirMyghin (Dec 17, 2010)

geofreesun said:


> i have to say, for my carvin dc727, i did not notice the slightest difference when i tried bkp nailbomb and painkiller, i have no idea why. then i put a d-sonic in, i was instantly happy. pickup is but a small part of your tone equation. i feel guitar itself tends to dominate the sound. i have similar experience with all my 5 guitars. no matter how i switch pickups, i can tell there is something in the tone that never changes



I have a feeling you are confusing the sound you impart with playing style to the sound of a guitar. Just an idea for you to think over. Pickup is less than amp in the equation, but is going to be much more than the guitar itself. The dynamics of your playing are a huge factor though.


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## Zugster (Dec 17, 2010)

As in most things in high quality guitar parts, there is a the rule of diminishing returns as you get more expensive. If cost were the same, I'd go BKP everytime. It's probably fair to say that DiMarzios are more than good enough and the extra money spent on BKPs won't make a big difference.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist for my guitars and I can afford it so I have 3 guitars with BKPs.

BTW for a basswood Ibanez with a maple neck, a pair of Miracle Mans is the probably the BKPs set of choice.


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## cyril v (Dec 17, 2010)

I don't really think its a matter of Dimarzio vs BKP.. it's more about trying to find a pick-up that suits your playing as well as your guitar/amp set-up... whoever makes said pick-up really shouldn't matter much if it works with your sound.

For example, I purchased several BKP's, Dimarzios and SD's... For my Xiphos 7, the BKP C-Warpigs were exactly what I want in a pick-up but in my rg7620 I didn't like the Painkiller at all and ended up with a Crunchlab/Liquifire set-up that really worked better for me.. then on the other hand I purchased a Coldsweat/VHII and I love the sound of the VHII in there as it works well with what I had in mind and but I really don't care for the Coldsweat. You have to be open to all options if you're really picky with your tone.


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## Stealthdjentstic (Dec 17, 2010)

I don't see the point in throwing BKP's in a cheaper guitar like that one to be honest 

Go DiMarzio from CL.


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## Adam Of Angels (Dec 17, 2010)

SirMyghin said:


> I have a feeling you are confusing the sound you impart with playing style to the sound of a guitar. Just an idea for you to think over. Pickup is less than amp in the equation, but is going to be much more than the guitar itself. The dynamics of your playing are a huge factor though.





This is entirely untrue. The guitar itself (meaning everything other than the pickups) comprises a lot more of your tone than the pickups. Pickups are around 12 - 20%. Otherwise, you could just get a piece of trash and spend 300+ dollars in pickups and have killer tone.


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## Lon (Dec 17, 2010)

Adam Of Angels said:


> This is entirely untrue. The guitar itself (meaning everything other than the pickups) comprises a lot more of your tone than the pickups. Pickups are around 12 - 20%. Otherwise, you could just get a piece of trash and spend 300+ dollars in pickups and have killer tone.


Think in Factors not % of Sound, if the Pickup is garbage you reduce the best Guitar to 0 Sound, turned around a 0,30 Guitar * 1,00 Pickup will still result in 0,30


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## WickedSymphony (Dec 17, 2010)

Lon said:


> Think in Factors not % of Sound, if the Pickup is garbage you reduce the best Guitar to 0 Sound, turned around a 0,30 Guitar * 1,00 Pickup will still result in 0,30



Or if you take a .15 Guitar * 1.00 EMG's your result is EMG's


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## JacobShredder (Dec 17, 2010)

I'm going to agree more with adam and go with %'s here.

Now, having taken a walmart guitar made out of crap woods, put a SD Blackout in the bridge and gotten a DECENT sound. Nowhere near what I would have gotten if I would've put it in the bridge of my M-II. 

Pickups make your guitar have a different voice, very similar I believe to using 2 different amps on the same channel. Each will have it's own voice.

Edit: also, to TS. I would say go with dimarzio's in this case. But instead of the CL maybe you should try the D-Sonic? I prefer D-Sonic>CL


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## 7 Strings of Hate (Dec 17, 2010)

Adam Of Angels said:


> This is entirely untrue. The guitar itself (meaning everything other than the pickups) comprises a lot more of your tone than the pickups. Pickups are around 12 - 20%. Otherwise, you could just get a piece of trash and spend 300+ dollars in pickups and have killer tone.



I dont agree with this too much. I'v played and owned some fucking killer sounding guitars that were just midrange to low end guitars with awesome electronics and some sounded amazing. I think the pickup plays a major part in your sound. When you go from a paf dimarzio to a ceramic warpig the differance is quite amazing. More than just 12 to 20 percent differance IMO.

I like to think of a guitars wood and scale as a general guideline for how it will sound. With wood being so unique from peice to peice, you cant completely rely on that, but I would consider chosing a pickup for your guitar like choosing glasses for your face, or choosing a voice for your throat. Some pups are fat and dull, others bright and crisp, but they greatly effect the tone overall.

That being said, to the OP - I love love love BKP's, but having 2 guitars with bkps, i'm itching for a dimarzio loaded guitar because they have a different sound to me. To me, overall bkps have good prescence and cut and dimarzios have a more rounded satriani type feel. I like having different flavors so i dont think you could go wrong either way.


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## Lon (Dec 17, 2010)

WickedSymphony said:


> Or if you take a .15 Guitar * 1.00 EMG's your result is EMG's


 so its still .15?


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## Adam Of Angels (Dec 17, 2010)

I will throw out an additional bit to what I already said about pickups - when you're increasing output, the difference is obviously going to be much more noticeable. Going from a PAF to a Warpig would be an example of that.. Basically, the difference between 12 and 20%.

I spend most of my playing time unplugged. I've done this for 13 years, and one of the results is that I can really hear the acoustic properties when a guitar is plugged in. A pickup doesn't comprise the majority of a guitar's tone. That said, 20% is a pretty large number.


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## ev1ltwin (Dec 17, 2010)

Lon said:


> Think in Factors not % of Sound, if the Pickup is garbage you reduce the best Guitar to 0 Sound, turned around a 0,30 Guitar * 1,00 Pickup will still result in 0,30



i totally disagree with this. a shitty pickup in an awesome guitar will sound much worse than an awesome pickup in a shitty guitar. the high end guitars just feel, look, play, and stay in tune better.


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## Adam Of Angels (Dec 17, 2010)

No, the quality of wood, whether good or bad, is going to be very apparent whether plugged in or not. If the guitar makes less difference than the pickups, your playing is sub-par. I'm not saying this to be a dick, it's just logic. Finger tone is the largest factor involved.


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## ev1ltwin (Dec 17, 2010)

Adam Of Angels said:


> No, the quality of wood, whether good or bad, is going to be very apparent whether plugged in or not. If the guitar makes less difference than the pickups, your playing is sub-par. I'm not saying this to be a dick, it's just logic. Finger tone is the largest factor involved.



LMAO you gotta step up better than that. logic would be like the following: 
An electric guitar's tone is based an the electric signal generated from strings vibrating over an electromagnet. Therefore, the timbre of the strings and the magnetic field generated by the pickup will dictate the sound of the guitar. The timbre of the strings is only minimally affected by the sympathetic vibrations of the wood resonating with the strings. When you play a guitar unplugged, you're hearing a lot of the wood resonating. When plugged in, you're just hearing the strings over the pickup; you're barely hearing the wood's affect on the electric signal.

edit: no offense, but it's really condescending to say "it's logic", and it's ironic when there's no logic in your post.


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## SirMyghin (Dec 17, 2010)

Adam Of Angels said:


> No, the quality of wood, whether good or bad, is going to be very apparent whether plugged in or not. If the guitar makes less difference than the pickups, your playing is sub-par. I'm not saying this to be a dick, it's just logic. Finger tone is the largest factor involved.



I think the issue is you are practicing at a level where you can still distinctly here the sound of the guitar in your hands, so you are equating it to the sound of the pickup and the amp, meanwhile you are looking at one side of the super position. 

At high gain pickups aren't going to mean much anyway, everything starts to mudd together then anyway. At that point it is all about the amp (as if its over compressed even dynamics mean crap). Otherwise treating your unplugged guitars tone as having a correlation to the amplified sound is dangerous at best. The dynamics of the strings changes drastically due to induced fields. And to prevent rehash, Ev1ltwin beat me to how an electric guitar works.


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## Adam Of Angels (Dec 17, 2010)

Actually, there was logic, its just implied - give a novice a typical violin, or give him a stratovarius, and you're simply not going to hear the difference as well as if you made the same comparison with a virtuoso playing. No condescension, just logic.


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## ev1ltwin (Dec 17, 2010)

Adam Of Angels said:


> Actually, there was logic, its just implied - give a novice a typical violin, or give him a stratovarius, and you're simply not going to hear the difference as well as if you made the same comparison with a virtuoso playing. No condescension, just logic.



you're equating the sound of a technique with the sound of the guitar tho. the intrinsic tone of the guitar itself is independent of the player, and that's why there is no logical conclusion to draw about woods and pickups with how skilled someone is as a player.

I agree that satriani can make a $100 guitar sound better than I can make a $2000 guitar, but that has nothing to do with statements like: "the quality of wood, whether good or bad, is going to be very apparent whether plugged in or not" or "If the guitar makes less difference than the pickups, your playing is sub-par". Both of those statements are illogical.

EDIT: the whole point i was making, for example, is that satriani is going to sound a lot better on a cheap guitar with expensive pickups than he will on an expensive guitar with cheap pickups. the logic i used to draw this conclusion is based on how an electric guitar produces sound.


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## ev1ltwin (Dec 17, 2010)

god, i come off as such an asshole


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## Adam Of Angels (Dec 17, 2010)

There is a connection, though. That's my point - the sound of a guitar is not entirely independent of the player's skill. Practically speaking, there are few, if any, ways to determine the sound of a guitar without a player. That's almost aside from the point though. A beginner is likely to sound very similar on a MIM strat as he is on a USA PRS, and an expert is likely to demonstrate the difference between the two.


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## Adam Of Angels (Dec 17, 2010)

ev1ltwin said:


> god, i come off as such an asshole



Don't worry about it, I'm not a pussy 

I mean well, and I know you do too.


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## JacobShredder (Dec 17, 2010)

Well..we've gone from helping a lad pick out pickups to having a dick measuring competition of know-how. 

How bout we leave it at:
Crap guitar+goodpickups sounds good
Great guitar+good pickups sounds great.

Everybody happy?
Goooooooddddd.

TS have any questions?

I'm not trying to be a dick either


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## Adam Of Angels (Dec 17, 2010)

I'd call it more of a circular argument.

Anyway, to the OP: unfortunately, the only way to know what works for you is to give some pickups a try. I STILL don't know which pickups work best for me, after all of these years.. but the good thing is that its fun to try a load of different pickups. I say start with the cheapest option, though.


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## ev1ltwin (Dec 17, 2010)

Adam Of Angels said:


> Don't worry about it, I'm not a pussy
> 
> I mean well, and I know you do too.



haha, thanks man. the internet brings out the worst in me.

but back to the topic, i guess we will have to agree to disagree. i find this post from this thread almost entirely untrue, just based on how an electric produces sound:



Adam Of Angels said:


> This is entirely untrue. The guitar itself (meaning everything other than the pickups) comprises a lot more of your tone than the pickups. Pickups are around 12 - 20%. Otherwise, you could just get a piece of trash and spend 300+ dollars in pickups and have killer tone.



You can get a GREAT tone from a shit guitar with awesome pickups. I'm 100% serious. The whole reason why you wouldn't want to do this is because a shitty guitar isn't going to play as well, look as good, be as reliable, stay in tune, etc. as an expensive one. That's why you should save up for a nice guitar instead of blowing $300 on pickups for a guitar that you have to battle to play well or stay in tune.


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## ev1ltwin (Dec 17, 2010)

JacobShredder said:


> Well..we've gone from helping a lad pick out pickups to having a dick measuring competition of know-how.
> 
> How bout we leave it at:
> Crap guitar+goodpickups sounds good
> ...



i'm average sized, and i'm okay with that


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## JacobShredder (Dec 17, 2010)

I agree with Adam, go cheapest, if you don't like em, trade around still don't find anything then move on to more expensive pickups


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## ev1ltwin (Dec 17, 2010)

in my rush to start an argument, i neglected to offer any advice to OP.

First: What kind of sound are you going for?
Second: What amp are you playing through?
Third: What don't you like about your current tone?


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## xlabambax (Dec 17, 2010)

hmm.. I think I am gonna stick with the cheapest. I am sure DiMarzios will be good enough for me


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## maxoom (Dec 17, 2010)

I have and like both brands and am just as pleased with Dimarzio`s as BKP`s but will keep both.
The LF/CL set is a really great set and a good price too.


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## onefingersweep (Dec 18, 2010)

geofreesun said:


> i have to say, for my carvin dc727, i did not notice the slightest difference when i tried bkp nailbomb and painkiller, i have no idea why. then i put a d-sonic in, i was instantly happy. pickup is but a small part of your tone equation. i feel guitar itself tends to dominate the sound. i have similar experience with all my 5 guitars. no matter how i switch pickups, i can tell there is something in the tone that never changes



True and the more transparent the pickup is the less the sound will change, it will let the sound of the guitar come forward more. This is also a thing handwound pickups like BKP's tend to have, more transparency.


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## Zugster (Dec 18, 2010)

Stealthtastic said:


> I don't see the point in throwing BKP's in a cheaper guitar like that one to be honest
> 
> Go DiMarzio from CL.


 
Makes sense. Zimbloth (Axe Palace) deals DiMarzios, and I'd definetley recommend doing business with him.


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## Andromalia (Dec 18, 2010)

JacobShredder said:


> I agree with Adam, go cheapest, if you don't like em, trade around still don't find anything then move on to more expensive pickups



disagree. When trying stuff, you're not sure about, try the easily resellable first. Store returns are all nice but it costs postage at length. And a specific store might get bored with it if you abuse their return policy.


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## sevenstringj (Dec 18, 2010)

Maxofmetal said it best.

BTW, if you want BKPs without paying quite as much, just send the stock pickups to BKP to rewind. The shitty exchange rate will still mean it's more expensive than new Dimarzios, but not that much.


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