Seymour Duncan SH-15 BK Alternative 8

klare bässe bis hochmitten. wenig höhen im vergleich zum sh-4, wobei dadurch auch deutlich angenehmer auf den ohren. aus diesem grund poppig.

sauber, da das clean-verhalten gut ist. fiselt nicht. knallig, weil ich er doch durchsetzungsfähig ist durch die starken mitten. von sich aus zu sauber (nicht gritty) im distortion für korn/slipknot, aber für pop/punk - man denke an beispielsweise ärzte/beatsteaks/terrorgruppe/jimmy eat world - optimal!
für jazz kommt dieser tonabnehmer meiner meinung nach weniger in frage, da er 1. nur in der brückenposition verwendet werden sollte und oftmals aber der halstonabnehmer für jazz-klänge benutzt wird und 2. die mitten für sachen wie rhythmusgitarre in der bigband oder sachen von joe pass/tal farlow/duke robillard zu present sind.

insgesamt, aber ein angenehmer tonabnehmer mit dem es sich in verschiedensten stilrichtungen gut arbeiten lässt.

und auf jeden fall mein persönlicher favorit unter den humbuckern!

When I was looking for recommendations on the Seymour Duncan forums of what pickup to put in my guitar for split sounds, I would hear the same names thrown around mostly , some of the customs, some of which had two different coils from two different SD humbuckers.

And then there was this, the stealth choice. It intrigued me. When it arrived I noticed that it probably doesn't fly off Thomann's shelves, the packaging looked a bit aged in comparison to other, more popular SD choices I had bought. The BK Alternative 8 has two identical coils and has since proven its worth in the guitar I put it in. (For reference, I combined it with a SHPR-1N BK in the neck.)

It's a high output pickup that takes distortion very well. You can probably slam your favorite pedal on it and achieve a nice sound. I tried, for reference, with three different ones this morning, and each sounded good. It has a more than decent chance to be present in the mix without becoming an ice pick. So it passes the most important test - it's a good-sounding high gain bridge humbucker. By itself it sounds neither vintage nor particularly modern, and can go different ways depending on your setup.

Like pretty much all SD humbuckers you can split it, but of course not all of them sound good. I built it into a wiring scheme that allows to have the coils in series, in parallel, or to pick each of the coils individually. As the BK Alternative 8 has two identical coils, the differences are subtle. If you split to the coil on the neck side, the sound thins out in a way that sounds more vintage. If you split to the coil on the bridge side, you get a thinner version of the same which could fit your mix better, depending. Similar to picking close to the bridge by default. None of these sounds is a lot better than the others, they're just subtly different. (I do not really have anything in specific to remark about the parallel option.)

In a way this is the pickup that could fit into a lot of different genres. It's not vintage-voiced, it's not overly modern either. You can play it clean, but where it shines the most is taking distortion, and high gain does suit it. I use it with rather thin strings but they don't sound thin on it - with 009s and 008s it still delivers a decent tone you can work with.