Older, less hyped BKPs like the Painkiller or Aftermath

[Grindspine]

Ibanez had an Uppercut line that was factory equipped with Aftermath pups. I recall them being incredibly tight pickups, but a bit icepicky if you didn't change your EQ from a prior guitar with different pickups.

As far as the hype goes, they were hyped pretty heavily when new, but then Fishman hit big with Fluences.

I wouldn't object to having a guitar with Aftermath or Painkiller, but many of us on this forum have had a chance to play or hear them, so don't need to discuss them as much as we did when they were new to the market.

I've never heard this connection before, and have also never used the Aftermath, but:

Yeah, super articulate and a bit of that icepick sound happening. That is basically the sound I expect when those pups come into the conversation.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

Ibanez had an Uppercut line that was factory equipped with Aftermath pups. I recall them being incredibly tight pickups, but a bit icepicky if you didn't change your EQ from a prior guitar with different pickups.

As far as the hype goes, they were hyped pretty heavily when new, but then Fishman hit big with Fluences.

I wouldn't object to having a guitar with Aftermath or Painkiller, but many of us on this forum have had a chance to play or hear them, so don't need to discuss them as much as we did when they were new to the market.

I read a lot of complaints online that Ibanez should have chosen "better" or "more versatile" BKPs for the Uppercut line.

I recently bought a used S6UC (Uppercut) which is factory equipped with Nailbombs. I think it's the only Uppercut model that didn't have Aftermaths. I primarily wanted the guitar because it's one of the most aesthetically beautiful MIJ Sabres, but I'm definitely not in a rush to change the pickups.

 

[FitRocker33]

"less hyped"

"aftermath and painkiller"

wut

Facts.

it seems like 2010 was just yesterday. There was a really interesting up n’ coming band called Periphery…I wonder if those guys ever went anywhere

 

[Lemonbaby]

Aftermath all the way. Great bridge pickup and great neck split sound for cleans. Similar to the Seymour Distortion, little less ice-picky and a pinch more bass response.

 

[Excruciator]

Whilst it does have a pronounced high mid peak, contrary to a lot of accepted wisdom, the Painkiller is thicker and has more low end than most people expect it to. The Aftermath was not a refinement of a customer request, it was a pickup Tim was working on with ultra tight, mid heavy thrash riffing in mind, for when the Painkiller was just a bit too thick in the low end and abrasive on the top end. A regular customer shared correspondence with Tim regarding such a pickup, and Tim allowed him to get a pre-release version to put it to the test.

After much enthusing about the pickup just prior to release, the customer nicknamed it "The Aftermath", since he was a big fan of Origin. The name stuck, probably to avoid confusion as much as anything. I honestly think it may have ended up with a Slayer related name if that hadn't happened, as I think it fits the flavour and applications much better. However, it (rather sadly, I think) ended up nicknamed after a tech death song and pigeonholed as a d*ent pickup.

The aforementioned customer ended up going back to EMG's by the way, I traded his Painkiller for my EMG 81 and we all lived happily ever after.

 

[jaxadam]

Until it can be 18V modded, it will never be THE SSO pickup.

 

[Hollowway]

The Aftermath bridge pickup is still one of the greatest pleasures I've ever had playing a metal geared pickup. It got pigeon holed as a djent pickup but it honestly rips for death metal and even hardcore. It's thick and aggressive as hell in the mids but just unbelievably tight. Like a sledge hammer strike every palm mute. Sounds really rad split too.

Same. I am not one to swap pickups much, but the guitars I got when that was the pickup du jour are the ones I find myself wanting to play. Just a great tone out of those things.

That being said, I used to be a scooped wall of sound guy, and now I’m a mid forward cowboy djent boi.

 

[Lorcan Ward]

I like how the Aftermath went from smooth, to bright to harsh when guitarists who endorsed BKP talked about it over the years. I never understood how a pickup's EQ could slowly change as it got older

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

I like how the Aftermath went from smooth, to bright to harsh when guitarists who endorsed BKP talked about it over the years. I never understood how a pickup's EQ could slowly change as it got older

People just suck at describing tones lmao. It's like when people call the EMG 81/60 set scooped when theyre pretty much Midrange: The Pickup.

 

[Andii]

The technology in passive pickups is essentially unchanged over decades. I think that each new model is more “different” than better. I find it hard to believe that someone is using a different magnet and windings and has solved all old problems so it works in all cases now. But it seems like every new pickup is good at everything. “Heavy, but good at cleans. Articulate, but a wall of tone. Even output, but raw. Hairy, but refined. Sounds great for everything from country to the brutalist metal.” I’ve always liked the aftermath for the mid bump, and am super skeptical of these new ones that claim to work for everything.

Well the new thing that I have noticed is that artists that are stamping their names on signature pickups are starting to experiment with alnico.


Making alnico pickups that try to do "everything" is kinda new.

Nothing does tight and clear metal like a really well designed ceramic and nothing does beautiful cleans or musical sound like alnicoII. But a lot of the new sinature djent pickups are really trying to find an inbetween,

The tech isn't new, but what people want the pickups to do is changing and I could see how some of these new designs could have more versatility.

 

[Chri]

I like how the Aftermath went from smooth, to bright to harsh when guitarists who endorsed BKP talked about it over the years. I never understood how a pickup's EQ could slowly change as it got older

Man, I really need to try an Aftermath again. All I can remember from it is that it sounded like a higher output Crunchlab. I just felt like I was playing inside of a cardboard box.

 

[Edika]

I have an Aftermath set on one of my 7 strings and I'm not impressed. It's fine when I play the guitar, but when I play one of the other 7 strings I'm like "oh this sounds a lot better". It's a bit touchy with height too and in this particular guitar it seems to fill up the low frequencies quite quickly if you raise it up a bit.
And I like the Nazgul, so mid heavy pickups certainly is not the issue lol.

 

[lost_horizon]

The Aftermath bridge pickup is still one of the greatest pleasures I've ever had playing a metal geared pickup. It got pigeon holed as a djent pickup but it honestly rips for death metal and even hardcore. It's thick and aggressive as hell in the mids but just unbelievably tight. Like a sledge hammer strike every palm mute. Sounds really rad split too.

I have played this Aftermath pickup (the one in my profile pic) for 11 years now, was a custom order from BKP and I ordered the Ceramic version. This guitar can do every fun thing a guitar can do. This pickup is great for doing sounds like The Darkness, Steve Morse (is partnered with a Steve Morse Neck pickup), very fluid lead sounds, Van Halen and extreme metal.

String separation is the reason I bought it. Trying to remove the mush from big distorted chords.

Split it sounds like a tele. Never coming out.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Well the new thing that I have noticed is that artists that are stamping their names on signature pickups are starting to experiment with alnico.


Making alnico pickups that try to do "everything" is kinda new.

Nothing does tight and clear metal like a really well designed ceramic and nothing does beautiful cleans or musical sound like alnicoII. But a lot of the new sinature djent pickups are really trying to find an inbetween,

The tech isn't new, but what people want the pickups to do is changing and I could see how some of these new designs could have more versatility.

Yeah the new Schecter sJohn Browne pickups are alnico instead his usual ceramic but that was apparently an accident lol.

But yeah around the djent craze, it was about making the djentiest pickup that ever djented, but now with the Fishman Fluences doing their thing, it does seem like a lot of companies are now focusing on trying to do something similar in principle, the ultimate jack-of-all-trades pickup, but in passive form or old-school active tech.

 

[TommyG]

I think the ceramic Nailbomb is one of the best pickups made.

 

[Ross82]

The Nail-bombs in my Caparison are face melters.

 

[Jon Pearson]

I love the Aftermath





I just love Jupiters more

It was a great pickup, and I'd gladly buy more if the price were a bit more reasonable in the States. I'm just so in love with the Jupiters now though for a lot of why I loved the Aftermaths - they don't necessarily sound the same, but they fill a similar role for me, and they can be had slightly cheaper.

 

[TedintheShed]

Played Aftermaths a few years ago and didn't like them, but that could have been anything. My go to are alnico Warpigs, but I've seen some pickup designs that have been using both ceramic and alnico is that same pick up.

 

[RandomPolishGuy]

Nothing beats the classic ones to me. I personally love the Aftermath for Rhythm tracks and my buddies Painkiller equipped geetar works great for dubbs on my solo projects. My main is a C-Pig for lead and the rhythm is an Aftermath and the contrast is insane, even when using the same amp with the same settings. It's like they just complete each other, I also have 1meg pots on both and they both really shine with them, I think the Painkiller has 500k but I'm trying to convince him to let me put 1megs as Bareknuckles just reallllllly shine with them in my humble opinion.

I had tried a few of the newer ones and to me they all have this weird bass/lo-mid dry rasp paired with a bright but almost stifled, hollow, and thin hi-mid/treble that I just can't stand. If the Warpig has a massive throaty grinding Growl, the Silo, Miracle man, and all of Misha Mansoors pickups to me are like an 80 year old smoker yelling at kids in the street from his porch in between his wheezing. Don't even get me started on the Black Hawks.

 

[terran236]

Painkillers have been my main preference for the last 15-ish years. Back then, to my mild irritation, they were very highly regarded and used regularly by the nascent "influencers" as much as anyone else. The range was a lot smaller back then, and there were fewer signature models associated with a particular non-genre which rode the wave of the influencer culture explosion.

The Aftermath release took a lot of the attention away, as a mid-focused, high output ceramic pickup which was vastly overhyped in many corners of the internet, especially here. I say that as someone who likes the Aftermath - but haphazardly recommending a pickup that specific in tonality and applications was always comedically stupid, I guess welcome to the internet. It's been more of the same over and over since then, happening in turn to the Aftermath with subsequent flavour of the month/signature releases, rinse repeat.

I'm pretty au fait with the contemporary BK's and for me, it's still the most aggressive, trve metal sounding/feeling pickup they make.

Agreed the aftermath was huge. I remember people talking about it for many years. Nowadays I could care less what pickups I use because the amp can shape this tone a lot more than a pick up can. But if I were to say what pickups are my favorites the aftermath from BKP and the Dominion from DiMarzio. To others the aftermath was in flavor of the month, But to me I loved mid-focused medium output pups regardless of what was popular. I didn't even care when the Fluences became number one. It's all marketing bullshit. Just pickup a guitar and play god damnit.