Anyone have experience with bareknuckle pickups? 2 single, 1 hum pickup advice?

What kind of guitar is it?

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An old Ibanez I got over 10 years ago. I'm on the fence about just buying a new guitar and upgrading the pups later or upgrading this thing as much as I can. It was my first guitar and I'm a nostalgic person.

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No doubt about it, hold onto it if it's your first guitar. You will regret it. I sold my first strat a long time ago and I regret it. Is it a quality Ibanez or mid-tier/lower-tier? Upgrading pickups, especially high quality and therefore hefty price tag like Bareknuckle will not make a mediocre guitar sound amazing. The boutique handwound pickups excel at dynamics, clarity at dif gains levels, and allow you to accurately portray whats going on in your head more transparently, so the instrument has to be of some quality as well to get the most out of the pickups you are going with. If you dont feel its of that higher quality, go with some used Seymour's you can find on Ebay for $40-50 and save the money to put towards get a nicer guitar and then upgrading pups in it. You will be happier in the long run with your overall tone and the right set of Seymours will breath new life into you older Ibanez. (I have a mexi-telecaster that has a JB in the bridge and it's one of the best sounds lead pickups Ive ever played. S.D. makes quality stuff).

Bareknuckle - I have owned (and sold) a BK Miracle Man bridge pup that was in a Warmoth Mahogany Super Strat. That pickup was amazing. It nailed it's name "Miracle Man" (Zakk Wyldes tone on No Rest for the Wicked). I have also played a Les Paul w/a BK Rebel Yell set through a Splawn amp and that thing absolutely screamed. Perfectly balanced high/mids/lows, very present, cuts through mix, very chunky, not flabby in the low end and harmonics just jumped off the board. It's one of the best pickups Ive ever played.

Motor City Pickups - I have a Les Paul loaded with a set of Detroiter's and they are the best pups Ive ever played. They can nail Gary Moore "Still got the Blues" with tones of overtones and dynamics and also get chunky in the low end and to do Alice In Chains type stuff and can even drop tune to D and nail Lamb of God tones. I am thoroughly happy with my purchase and it's also a plus that when you call to place your order, you talk to Wade the owner (and only employee) who is the man that will personally wind your pickups and he can tweak them any way you want. He's a very cool guy. They are in the same price range as BK. If you like Cantrell's tone on the latest AIC album, that is a Motor City Afwayu.

Not enough info about what youre looking for in a pickup. What type of music do you play. If its a humbucker loaded Ibanez, Im assuming some type of rock? You cannot go wrong with any of the Vintage Hot or Contemporary line as long as you dont go overboard with output, but again, I would load these in a higher quality guitar to get the most out of them.

Here's a link to their "HSS" configuration matching humbucker/single coil set's.
BK Pickups

sorry so long, I like talking gear.

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I like talking gear.

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Me too.

My main guitar is an Epiphone Les Paul Standard. I put a slash alnico pro II in the neck and a pearly gates in the bridge. I also put in all push pull pots and replaced the output jack and the pegs with gibson parts. I love the thing. So i'm not a noob to humbuckers, but i dont now shite about single coils and even less about matching HSS.

My LP can rock with some distortion and sounds great playing grungy blues/rock or some metal. I want to make the Ibanez be more of a clear clean high tone guitar that i can run with some chorus or delay but minimal distortion. I know pups wont make it sound like rock god strat, but it will great improve upon the poo stock pups it came with. It's definitely a mid/low end guitar but i love the color and it was my first. I can't play cleaner stuff on the LP, definitely not anything close to a Floyd or RHCP type tone. I play them all the time on the LP, but they dont sound right because those pups really cant play clean. I have a 60 watt crate SS and a nice combo tube egnator. My most used pedals are a cry baby, boss phaser, chorus, and a boss delay, memory boy and a big muff.

I'm fine going with cheaper/used pups because its a cheap guitar. But I'd love t talk suggestions for the HSS. I will one day buy a strat most likely, but right now it would just be easier and cheaper to replace the pups in my Ibanez than spend months hunting for the perfect strat. It took me almost 5 months to settle on the LP

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I would have thought that the Pearly Gates would have given you some pretty good clean tones in the bridge position of your Paul, no?

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Defiantly but their usually on the fat or low side. Sounds great, but sometimes you just want that bright warm high tone and it can't pull that off as well. Though push pulls and the tube certainly help.

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Looking at the specs on S.D's site, the Seth Lover model may give you a slightly warmer sound with some of the high's rolled off.

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Yeah ill probably go with Seymours in the end. Any specific HSS advice? As in specific matches?

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Looking at BK site, the Black Dog, Mother's Milk HSS set seem like they may be what youre looking for if you still want to go BK route.

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Bareknuckle is want i want to go with, but its defintley the more expensive route. Mixing some used S.D.s could be cheaper. I hate decisions. So lets just talk about it for the next month instead of deciding something

The two sets i was looking at was the mother's milk with either the mule or the black dog.

I'm going to keep researching. Any suggestions on a comperable S.D. HSS set?

Yeah it sounds way better on the the tube. Way better. I was stupid happy with that purchase. But they're lower than i want i guess i should say. I want a really warm bright tone. I got the LP for the exact tone i have with it now. Now i want a guitar that's more crisper and brighter if that makes sense.

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Any suggestions on a comperable S.D. HSS set?

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I have played a five-two single coil before in a buddy's American Strat and it was very nice. Not as good as the Fender Fat 50's but still very nice spot on vintage quack. I didnt think they were as big, round/ballsy as the 50's. I would def be happy with a pair of five-two's or SSL1's for neck/mid position and perhaps a Jazz model in the bridge for a lower output but higher treble spike. I have a Jazz model (SH-2?) in the neck on my telecaster and it sounds killer clean and coil-tapped, but again that's the neck. I would assume the bridge would have similar characteristics.

Good luck and godspeed on the never ending quest for the ulitmate tone.

Yeah i think im going with the SSL1 SCs and the SH-2N Jazz bridge. Wish me luck.

If i want to do that do i need 1 regular SSL1 and a SSL1 RWRP for the middle?

I have had good luck with Lindy Fralin and Vintage Vibe. There's a lot of great boutique pickup makers out there: Van Zandt, Reilander, TV Jones, etc. I usually just end up going through YouTube til I find what I like.

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I'm going through this same issue, but on a double hum Hamer Echotone. Can't decide between Seth Lovers or Gibson 57s

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I have not played the Seth Lover but those Gibson 57's (and the 57+ for the bridge) sure does have some nice mojo going. The rhythm guitarist in my last band had an SG Supreme loaded with those and ran them through an Orange Rockerverb and it was some seriously delicious tone. More versatile than you would think as well. Nailed the "Back In Black" lead tone.