What's the secret of the Bare Knuckle Stormy Monday?

[matt239]

What's the secret of the Bare Knuckle Stormy Monday? Why does it sound so amazing?
It's like a vintage PAF, but also a bit less mid-pushed, more scooped and extremely chimey and bell like. Very pretty clean and semi-clean sounds.
I feel like the Lollar Imperial comes quite close.
But the Bare Knuckle is ridiculously expensive.
Yes I could just buy the Bare Knuckles, but I can't imagine there's any secret mojo there that can't be duplicated.
I like a lot of Seymour Duncan pickups too, and I think the quality is good.
What Duncan pickups get closest to the Stormy Monday sound? What kind of mods or builds could we do to get in that territory?

[Masta' C]

The Stormy Monday bridge uses slightly offset coil winds (3.7K + 4.0K) with 42 AWG wire, a sand-cast (i.e. "roughcast") A2 magnet, and a certain degree of "scatter-winding" in the actual winding of the pickups. All of these "tweaks" have an effect on the final product, which gives that pickup its signature sound and response.

For something truly similar from SD, you're looking at a Custom Shop build.

Production-wise, you might dig the Seth Lover or Pearly Gates, but they are somewhat unique in their own right...

[hamerfan]

I have a pair in a ES 335 clone. I like it very much as the neck is airy and woody-warm at the same time. I prefer it over a Seth Lover neck, a Wolfetone Dr Vintage neck, a PGN and a Ant neck. The Stormy Monday bridge is a bit underpowered but not as weak as an stock Ant bridge. I am about to swap in a Lollar Imperial bridge or use Ant Bridge with a UOA5 mag.

[Teleplayer]

In the case of the lollar Imperial, they use A2 magnet in then neck and A5 in the bridge. They are quite different, so I'm curious which one you like so much.

[beaubrummels]

The OP description sounds like a Brobucker to em almost, but scooped AND chimy/bell-like are contradictory IME. The Brobucker is all the other parts except the scooped part.