Re: Pickups for BC Rich Bich
so replacing any electronics such as push pull pots or anything else make sure the shaft length is 18mm. I've had at least 9 BC Rich guitars. Warlocks, warbeasts, beasts and so forth. Here's some out of the box suggestions as I hate suggesting pickups without knowing what the guitar sounds like. I'm picky.
if it's two pickups and you want to get the most sounds out of it I'd suggest the Seymour Duncan P-rails bible #2 spread across 4 switches. This schematic can be done on even cheap chinese 4 wire pickups. Push pull and or mini toggles, it depends on you. You'll get more tones than Jimmy Page and it's super simple to visualize on a stage as Jimmys you've got to memorize where as you can look down at the switches and see what your guitars doing in moments of doubt. Now the only tip I can give people for this wiring is put the say neck pickups coils in reverse with each other.
with a dimarzio
red becomes black
black becomes red
white becomes green
green becomes white
bare stays grounded
this is so position 2 (assuming a 3 way toggle) all the coilsplits become hum cancelling
three mods you almost never hear about
series out of phase - for a tele sounding twangy 2 wire bridge pickup out of a humbucker - it works best on pickups as hot as the Super distortion
Bill Lawrence Q Filter
torres mid scoop and boost mod - its cheap and easy to make, you've got to get used to the tone control this is associated to being stuck at 5. anything above or below will alter your tone so a center detent (Stiff in the center) pot goes a long way.
Now for active stuff, a big inspiration for a lot of these is the Uli Jon Roth sky guitar he demoed for premier guitar or guitar world where he talked the mans ear off for a half hour.
Arctec has some preamps where you turn them on or off with a push pull pot. They are small too. I know there has been at least one or two american sites selling them. It's been a while but check guitarheads website.
guitar fetish have something most would find interesting called "modboards" they are other active circuits as well. There is from overdrives to delay pedals. Best of all the installation to the board which would scare most who are new to electronics is all to a single side of the board and all labeled so super easy to do.
EMG even if you use passive pickups have a bunch to check out too. Such as the afterburner (20db gain boost) as well as the RPC which is a treble boost. There are others but those two have always been on my list. There are others so check out the website. They are one of the more expensive things I'll suggest.
Eric Clapton mid boost
with a lot of active preamps if you want to see if it's right for the guitar temporarily turn them into a guitar pedal. I did this by using a discarded container and drilled a few holes in them.
personally I do not recommend the varitone. It's cheap to make based on the Lucille one if you're handy with a soldering iron however I never liked the idea it felt like an old tv with a rotary switch to change channels which thankfully I'm not that old. Inductor aside as this is pretty well documented to make if you want to try it as guitar fetish had them at one time for 30-50$ and seeing what's in it is a big no for me. the no load pot option I'd go with a single 0.1uf (100nf) capacitor which is twice what your guitars usual capacitor is. This does two things.
1) At 10 - it disconnects the pot from the circuit. This gives you a brighter tone and less compression.
2) at 9 and below you gradually introduce the capacitor so a stronger treble cut than you're used to.
go with a cheap green polyester capacitor, I could talk about capacitors all day but no sense as it will just incite "pick" measuring.
