Pulled out my Kramer today...

jimijames

jimijames

New member
And all I can say is wow! I forgot how good this thing is to play. Replaced the .11s on there with .10s (which I imagine is more appropriate for a shredder axe anyway, I just use .11s on everything because I like how they feel) and the thing rips. It's seriously good.

I even like the 78/custom on there more than I remember. With the treble bypass it's the most versatile single pickup I've played that isn't the Jerry Donahue. Even then it's close.

How many of you rock one pickup guitars? Have you ever been tempted to forgo neck pickups in favor of a simple setup?


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Re: Pulled out my Kramer today...

My only one-pickup guitar is a SG Junior. It does it well.

img_8848_sg_detail_editauto_med.jpg
 
Re: Pulled out my Kramer today...

I'm trying to sell my Tone Zone/PAF 36 set and use the proceeds to replace them with one Alternative 8.
 
Re: Pulled out my Kramer today...

If I had a single pup guitar, I'd put a Black Winter in a Triple Shot ring in it.
 
Re: Pulled out my Kramer today...

I have a 65 melody maker with a APH-1, sounds killer. The simplicity of a single pickup guitar is a beautiful thing.
 
Pulled out my Kramer today...

I've got 3. I love the simplicity.

Kramer Baretta
Precision Guitar Kits SG Jr
Parts-o-esquire
 
Re: Pulled out my Kramer today...

That's awesome. I'd like to get a single humbucker guitar some time but I love single coils in the neck too much so that will be first.
 
Re: Pulled out my Kramer today...

Just an addendum to the original post.

(1) The one pickup format is so versatile it's just silly. I've got a treble bleed (100k +100 pf cap in series) on the thing and at 10 it's got a strong midrange presence that completely disappears at 8.5 - so the guitar goes from almost scooped sounding faux-acoustic sounds to face-punching high midrange lead tones almost telepathically.

(2) The brass block on the floyd rose tremolo is the best money I've ever spent on any one guitar... I thought the kramer was a 'dead' guitar when I got it, but the brass block has it resonating like my stop-tail tele (which, yes I'll admit isn't a paragon of sustain but the whole guitar vibrates like a church bell when played).

(3) Treble bleed is a funny thing. If everything in the signal chain is wide open (guitar - pedals - amp) then you can turn down the volume on the guitar as low as you want without experiencing that treble/presence loss you normally get with passive electronics on high impedance pickups. However, if you turn down either the amp or the pedals, anything below 10 on a non-TB guitar sounds like you're playing underneath a blanket.

(4) I'm slowly converting to 250k pots for telecaster bridge pickups. Even with a 1 meg pot for the neck the bridge is still 3-4 notches on the tone control brighter than the bridge when switching between the two.

As parting words I shall say that the most effective practice tool might be a 1 pickup guitar into a bare bones NMV amp. I never in my life have relied so much on technique as when I fire up the 1 pickup kramer into an 18w marshall clone. It's awesome and a little scary if you're used to delay and tremolo like I am haha.
 
Re: Pulled out my Kramer today...

I am actually very thankful for that single pickup SG.

I think I was getting too locked in into optimizing the hell out of Les Pauls and maybe Strat-likes.

Since I got the SG I also ditched something random to finally get a proper Tele.
 
Re: Pulled out my Kramer today...

One of the best guitars I ever played was a Black Charvel San Dimas from the early 90's that only had one pickup, played and sounded absolutely amazing. It had a Seymour Duncan pick-up in it but I can't remember what it was.

God, I wish I would've had the money for that thing. It should've been mine.
 
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