I bought a Reverend Spacehawk (The Reeves Gabrels) model with two pickups a few years back. Loved the look, the weight, the feel. It played like a dream. But something about it just didn't click for me.
I nailed it down to the pickups. The "Railhammer" pickups it came with. I didn't like the look of them, and they sounded really ... sterile. People have talked up this 'bass contour' feature on the electronics too, but it never sounded good to my ears.
So I went on a search for something new, and found vineham.com Canadian dude who custom wires his stuff. On his suggestion, I got one of his Whiskey Burners in the bridge, and a V59 in the neck. From what I understand, they are PAF based? But I'm no pickup scientist.
When I installed the pickups, I completely redid the electronics as well. One volume, a tone for the neck 22nf, a tone for the bridge 22nf, and each a push/push. When down, the pickup is in parallel. When up, the pickup is in series. The guitar originally had a kill switch (blech). I rewired it to be a "blowout" switch. Flick it on and the bridge pickup in series is dumped straight to the output, bypassing everything. Instant biting solo tone!
The wiring diagram is a bit messy, but it went in OK. Learned the lesson to route all the wires you can before fitting the pickups in. Guitars like this have a lot of wires running to the switches through the pickup cavities.
Now this guitar is my GO TO when I wanna sit and jam for a bit. The pickups sound incredible! Craig at vineham.com did such a wonderful job. (Not a sponsor, just really impressed).
So what do y'all think of the railhammer pickups or the bass contour on the Reverends?
Any other vineham fanboys here?
Thanks for listening!