NGD: Bernie Rico Hesperian Black Friday Guitar

[Anonymous]

that's a wall full of sweet natural wood grain!

 

[Gjeven]

Holy crap! I don't think I've ever heard a JP6 neck referred to as a baseball bat neck Mine almost feels like my fingers and thumb are touching when I play my JP6.

Sometimes I get a little worried the neck will snap under the tension of the strings

 

[shred-o-holic]

I still have mad love for the necks of the JP6. I never got along with that basswood body tho.

 

[ras1988]

Hey man that thing looks great. The arching of the slant top is just so classy and comfortable looking. .

I just picked up someone's abandoned slot for a black friday run guitar and was wondering if you could do a quick favor. Could you measure the string spacing at the bridge pickup? Is it closer to 53mm or 50mm? I am getting some BK pickups made for mine and I need the string spacing to kind of continue with what I ordered or ask for a little change in the order. Bernie said 52mm spacing was needed and when i told him I got 53mm (they are really something like 52.9mm, but who is counting micrometers) things got a little silly and I don't want to bother him too much about this stuff.

 

[snowdog]

Very nice, love the natural finish. Any pics of the back? That neck must be just thick enough to house a truss rod because the JP necks are pretty thin as it is.

New family pic:

 

[Dr. Swamp]

Where are you at in Central Cali? Also a central cali player here, with a ESP Horizon NT-II and a Bernie Rico 7 string on order from the black friday sale. Small world.

 

[shred-o-holic]

Hey man that thing looks great. The arching of the slant top is just so classy and comfortable looking. .

I just picked up someone's abandoned slot for a black friday run guitar and was wondering if you could do a quick favor. Could you measure the string spacing at the bridge pickup? Is it closer to 53mm or 50mm? I am getting some BK pickups made for mine and I need the string spacing to kind of continue with what I ordered or ask for a little change in the order. Bernie said 52mm spacing was needed and when i told him I got 53mm (they are really something like 52.9mm, but who is counting micrometers) things got a little silly and I don't want to bother him too much about this stuff.

OK...........are you getting a floyd btw?

 

[shred-o-holic]

Where are you at in Central Cali? Also a central cali player here, with a ESP Horizon NT-II and a Bernie Rico 7 string on order from the black friday sale. Small world.

Not far from you at all.........Sanger.........

 

[alxdgr8]

Just in time for this year's black friday

 

[ras1988]

Nope, it's going to be a hipshot just like yours. That is why I was curious. He originally listed the build coming with a tb-4 which is 53mm then he went back on that and says that it needs to be 52mm spacing which doesn't really exist. There is 49mm and 53mm, dimensionally the pickups are the same it is just different placement of the coils in the bobbin. And I thought that the 53 would be closest to the 52 mm that he stated. It is just a frustrating mess, essentially if the E to E (or B to B in this case) spacing is greater than 2" go for the 53 if it is less go for the 49 is the rule of thumb. It's a moot point with the emg/blackout in there, gotta love bladded pickup coils. Again she is a beauty and i can't wait for mine. The NGDs from this build are going to be coming hard and fast.

Hey man that thing looks great. The arching of the slant top is just so classy and comfortable looking. .

I just picked up someone's abandoned slot for a black friday run guitar and was wondering if you could do a quick favor. Could you measure the string spacing at the bridge pickup? Is it closer to 53mm or 50mm? I am getting some BK pickups made for mine and I need the string spacing to kind of continue with what I ordered or ask for a little change in the order. Bernie said 52mm spacing was needed and when i told him I got 53mm (they are really something like 52.9mm, but who is counting micrometers) things got a little silly and I don't want to bother him too much about this stuff.

OK...........are you getting a floyd btw?

 

[shred-o-holic]

Nope, it's going to be a hipshot just like yours. That is why I was curious. He originally listed the build coming with a tb-4 which is 53mm then he went back on that and says that it needs to be 52mm spacing which doesn't really exist. There is 49mm and 53mm, dimensionally the pickups are the same it is just different placement of the coils in the bobbin. And I thought that the 53 would be closest to the 52 mm that he stated. It is just a frustrating mess, essentially if the E to E (or B to B in this case) spacing is greater than 2" go for the 53 if it is less go for the 49 is the rule of thumb. It's a moot point with the emg/blackout in there, gotta love bladded pickup coils. Again she is a beauty and i can't wait for mine. The NGDs from this build are going to be coming hard and fast.

Hey man that thing looks great. The arching of the slant top is just so classy and comfortable looking. .

I just picked up someone's abandoned slot for a black friday run guitar and was wondering if you could do a quick favor. Could you measure the string spacing at the bridge pickup? Is it closer to 53mm or 50mm? I am getting some BK pickups made for mine and I need the string spacing to kind of continue with what I ordered or ask for a little change in the order. Bernie said 52mm spacing was needed and when i told him I got 53mm (they are really something like 52.9mm, but who is counting micrometers) things got a little silly and I don't want to bother him too much about this stuff.

OK...........are you getting a floyd btw?

Oh wow OK LOL. That is wierd. If it's 52 you would think 53 being the closest number would suffice though. I believe EVH was famous for using incorrectly spaced pickups on his guitars and we know the rest of his success. I will have to look into this now because if I wanted to do a BKP Aftermath wouldn't I run into the same issue? I always just assumed that 50 mm was for non-trems and 53 mm for trems. Besides the fact that the AHB-3 Blackout sounds pretty damn awesome in this guitar now (did some initial tweaking due to it's crazy output) I have to feel a little better that I didn't go for the BKP right off the bat.

 

[ras1988]

Nope, it's going to be a hipshot just like yours. That is why I was curious. He originally listed the build coming with a tb-4 which is 53mm then he went back on that and says that it needs to be 52mm spacing which doesn't really exist. There is 49mm and 53mm, dimensionally the pickups are the same it is just different placement of the coils in the bobbin. And I thought that the 53 would be closest to the 52 mm that he stated. It is just a frustrating mess, essentially if the E to E (or B to B in this case) spacing is greater than 2" go for the 53 if it is less go for the 49 is the rule of thumb. It's a moot point with the emg/blackout in there, gotta love bladded pickup coils. Again she is a beauty and i can't wait for mine. The NGDs from this build are going to be coming hard and fast.

Hey man that thing looks great. The arching of the slant top is just so classy and comfortable looking. .

I just picked up someone's abandoned slot for a black friday run guitar and was wondering if you could do a quick favor. Could you measure the string spacing at the bridge pickup? Is it closer to 53mm or 50mm? I am getting some BK pickups made for mine and I need the string spacing to kind of continue with what I ordered or ask for a little change in the order. Bernie said 52mm spacing was needed and when i told him I got 53mm (they are really something like 52.9mm, but who is counting micrometers) things got a little silly and I don't want to bother him too much about this stuff.

OK...........are you getting a floyd btw?

Oh wow OK LOL. That is wierd. If it's 52 you would think 53 being the closest number would suffice though. I believe EVH was famous for using incorrectly spaced pickups on his guitars and we know the rest of his success. I will have to look into this now because if I wanted to do a BKP Aftermath wouldn't I run into the same issue? I always just assumed that 50 mm was for non-trems and 53 mm for trems. Besides the fact that the AHB-3 Blackout sounds pretty damn awesome in this guitar now (did some initial tweaking due to it's crazy output) I have to feel a little better that I didn't go for the BKP right off the bat.

Sorry about being an alarmist about this, turns out the bridge is spaced to 52mm not the pickup area so (minor miss-communication between Bern and myself) it would probably be 50mm after all. Honestly this is utterly utterly silly stuff and you should love and treasure that instrument.

The aftermath is a very good choice, a ceramic nailbomb would be cool too. Totally depends on what you want, the aftermath has a lot of attack up front but it feels like there is a limiter/compressor after the initial attack to bring the sustained note down in volume but hold it out. It's also incredibly tight and defined, you can get really cool stutter effects with a good muting technique and noise gate it also has good string separation and handles low tunings very well. There is a lower mid growl that is distinct to the pickup as well, and chords are clear as the compression/low end doesn't turn them into mush like a crunch lab does. I have a set in my PRS CU24 tuned to D/drop C and I couldn't be happier.

 

[shred-o-holic]

Nope, it's going to be a hipshot just like yours. That is why I was curious. He originally listed the build coming with a tb-4 which is 53mm then he went back on that and says that it needs to be 52mm spacing which doesn't really exist. There is 49mm and 53mm, dimensionally the pickups are the same it is just different placement of the coils in the bobbin. And I thought that the 53 would be closest to the 52 mm that he stated. It is just a frustrating mess, essentially if the E to E (or B to B in this case) spacing is greater than 2" go for the 53 if it is less go for the 49 is the rule of thumb. It's a moot point with the emg/blackout in there, gotta love bladded pickup coils. Again she is a beauty and i can't wait for mine. The NGDs from this build are going to be coming hard and fast.

Hey man that thing looks great. The arching of the slant top is just so classy and comfortable looking. .

I just picked up someone's abandoned slot for a black friday run guitar and was wondering if you could do a quick favor. Could you measure the string spacing at the bridge pickup? Is it closer to 53mm or 50mm? I am getting some BK pickups made for mine and I need the string spacing to kind of continue with what I ordered or ask for a little change in the order. Bernie said 52mm spacing was needed and when i told him I got 53mm (they are really something like 52.9mm, but who is counting micrometers) things got a little silly and I don't want to bother him too much about this stuff.

OK...........are you getting a floyd btw?

Oh wow OK LOL. That is wierd. If it's 52 you would think 53 being the closest number would suffice though. I believe EVH was famous for using incorrectly spaced pickups on his guitars and we know the rest of his success. I will have to look into this now because if I wanted to do a BKP Aftermath wouldn't I run into the same issue? I always just assumed that 50 mm was for non-trems and 53 mm for trems. Besides the fact that the AHB-3 Blackout sounds pretty damn awesome in this guitar now (did some initial tweaking due to it's crazy output) I have to feel a little better that I didn't go for the BKP right off the bat.

Sorry about being an alarmist about this, turns out the bridge is spaced to 52mm not the pickup area so (minor miss-communication between Bern and myself) it would probably be 50mm after all. Honestly this is utterly utterly silly stuff and you should love and treasure that instrument.

The aftermath is a very good choice, a ceramic nailbomb would be cool too. Totally depends on what you want, the aftermath has a lot of attack up front but it feels like there is a limiter/compressor after the initial attack to bring the sustained note down in volume but hold it out. It's also incredibly tight and defined, you can get really cool stutter effects with a good muting technique and noise gate it also has good string separation and handles low tunings very well. There is a lower mid growl that is distinct to the pickup as well, and chords are clear as the compression/low end doesn't turn them into mush like a crunch lab does. I have a set in my PRS CU24 tuned to D/drop C and I couldn't be happier.

Oh OK cool. The Aftermath sounds like it may be awesome. I haven't had much success with BKP's in the past though. Tried the Miracle Man in a basswood JP6 and it was OK but nothing mind blowing. Tried a Painkiller in a mahogany LTD MH-327 and it was incredibly twangy/clanky. I have heard some great recordings with BKP's I'm just waiting to experience something cool in person. I'm a HUGE fan of Fear Factory and Soilwork type of tones so indeed I like highly tight and defined tone. I also prefer the warmth of Alnico at least in EMG's so the Aftermath on paper sounds perfect. But the EMG's give me a consistent tone for the most part (although the 85 in this guitar sounded thin and even a bit brittle) so I generally get discouraged with passive pickups rather quickly. The Mick Thompson Blackout sounds absolutely monsterous in this guitar. I just have to decide if I want this 100 mile an hour steroid driven tone all the time. This guitar is now screaming at me ROAR ROAR ROAR I WANT TO KILL!!!!!!!!!!