De-mudding an HHH St Vincent: Step 3

Small challenge to be aware of, should anyone reading this consider doing this: the 168s have square mounting tabs and ~#2 screw-sized holes, while the bridge pickup (by most accounts a DP-198, but marked “BMH02CL”) has tapered tabs with ~#4 screw-sized holes. I just snipped the tabs on my middle pup and used smaller screws. They seem to be holding fine.

Compared to the other swaps I’ve done, this one is pretty subtle. It mayyybe drives the amp a bit less. And it’s mayyyybe a bit more open sounding, but overall it’s largely the same sound.

DP-198s are about 2k hotter than DP-168s, so I was expecting a bit more difference, tbh. But I’ve always liked the bridge pickup sound on this guitar, so no real complaints that it’s stayed mostly the same.

Combined with the Firebird pickups I put in previously, it definitely feels like an HSS kind of setup.

I still find myself reaching for the tone knob when it’s already full up, so Step 4 is gonna be replacing the stock pcb harness with some 500k pots. I nearly started there, but I wanted to hear these pickups with the stock (and imo wrong) electronics first.