• 30_to_50_Feral_PAWGs [she/her]
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    13 days ago

    That's the OEM branding on guitar manufacturer B.C. Rich's stock humbucking pickups. They're a medium-high output variant of the old Gibson "PAF" (patent-applied-for) design, but suffer from some "built to price-point" issues; namely, poor design re: magnet wire gauge vs. number of windings, cheap ceramic magnets used as a messy method of boosting output (at the cost of signal clarity), and inconsistent materials in the polepiece slugs. The end result is a pickup that sounds OK for low-gain applications, but quickly becomes muddy or "woofy" (due to over-represented bass and low-mid frequencies) as more gain is applied to the signal chain. B.C. Rich also did some strange experiments involving molex quick-disconnect plugs inside the BDSM-equipped guitars' control cavities, which meant that the stock electronics were not reusable by owners looking to upgrade.

    In the end, BDSM pickups were about power dynamics -- too much power applied incoherently, and not enough dynamics.