NPD - Modifying my Luke

[M.A.K.S]

I've had the idea to put passive pickups in my MM Luke for quite some time now.
Not that there's anything wrong with the actives it came with, I just miss that "proper" single coil sound from the neck and middle pickups

So I ordered a set of BKP, a VHII bridge and 2 Irish Tours.
Got the pickups today and got to installing them right away. Had a few ground issues, but managed to get it working after some head-scratching and lots of swearing

Anywhoo, I'm loving the sounds I'm getting out of the Luke now, and I'm really happy I decided to do this mod.

 

[dwells]

wow! how does it sound?? and was it a big job?

 

[ily]

I've had the idea to put passive pickups in my MM Luke for quite some time now.
Not that there's anything wrong with the actives it came with, I just miss that "proper" single coil sound from the neck and middle pickups

So I ordered a set of BKP, a VHII bridge and 2 Irish Tours.
Got the pickups today and got to installing them right away. Had a few ground issues, but managed to get it working after some head-scratching and lots of swearing

Anywhoo, I'm loving the sounds I'm getting out of the Luke now, and I'm really happy I decided to do this mod.

Nice JOB and a very interristing mods
BKP are very good PU
are they a special order or standard ?
you didn't have mod the wood of the body

i'll be very curious to ear some sample clean sound

 

[threeminutesboy]

Looks great hope it sounds the same!

 

[M.A.K.S]

wow! how does it sound?? and was it a big job?

Well, installing the pickups themselves wasn't all that hard, but I kept getting some excessive ground hum that really bothered me. I tried just about everything in order to properly ground all the components, but didn't have any luck.
In the end I just gave in and drilled a small hole from the tremolo cavity and into the electronics cavity in order to get a ground connection to the bridge.
That seemed to do the trick

Keep in mind though that I'm no expert on these things, so there might be an easier solution

And they sound fantastic to my ears! Lovely glassy in-between tones and stratty neck tones
The VHII is slowly creeping up as my favourite bridge pickup. It's clear even under stupid amounts of gain, and has lots of harmonics. Oh, and it does clean sounds really well, and splits real nice as well.

Nice JOB and a very interristing mods
BKP are very good PU
are they a special order or standard ?
you didn't have mod the wood of the body

i'll be very curious to ear some sample clean sound

They are a special order in a sense.. I ordered them directly from the BKP webpage.
I had to specify EMG shaped single coils when I ordered them, but it doesn't cost anything extra
I also had to specify the burnt chrome cover, thought about doing black for a while but decided this would be more special

The pickups fit in there without modifications, but as I mentioned in the reply over this one, I did have to make a small hole between the cavities in order to get a ground connection to the bridge.

I'll see what I can do about sound clips later