pappy Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 I was aked if one of my guitars had hot pups. Honestly I did not know what they were referring to. Can anyone enlighten me about HOT PUPS? Thanks Pappy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Farnsbarns Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 The higher the DC resistance and the stronger the magenet, the higher the output, sometimes referred to as hotter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pappy Posted March 25, 2016 Author Share Posted March 25, 2016 The higher the DC resistance and the stronger the magenet, the higher the output, sometimes referred to as hotter. Does hotter equate to a better sound , or a different tonality in the guitar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdgm Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 Hotter mostly means louder here. Not a better sound; altered a bit by the extra output, usually in thickness of mid range, sometimes resulting in lack of the clear top end evident in single coil pickups. But I'm not an expert at all. Searcy is the expert.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Yup, generally hotter = louder Heres a chart of relative Gibson pickup output (or hotness :)) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pappy Posted March 26, 2016 Author Share Posted March 26, 2016 Yup, generally hotter = louder Heres a chart of relative Gibson pickup output (or hotness :)) Thanks all, got the general idea now. Had no idea what they were asking, but now have the idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Farnsbarns Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Hotter doesn't mean louder. It means a higher amplitude output which, in simple terms, means it will cause an amplifier to break up earlier. There will be a marginal increase in volume over a cooler pup in the identical circuit, at the same settings but one wouldn't get hotter pups, for example, to play in a larger room or to be heard from further away. As for a "better" sound... As with most things it's just different. Actually the general trend right now is for lower output pups. All part of the idea of chasing PAF tone, whatever that means to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pappy Posted March 26, 2016 Author Share Posted March 26, 2016 Hotter doesn't mean louder. It means a higher amplitude output which, in simple terms, means it will cause an amplifier to break up earlier. There will be a marginal increase in volume over a cooler pup in the identical circuit, at the same settings but one wouldn't get hotter pups, for example, to play in a larger room or to be heard from further away. As fora "better" sound... As with most things it's just different. Actually the general trend right now is for lower output pups. All part of the idea of chasing PAF tome, whatever that means to you. Ahh, and more clarity! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pappy Posted March 26, 2016 Author Share Posted March 26, 2016 Early PAFs are often the most-sought-after vintage humbucker pickups by guitarists, and each individual pickup is unique in terms of output level and tone. Factors that account for their sound are: Early Gibson pickup winding machines were manually operated and had no mechanism to automatically cut the wire after a set number of turns. Thus every pickup had a different number of windings and that led to variation in the output and tone. For the same reason, the two coils within each pickup unit usually also have a slightly different number of turns Gibson used Alnico magnets in PAFs, the same magnet as used in the P-90. Alnico has several different grades and different magnetic properties (grades 2, 3, 4 and 5 are usually used). Gibson assigned them quite randomly until the end of the era of early PAFs. The most common of these was Alnico 4 Original pickups are now over forty years old and thus their tone may have changed significantly over time. This is due to the slow demagnetization of Alnico magnets and the warping of the plastic bobbins (which changes the placement of the wire) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 As mentioned before, "hot" just means output level. Due to the factors affecting level, this usually also means lower resonance frequency and less treble. The defining properties are inductance and magnetic flux on the generator side. Parasitic capacitances and wire DC resistance determine the inevitable losses. The capacitance of the guitar cable typically is much larger than that of the pickups. An ideal coil would have zero capacitance and zero DC resistance but can't be built on principal, so we will have to live with the losses. The hottest pickups in guitars of mine interestingly include those with the smallest DC resistances: 1978 Gibson S-G "Super Humbucking" tarbacks, 1973 Gibson L6-S Bill Lawrence humbuckers, and 2014 Ibanez "Super 80 Flying Fingers" humbuckers all read 4.5 ... 5.5 kOhms, less than all of my Fender single-coil and noiseless stacked humbuckers. The highest-reading hot pickups of mine at around 16 kOhms are the 2013 Gibson "Dirty Fingers +" humbuckers. The relatively hot Gibson 498Ts of mine are around 13.5 kOhms. ... As for a "better" sound... As with most things it's just different. Actually the general trend right now is for lower output pups. All part of the idea of chasing PAF tone, whatever that means to you. Ahh, and more clarity! Exactly. ... Original pickups are now over forty years old and thus their tone may have changed significantly over time. This is due to the slow demagnetization of Alnico magnets and the warping of the plastic bobbins (which changes the placement of the wire) Demagnetization of AlNiCo magnets can be ruled out in most cases, let alone ceramic ones (not used in PAFs). Given a pickup that has never been disassembled and has very little rust - AlNiCo magnets may corrode -, the magnetic flux will weaken only about a fraction of a percent in a century. Most of the demagnetization happens within the first seconds after upmagnetizing. Fooling around with magnets may seriously degrade field strength, for instance bumps caused through letting some magnets snap together or snap a screwdriver or the like onto it, but no magnet in a guitar properly treated and stored will change audibly within lots of human lifespans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
'Scales Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Pappy, I have a very hot pick-up in one of my guitars - a Dimarzio X2N - and as a non-technical person I'd say flicking the selected switch to that pick-up is like cranking up the gain knob on your amp, it gets louder and more overdriven both at once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tman Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Pappy I changed out my 500T hot pup on my LP classic for a burstbucker 1. I think a lot of nuance is lost with the hot pups. I go for the more mellow pups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Pappy I changed out my 500T hot pup on my LP classic for a burstbucker 1. I think a lot of nuance is lost with the hot pups. I go for the more mellow pups. The irony of it is that hotter pickups tend to mellow string attacks when amped-up quite clean. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thejay Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 I had an RD with Dirty Fingers which are hot; cleans sounded great. I thought any distortion or OD sounds were way too much. I have learned overtime lower output is better or at least for me. I tend to hang in the burstbucker/57 ranges Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Hotter doesn't mean louder. It means a higher amplitude output which, in simple terms, means it will cause an amplifier to break up earlier. There will be a marginal increase in volume over a cooler pup in the identical circuit, at the same settings but one wouldn't get hotter pups, for example, to play in a larger room or to be heard from further away. As for a "better" sound... As with most things it's just different. Actually the general trend right now is for lower output pups. All part of the idea of chasing PAF tone, whatever that means to you. Well I can only talk from my experience and the the one set of "hot" pickups I have are in my Classic.. And that's certainly much louder than my other guitars.. Its quite a difference too.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digger Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 The pick-ups on my LP were too hot when I tried it for the first time and I was advised to screw the pick-ups down a little which I did and it fixed the problem immediately. Just a slight bit of extra clearance from the strings did the trick and took about a minute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merciful-evans Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 I'm amazed at how much pickups of similar spec can sound so different BBs & 57s look pretty similar on paper, but sound completely different. I have never yet heard a 'hot' pickup sound that Ive liked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thejay Posted March 27, 2016 Share Posted March 27, 2016 Magnets play a huge role in how pickups sound as well, cannot forget that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveinspain Posted March 27, 2016 Share Posted March 27, 2016 Sometímes active pickups are referred to as hot pickups... Just sayin'... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pappy Posted March 27, 2016 Author Share Posted March 27, 2016 Wow, I am a little overwhelmed , so much to learn for this old brain. Now to put it to the test and figure out what the **** I have. As a young guitar player I just played, and yes I did take lessons form the age of 12 to 15. What I remember is virtually nothing from those early days. Now that I am getting serious again I realize that I have so much to learn all over. But this is what has drawn me back into playing once again, realizing that I have a long road to travel it fuels my desire to get better. Just hope that the old fingers (arthritis) will continue to keep functioning. The knowledge from you guys is amazing, and I do appreciate you helping me along the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveinspain Posted March 27, 2016 Share Posted March 27, 2016 Sometímes active pickups are referred to as hot pickups... Just sayin'... Active pick ups are battery powered pickups like EMGs… Yes I know I just quoted myself… Hey there is a first time for everything... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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