Pickups?????

[LarryUK]

I've not seen a discussion on here about this, so, here we go. I personally don't think there's much in it. I think it's in the mind and a dollop of BS.

I use a MXR micro amp pedal to boost the input. It boosts far more than a pick ever could. I see all these 'hot' pickups, but all they are is wire wrapped around a bobbin.

More wire..more output. Yes?

I think it may make a difference on a clean sound, (eg Jazz/country) but the amp can be adjusted to compensate. I personally think it's just salesmanship.

A Strat is a Strat and a Les Paul is a Les Paul and they'll sound like one whatever you do.

Let's have a serious discussion here.

Do you really think a pickup can make a difference when you can adjust your amp to compensate (or use a pedal to boost)?

[badbluesplayer]

Sure, pickups make a difference. They're the first thing in the signal chain and so they have the greatest effect on the sound of anything in the chain.

 

You adjust your pickups up or down to get the best sound. There's no way you can make your amp or effects reproduce the sound of a properly adjusted pickup.

 

Plus, you adjust the pickups to get the best "in between" sound from both pickups. You can't reproduce that mix of tones using amps or effects.

 

For people who play high gain stuff, it may not be that big a deal, but for low gain players pickups are a big deal.

[Versatile]

After my initial disappointment hoping for tips on how to attract the opposite sex

 

Yes IMO pickups and their design and mfg are a highly developed and continuing craft

 

This is why otherwise sensible people endlessly discuss/experiment with the nuances of magnet specs, scatter winds or not etc etc

 

And IMX there is a definite difference between 'Euro/American' home grown/boutique P/U's and their more mass produced alternatives from the Orient etc...

 

V

 

[stein]

A very worthy discussion.

 

I think one thing to consider is that a guitar gear junkies, we often think of "tone" as something we do to artfully color the sound, as opposed to trying to preserve it. And I think we also tend to think of pickups as inherently "colored", but I don't think it is really the case.

 

The magnet/coil is the basis of ALL sound reproduction in electronics. Speakers, microphones, cartridges on record players, and magnetic (analog) tape all work with them. I bring this up because a pickup works on the same principle, but instead of being less accurate than a microphone, it potentailly is MORE accurate than a mic- mainly because it dispences with extra parts.

 

I think when we set to "refine" or tweak a design to get more of this or that, we also compromise. I think on the whole, in most cases, they got it right the first time. They chose the specs and perameters because thay had already considered the options and experimented themselves before we ever heard them. If Seth Lover or Leo Fender had thought this or that produced better "tone", they would have made them that way.

 

That isn't to say that there is no validity to a "different" spec or an altered design. But while adding more winds makes for a higher output pup, it also looses a lot of clarity and fidelity. It looses nuances and a lot of tone. But, the idea of "hot-rodding" is that you compromise some of this to get more of that. In a lot of cases, hotter pups are more appealing to some because if the goal is more distortion or smoother distortion, the loss of detail might actually help.

 

Adding a pre-amp or boost to make a signal louder AFTER the pickup is entirely different than a hotter pup. Mainly because a pre-amp can be designed to more accurately boost and preserve the signal than over-winding a pup can.

[kidblast]

Stein offers a rather well worded ant thought out reply. I agree with everything in that reply.

 

The nuances in the various pickups start to matter less, was the tone the player selects leans more heavily to the higher gain settings. When you can really hear a pickup do it's magic is when you have a moderate wattage tube amp turned up to the point where it's just naturally over driven. The quality of the electronics is now more obvious.

 

and it's not just the pickups here. the quality of the control pots, and what sort of wiring scheme has been implemented also matters, as does the gauge of string, and the touch of the player -- it all matters...

 

A boost in front of the amp gives you more volume, but if the tone is lacking, that only magnifies the short comings in how that pickup is performing.

 

I once had a guy shield my strat, (while he said he knew what he was doing, he didn't) - he soldered copper shielding to the pickup, and melted the windings under the solder joint, this destroy the output response of the pickups. So the amp had to be turned up considerably more than it should have, but the thing is,, the tone of the pickups, even running at about half the output, was amazing... I swapped them out because the output just wasn't workable, (I still have them, set Texas specials - they just need to be rewound.)

 

Even though they were not even close to the proper output, I've NEVER had a strat that sounded like that one. Weird!

 

The balance for ample output, and good tone is the essential quest! It can't be found in a pedal IMHO..

 

/KB

[Kennis]

I'm a little astounded here. you really think so?

sure, under an ocean of gain and effects the differences are probably drowned out, but the difference a set of Bare Knuckle "The Mule" does compared to the stock pickups on a Les Paul is staggering.

I have read a lot about people who cliam (scientifically) that the material and shape of the guitar is irrelevant; that it's all about the pickup. so to see you claim the opposite is amusing.

 

In my opinion it all makes a difference. because I can hear it! I know what guitar and what pickups I'm listening to (for the most part), and I can tell which part of the equation does what (guitar wood, shape and age, pickups, amp).

after modding my own guitars and others I have never come to believe that any part of it is just hype. sure the differences between all the variations of pickups offered by some manufacturers might not all be apparent, but there's always something to it.

[Searcy]

It's rather obvious that different pickups sound different. A Strat sounds like a Strat? No, a Strat with a humbucker will sound totally different than one with a stock single coil or a P-90 or a FilterTron or a Lip Stick Tube pickup. The biggest deciding factor in a pickups tone is its design. A short, flat coil will sound fuller than a tall skinny one which will sound more focused. The shape and density of the magnetic field will effect output, "punch" and treble response.

 

That said, most of what you read on the web sites of most pickup makers is 100% unsubstantiated marketing BS and repetition of tone mojo dogma they heard someone else say.

 

When you see a pickup maker using the term "aged, calibrated, magnets" you can rest assured that he is either trying to sound mystical or has not checked many old pickup with a gauss meter. For that matter most of them don't even own a proper gauss meter.

 

When you see a pickup maker talk about "scatter winding" that's pretty much crap as any coil wound with magnet wire smaller than about 40awg will be rather random in pattern since automated winders can't wind neat little rows of wire that small. In a sense all pickups are "scatter wound".

 

So yes, pickups do make a difference but there is so much BS being injected into the subject these days it's hard to tell fact from fiction.

 

Trust your ears.

[kidblast]

I'm a little astounded here. you really think so?

sure, under an ocean of gain and effects the differences are probably drowned out, but the difference a set of Bare Knuckle "The Mule" does compared to the stock pickups on a Les Paul is staggering.

I have read a lot about people who clam (scientifically) that the material and shape of the guitar is irrelevant; that it's all about the pickup. so to see you claim the opposite is amusing.

 

In my opinion it all makes a difference. because I can hear it! I know what guitar and what pickups I'm listening to (for the most part), and I can tell which part of the equation does what (guitar wood, shape and age, pickups, amp).

after modding my own guitars and others I have never come to believe that any part of it is just hype. sure the differences between all the variations of pickups offered by some manufacturers might not all be apparent, but there's always something to it.

 

ZACKLY!

 

put a set of burst-buckers in a strat, and if you can't tell the difference in the tone between that strat and a les paul with the same pups loaded in them, (and with an amp NOT set to the tones of DEATH metal.) then the point is just lost on you and lets talk about the weather instead.

 

EVERYTHING makes "some" difference...

[RaysEpiphone]

Maybe not in all case's but the stock Ibanez pickups I replaced with genuine Gibson and DiMarzio's sounded so bad compared to the real thing. Same goes for the switch that came with my Ibanez, it's got a real All-Part's switch now. The volume and tone pot's are ok but the rest of the electronics where just trash!

[pippy]

As has already been mentioned, there is considerable difference in the final tone produced between various designs of p-up. Try wiring (temporarily, I suggest...) a neck p-up from a Tele in the same position of an LP...

 

I agree that tweaking the settings on an amp can have a very profound effect on the final tone produced by any given instrument. However, even p-ups built to the same inherent design will sound different if the materials used in their respective construction differs. As an example;

If I try to match the sound of my '57 Classic-equipped R0 with my '91 '1960 Classic' (ceramics) I can easily get to within, say, 90%. After that point the character of the ceramics will come to the fore and, no matter what controls I tweak, I can get no closer. Similarly, there's no way I can get the amount of break-up the ceramics will ultimately produce from the '57s.

A pedal can probably make the '57s sound like the ceramics but, as the original signal from the ceramics doesn't have what makes the '57s sound "like PAFs", I suspect it's unlikely that a different pedal can do the reverse trick.

 

Les Paul, himself, famously favoured low-impedance p-ups as his preference was for a very clean original signal which he would then modify according to his taste. He is reckoned to have altered, in some way, the circuitry of pretty much every guitar sent to him from Kalamazoo from the very earliest days - and that included winding most of his own p-ups for himself.

 

If all that isn't enough there is a fairly well-known article on the web where an A/B test was carried out with seven original PAFs and three (technically identical) Pat No. 'buckers. Quoting from the conclusion;

"Evaluating the PAFs involved multiple sessions.....over four weeks, with intentional breaks with intentional breaks of 2 - 3 days when we didn't go near them to allow our ears to re-set and refresh..."

The testers - all very experienced professionals - found subtle yet distinct differences between each p-up (anyone who wants to read the entire article PM me and I'll try to send the link).

 

I realise that the above experiment is all-but pointless for pretty much 100% of players but, nevertheless, it's interesting in its own way.

 

P.

[milod]

First, Searcy's the man. The pro. I strongly recommend listening to him when discussing the technical side of this stuff.

 

But it's not all "technical."

 

I wonder sometimes if some of those early inventive "electric guitar" guys had any idea how their instruments would be perceived by later "hot rodders."

 

Yes, I think there almost certainly are poorly-made pups and pots - and the pot setup is very, very significant, too.

 

OTOH, I think an electric player has to consider that at minimum, he is playing an instrument of two parts, perhaps two and a half, in that he's got a guitar and an amp. The "half" is the cord.

 

With just that two and a half, assuming decent quality of both, there's a huge range of tonal potential.

 

I think too many of us - me too in my younger days - tend not to work first with the original two and a half and run out to spend more money on stuff that's at best a little bit more what we thought we wanted.

 

Let's just say that somebody said to me, M, here's $20,000 to set yourself up for a gig with "X" band on tour for three months.

 

First thing I'd do would be... find out what my band role would be, what other equipment was being used and how it was going through a PA and...

 

Notice I didn't say a thing about buying stuff. Unless you're playing for money, it doesn't make much diff for practice,

 

If somebody said, M, here's $10,000 to set yourself up for a small venue whatever you wanna do three month tour... I'd ask what sort of "small venues," then I'd likely buy a better quality small PA, mike or two and a backup guitar amp when using electric rather than AE.

 

It ain't rocket science to get whatever you consider "very good" unless you're searching for that "lost chord" that you can truly only hear in your mind 'cuz your ears and brain ain't exactly like everyone else's, no venue resonates the same, no picker's technique is the same...

 

I've nothing against good gear. I just think we do a good job sometimes of talking ourselves into spending money that doesn't really buy us enough for any audience to care about. OR... spend money that may actually be counterproductive to an audience/venue we're playing to.

 

m

[Californiaman]

No need for me to weigh in on this discussion.

Looks like you fellows are doing fine all on your own.

Carry on.