Pickup dissatisfaction

OilCityPickups

Kurtis said:

OilCityPickups said:

impmann said:

It’s funny - I replaced the stock, muddy, flubby and generally wayyyy too hot humbuckers in my 2004 Gibson SG Special with 57 Classics. It brought the guitar to life and sounds utterly incredible.

So much so that three other SGs have passed through here and have all been sold, whilst the black 04 Special remains - and is a 100% keeper, having had it 19 years.

I’ve kept the original mudbuckers purely for originality. 

Genuinely, I love the 57s and they sound big, open and harmonically rich - I don’t understand the hatred. 

My experience has been somewhat different that's all :-)  I've had two Gibsons personally with 57 Classics and found them as the OP said 'woolly and indistinct' ... the combination of no coil offset with a polished A2 magnet I find totally characterless. Especially in the bridge! 
We all have our preferences, and I prefer what feels to me more harmonics and character that's all :-)

You do say they're simply not very good and by design totally characterless though. 

Yep ... I absolutely hate em ... but then I personally hate Duncan JBs too :-)

rlw

OilCityPickups said:

rlw said:

PLOP said:

rlw said:

Philly_Q said:

rlw said:

I'm coming to the conclusion that a guitar will sound pretty similar, rather than night and day, after a normal pickup swap. 

It might sound a bit clearer or cleaner, or dirtier if that's your thing, but the basic tone of the wood is not going to change a great deal.

Tone of the wood...? 

Yes.  I think we know that a lump of mahogany will sound different to a lump of ash or obeche or basswood or whatever when turned into a guitar, with a mahogany or maple or carbon or aluminium neck.

And that guitar will have a unique sound character, dependent entirely upon the methods used when building it,  whatever pickups you put into it.

  

You can fiddle around the edges but the characteristics are set in stone .  You won't make a 335 sound like a Strat simply by putting three single coils in it and you can't make a Strat sound much like an LP by putting humbuckers in it.

I'm not saying that the woods used affect the tone for better of for worse; rather the guitar will sound like itself whatever pickups you choose, short of changing it beyond recognition.

..and notice I didn't use the word tonewood....

 I don’t think there’s any value in different wood for electrics. I’d say the difference between the Gibson and fender scale lengths has much more influence than the wood used, because the pickups are what makes the sound. Acoustics will be different, and I’ll concede on semi hollow like 335s, but I don’t think the wood on an LP/Tele/Strat etc makes any difference. I also don’t think there will be much difference between set and bolt on necks. 

If you make a paulownia LP and compare it to a solid mahogany LP, both with the same pickups, neck joint strings etc, they will sound different.  Maybe not a lot, but there will be a difference between the two core sounds.   All I'm saying is that changing the pickups will make a small difference but the core, whether it be very bright or very sustaining, will remain the essentially the same.    SGs sound different to LPs with the same pickups etc.   Changing the pickups isn't going to make an SG sound like an LP with the same pickups because the core sounds are different.

IMO.  

Anyway, I think changing pickups can often not be the panacea one hoped for.

What you are saying is ... when all else is equal the woods of the guitar make more difference than the pickups? 

Let me introduce ... 


But of course sometimes its ... 


Sometimes it has P90s ... sometimes Gold Foils  

All with the same wood, the same strings, the same everything ... as the centre section of the guitar slides out without any need to re tune even ...

A perfect test bed to test if changing pickups changes tone  ... because absolutely nothing else changes.

 

I am not even remotely trying to say that the wood matters.  What I am saying is, and it applies to your test bood too, is that any guitar has characteristics unique to that instrument and they will colour the tone in some way.   Changing the pickups will have an effect on how it sounds but you can't change the basic character of it.

If the wood and construction used didn't impart any characteristics, then every twin humbucker guitar would sound the same with the same pickups and every Tele or Strat, with the same pickups, would sound the same, and we know they don't.

If they did, Gibson and Fender would have a hard time selling their custom shop models.

As Jonathan said further up the page, changing a bridge will have an impact, as will changing the nut. I went through hell with an LP Special (not the one I just sold I hasten to add), trying to get rid of a prominent upper mid resonance than made it really nasal.   I moved it a bit, both up and down, with different tailpieces, and tried more expensive pickups too, which again changed the sound, different strings too, but the annoying resonance remained and that, in my view, was down to the way that particular guitar was. 

I bought another one and didn't change a thing as it was spot on,for me, with the resonance being much lower down and less nasal.  

Again, all I'm trying to say is that changing pickups may not address every issue anyone has with the sound of a particular guitar.

Kurtis

OilCityPickups said:

Kurtis said:

OilCityPickups said:

impmann said:

It’s funny - I replaced the stock, muddy, flubby and generally wayyyy too hot humbuckers in my 2004 Gibson SG Special with 57 Classics. It brought the guitar to life and sounds utterly incredible.

So much so that three other SGs have passed through here and have all been sold, whilst the black 04 Special remains - and is a 100% keeper, having had it 19 years.

I’ve kept the original mudbuckers purely for originality. 

Genuinely, I love the 57s and they sound big, open and harmonically rich - I don’t understand the hatred. 

My experience has been somewhat different that's all :-)  I've had two Gibsons personally with 57 Classics and found them as the OP said 'woolly and indistinct' ... the combination of no coil offset with a polished A2 magnet I find totally characterless. Especially in the bridge! 
We all have our preferences, and I prefer what feels to me more harmonics and character that's all :-)

You do say they're simply not very good and by design totally characterless though. 

Yep ... I absolutely hate em ... but then I personally hate Duncan JBs too :-)

We all like different things....I like good things and you like shit things? 

DrJazzTap

OilCityPickups said:

rlw said:

PLOP said:

rlw said:

Philly_Q said:

rlw said:

I'm coming to the conclusion that a guitar will sound pretty similar, rather than night and day, after a normal pickup swap. 

It might sound a bit clearer or cleaner, or dirtier if that's your thing, but the basic tone of the wood is not going to change a great deal.

Tone of the wood...? 

Yes.  I think we know that a lump of mahogany will sound different to a lump of ash or obeche or basswood or whatever when turned into a guitar, with a mahogany or maple or carbon or aluminium neck.

And that guitar will have a unique sound character, dependent entirely upon the methods used when building it,  whatever pickups you put into it.

  

You can fiddle around the edges but the characteristics are set in stone .  You won't make a 335 sound like a Strat simply by putting three single coils in it and you can't make a Strat sound much like an LP by putting humbuckers in it.

I'm not saying that the woods used affect the tone for better of for worse; rather the guitar will sound like itself whatever pickups you choose, short of changing it beyond recognition.

..and notice I didn't use the word tonewood....

 I don’t think there’s any value in different wood for electrics. I’d say the difference between the Gibson and fender scale lengths has much more influence than the wood used, because the pickups are what makes the sound. Acoustics will be different, and I’ll concede on semi hollow like 335s, but I don’t think the wood on an LP/Tele/Strat etc makes any difference. I also don’t think there will be much difference between set and bolt on necks. 

If you make a paulownia LP and compare it to a solid mahogany LP, both with the same pickups, neck joint strings etc, they will sound different.  Maybe not a lot, but there will be a difference between the two core sounds.   All I'm saying is that changing the pickups will make a small difference but the core, whether it be very bright or very sustaining, will remain the essentially the same.    SGs sound different to LPs with the same pickups etc.   Changing the pickups isn't going to make an SG sound like an LP with the same pickups because the core sounds are different.

IMO.  

Anyway, I think changing pickups can often not be the panacea one hoped for.

What you are saying is ... when all else is equal the woods of the guitar make more difference than the pickups? 

Let me introduce ... 


But of course sometimes its ... 


Sometimes it has P90s ... sometimes Gold Foils  

All with the same wood, the same strings, the same everything ... as the centre section of the guitar slides out without any need to re tune even ...

A perfect test bed to test if changing pickups changes tone  ... because absolutely nothing else changes.

 

To be fair that first scratchplate is white. So that's a huge thing haha

guitarmanessex89

I have a 90s LP Classic, owned by a certain Danish chap. Sounded horrific - I discovered that the 300k pots were as much to blame as the nasty ceramic pickups. Sounds great now both have been replaced.

TeleMaster

strtdv said:

TeleMaster said:

Change them. I never care what a guitar sounds like when I buy it because I won't have my amp in the shop so even if it sounds good or bad there, it might sound completely different at gig volumes, and you can never tell what a guitar is really about unless you turn it up anyway, and how much it rings unplugged is meaningless. I don't buy into the whole wood argument so if the guitar feels good, has the specs I need, I know I'll be able to manipulate the sound with pickup changes.

Bringing your amp to the shop before you spend a couple of grand on a guitar is actually a great idea. I'd imagine most guitar shops wouldn't mind

They probably wouldn't, but even then I'd really need to crank it to know. I judge guitars at gig volumes really so I don't think I can ever get a real idea until I go to a rehearsal and mess around with it, you know.

Yorkie

Has the debate moved on to tone plastics already? Or am I still priced out of the discussion. 

impmann

Yorkie said:

Has the debate moved on to tone plastics already? Or am I still priced out of the discussion. 

Tone plastics are soooo important, though... I mean you can really hear the difference when the bobbin is made from authentic butyrate. And if the bag the pickup is transported in is the wrong sort of PVC, all manner of issues evolve within the midiclorians that control the tone. Factor in the abrasive factor of different enamels on the wire (its about 1:17 on NoS enamel - far more than modern stuff) and the effect this has as it rubs on the bobbin as it is loaded (the speed of the winder can make a huge difference too - just google abrasive forces for more info) is night and day....

I've done my research. 

<stance>

Yorkie

Got to have glass pickguards to appreciate all that bobbin mojo.

Funkfingers

The elephant in the room of guitar pickup (dis)satisfaction is the sound in one's head. Reality is always likely to fall short of the ideal. 

A guitar could sound wonderful through a Fender Deluxe Reverb Amp in a recording environment and, then, gutless through an open-air festival stage rig.

Unrealistic expectations, innit?

OilCityPickups

impmann said:

Yorkie said:

Has the debate moved on to tone plastics already? Or am I still priced out of the discussion. 

Tone plastics are soooo important, though... I mean you can really hear the difference when the bobbin is made from authentic butyrate. And if the bag the pickup is transported in is the wrong sort of PVC, all manner of issues evolve within the midiclorians that control the tone. Factor in the abrasive factor of different enamels on the wire (its about 1:17 on NoS enamel - far more than modern stuff) and the effect this has as it rubs on the bobbin as it is loaded (the speed of the winder can make a huge difference too - just google abrasive forces for more info) is night and day....

I've done my research. 

<stance>

As you probably know, I thoroughly agree that a lot, if not the majority of pickup sales hype is utter bollocks. 

Butyrate is horrible stuff to make bobbins out of, can't really pot it at a decent temperature or it turns into chewing gum, bends and spreads with age (fnar fnar) and smells like a dung beetle's knackers. 
Vintage spec wire is difficult to wind, fragile, and nowhere near as even in diameter as modern wire ... oh and the PVA plain enamel stuff is dark brown ... so seeing it to lace up the winding machine is an utter Cnut (early British King). Heavy formvar is horrible to solder ... can't be wound fast or it throws a fit .... 

Still until either all the folks who want it have become ga ga with old age and are gently marinading in their own waste products, or I go the same way ... I guess I'm stuck with 1930s technology ;-)   

normula1

I find my ears change their mind on pickups almost daily: one day I love a pickup, next hate it, with no changes to anything else.
I reckon air pressure must have an effect as I know my ears are a bit rubbish at equaling inner / outer and that does make a difference.

Nerine

I implore you, get an EQ pedal and put it early in your chain before gain stages. Mess with the top end on that rather than pickups. 

Makes my Les Paul go from smooth Bonamassa to Slash/AFD in the push of a button. 

I use an Empress ParaEQ mk2 deluxe so I have a bandwidth/Q control, but I think a GE7 would work as well. 

But yeah. EQ pedal. Do that. Trust me. 

bertie

strtdv said:

  experience has taught me that I still won't be happy after spending £200 on pickups.
 

  spend £2k  then 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115936813558

Voxman

I've said this so many times, but an EQ is your best friend! 

Funkfingers

normula1 said:

I find my ears change their mind on pickups almost daily: one day I love a pickup, next hate it, with no changes to anything else.

The order in which you elect to play your guitars can alter your opinion of their tone and output level.

Begin the day with a friendly shred stick. Make some noise for ten minutes. Change to a Telecaster with A3 magnets in its pickups. This will result in lower volume, reduced drive and not a little hum and/or RF interference.

In my own case, if I begin with my Ibanez RG370AMHZ, its Quantum HSH pickups give a perfectly acceptable account of themselves through high gain amplification. (Maybe, a bit mid shy due to the sen/maple construction.) Changing to my elderly Charvel Model 3 with DiMarzio Breed and Air Norton S pickups, there is more of everything. The Charvel shits all over the mid-price Ibanez.

Play the Charvel before the RG370AMHZ and the latter sounds utterly pants.