Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

[oblique63]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

Man that kicks butt. Does the Dominion have good high mids like the EMG 81? I've heard the Gravity storm bridge does. I need a new pup for my Strat, and so far I can't decide between the Duncan Distortion, Dominion, and Gravity.

I've heard a lot of different pickups touted as being "passive 81s" (i.e. Dimarzio D-activators, BKP Miracle Man, EMG HZs), but I'd say without a doubt, the Dominion is the EMG 81 reincarnated as a passive pup...

Now, that does entail the not-so-great parts of the 81 as well, particularly how thin it sounds, and the lack of bottom end... HOWEVER, just by swapping the bottom row of pole pieces to flathead screws pretty much solves that issue; or at least to the point where it's bearable (for me anyway). And it also takes magnet swaps really well... I was gonna save mentioning this til I posted the new clips, but the Dominion, with the flatheads on the bottom and an A8 magnet, has got to be the best bridge pickup I've played thus far, and pretty much nails the tone I was after all this time. The A9+flathead bottom version came in a very close second, only because its top end is a tad bit too harsh for a recording situation. Live however, it might actually be preferable to help you cut through the mix a bit more. Besides those, the Breed A9/A8 variations come in 3rd and 4th for me (respectively).

anyways, back on topic: I believe the main thing to be noted about the Dominion is how obscene its clarity is... I mean, it's seriously ludicrous how articulate that pickup is, the note separation is just out of this world... though, some of the magnet swaps make it a bit less clear (particularly the A8/A9), it's still miles ahead of most other pickups in that department.

And I actually haven't tried out the bridge version of the Gravity Storm unfortunately. Though, from the clips I heard it sounded a bit more like a D-Activator to me than an 81, and I didn't particularly like my D-activators cause they were quite dark and lacking in the upper mids.

here's a video that I think is very representative of the D-activators' tone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn13ej03wZo

and now here's the best clip I've seen of the Gravity Storm Bridge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXcnXwUkM0c&t=0m47s

see what I mean? I do think I'd prefer it over the d-activators though...

Also, don't throw out the possibility of the JB if you really like your mids, I actually think I prefer the stock JB over most of the Distortion variants I tried... I'll post clips of it up soon too, so hopefully that'll help.

[Gplayerzzz]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

I see what your saying, they do sound close. Yea, i'm a fan of high mid crunch. Played the EVOs for a while in a LP, but they are too screamy/thin in my Strat. I like the DD, so maybe I should try the JB in it. I'm finding most Dimarzios favor the lows.

[Gplayerzzz]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

I was at the music store, and went ahead and got another DD. It sounds great with this guitar and setup

[lazyfinger]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

What's difference that you found between unoriented ceramic vs regular ceramic and big ceramic? Thanks.

[oblique63]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

What's difference that you found between unoriented ceramic vs regular ceramic and big ceramic? Thanks.

in general?... it's a bit hard to say, because although each magnet certainly has a recognizable 'personality' of sorts, results can vary from pickup to pickup. What happened to me with the A8 magnet made that very clear, cause I never really was impressed with the A8 in all the duncan pickups I had heard, but then I tried it in the dimarzio Breed and Dominion and was blown away... like it had some of the same fundamental traits as the duncan A8 pickups, but the results were far from what I'd call predictable. Just gotta experiment to find out how they would work in each pickup unfortunately.

That being said, here's how I would break it down:

Standard Ceramic 8 - emphasis on the bass and treble, tighter, more articulate and less 'rounded' than an alnico. Not much of the signature alnico 'roar'/'growl' either.

Big Ceramic - much bigger emphasis on the bass with a dash of sparkly-ness on the treble, and perceptibly louder; still tight, though not very rounded (probably even less so actually), and while there is a slight bottom-end 'growl' of sorts, it's not anything like an alnico.

Unoriented Ceramic - very even frequency response relative to the other two, with more focus put back into the mids, and still remaining quite tight (relative to the alnico family anyway, but it's probably the least tight one of these three). Sounds quite rounded, and closer to an Alnico 2 than a 5 or 8 in that department, but is of course brighter than that. And it definitely has a good bit of that alnico 'roar', similar to an A5, but while the roar in the A5 comes a bit from the upper-mid territory, the UOCeramic has it in a slightly lower mid frequency range (not enough to say it's lower-mid heavy or anything though).


It's kinda hard to put into words really, but I hope it helps picturing it. Again, these magnets are pretty reasonably priced, so I'd advise to just pick some up if you're curious. I also might get around to finally posting the new samples tomorrow (hopefully), and the Gravity Storm [neck] clips I think will be a particularly good way of comparing the 'personalities' of all these magnets.

[formula73]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

I'm shocked. Out of all those, I liked the L90s the best.

[lazyfinger]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

It's kinda hard to put into words really, but I hope it helps picturing it. Again, these magnets are pretty reasonably priced, so I'd advise to just pick some up if you're curious. I also might get around to finally posting the new samples tomorrow (hopefully), and the Gravity Storm [neck] clips I think will be a particularly good way of comparing the 'personalities' of all these magnets.

Thanks! It does help. I've sampled most mags out there, with the exception of the newcomer such as unoriented ceramic and A9 and A6.

The UO ceramic seems like something I'd like. If you've tried the JB and DD back to back with the same magnet, you might agree that all though they're somewhat similar, their attack and mids are different, even though they're both described as upper mid range type of pickups. The JB's attack to me sounds round, and has a fat sounding single notes, DD is more straight forward and piercing, and has thinner sounding single notes. JB has the crunch in the mids, DD has the crunch in the lows and highs.

In any case, I'd love to hear the JB with UO ceramic back to back with the DD you already have there.

[oblique63]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

FINALLY! Updated with the new samples!

Apologies for the delay, had a last minute realization that I didn't properly record all my DI tracks for the neck shootout when I went to reamp the samples, so I had to go back and redo a lot of those...

Anyways, check the first post for all the info. It's really starting to get a bit crowded though (51 total shootout tracks according to my soundcloud!), so I might just start updating the soundcloud directly without adding them on here with commentary and everything. I've also been considering setting up a site of sorts to facilitate doing pickup comparisons, if that's something people might be interested in (I'm a web developer, by the way). I'd probably take me a while to set up due to my current list of chores, and I might need to support it with ads and such due to all the time and expenses, but if there's enough interest, I'll give a serious go at it.

Also, I feel I should point out that I'm open to trading most of the pickups on here, in case anybody wants to donate a pickup to the comparison or whatever. I'll probably set up a real thread about this in the actual trading/selling area, but if anybody's interested, feel free to drop me a PM. Ideally, I'd like to trade my bare knuckles for some Suhr or Wolfetone pups (i.e. an ssh+/aldrich, or Marshallhead), and perhaps one of the duncans or dimarzios for a Custom to experiment doing hybrids with. But feel free to contact me with whatever.

[Myaccount876]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

I guess I really like A2, A8, A9, Ceramic, and UO Ceramic magnets. Really need to try a Breed with the A8. Sounds amazing to my ears.

Oh and the 85 in the bridge sounded perfect.

[dreamwarrior]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

Great shootout, I keep listening to a few of them. Pretty interesting subtle differences in some.

[Frogman]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

In any case, I'd love to hear the JB with UO ceramic back to back with the DD you already have there.

THIS!!

[oblique63]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

THIS!!

Check my soundcloud, it's on there...

but what the hell, for quick comparison's sake:

JB UOC:



DD UOC:



I think I prefer the sound of the DD with this particular magnet because of the DD's stronger bottom end, but the JB definitely still has the sweeter mids...

[oblique63]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

Wow, I can't believe it's already been almost 2 months since I last updated this thread... Sorry for the necro-bump, but I had to share the recent clips of the Duncan [designed/performer] Detonator I just recorded. I've seen this pup get good recommendations around here, not only as a solid budget pup, but also as a mean one that could hold it's own against some big boys with an A8 swap, so I had to try it out.

Here's the stock Detonator:

Despite looking like an Invader clone, I've read it's supposed to be modeled more after a Distortion than an Invader, so here's my original DD clip again for comparison purposes:



Not exactly a close match, but not bad. Similar 'personality' I guess, but the Detonator seems to have less definition/clarity, a bit more of a boomy bottom-end, and less treble bite than the DD. Still not a bad deal for $29.


Now to the interesting part... the Detonator A8:


This one clearly has a much tighter bottom-end than the stock, and more of it than the Distortion. The overall sound of it seems to be pretty similar to stock, just much 'bigger' and more aggressive with a tad bit more focus. Not really my style, but pretty solid pup nonetheless; definitely seems like it would be good for certain styles of metal.

Since the A8 seemed to make a nice improvement over the stock big ceramic magnet in there, I decided to experiment and take it one step further by trying an A9 in the Detonator:

Now this is what I'm talking about! Sounds to me almost like it would be the Gibson 500T's evil twin. Really grainy, crunchy sound with a strong bite. Mids are a bit more recessed than the A8/Stock versions, but the bass gets a nice (yet still tight) boost, and it gains a whole deal of bite in the treble. And it sounds HUGE. Really awesome wall-of-sound type distortion comes out of this thing, really fun to play. If I listened to this and somebody told me it was a 'boutique' hand-wound pickup, I would believe it; certainly has a similarly thick sound as you'd get from scatter-wound pups. But no, this is a $29 'budget' pickup we're talking about! I mean, I do still prefer the 500T and Nailbomb over it, but it's not a shockingly huge difference like you'd assume from the price difference. It does still lack clarity (probably more-so than the other two versions), but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this combo for anyone looking for a thick, chunky metal tone that doesn't need a ton of articulation.



Anyways, if you've been keeping up with my soundcloud, you'll have noticed a steady stream of Gravity Storm Neck clips over the last month or so as well; these were experiments testing out the GS neck in the bridge position at the request of a fellow forum member's PMs, so feel free to PM me if you have any requests as well (based off the pups I currently have). It might take me a while to record stuff since my time is a bit more limited, but I'll be sure to get around to it, I promise!

[surface54]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

without a doubt the stock detonator sounds the most stable
the regular distortion always has that upper mids string noise sqeek
the A8 sounded good too. the A9 sounded very EMG like.
id be interesting in trying a A9 someday
thanks for all your hard work recording these, its def a task even if your soo good at it thats its second nature, still a task!

peace out

ps i want to eat that pizza the squirrel is eating! gib me eet!

[King IzzO)))]

Re: Pickup Shootout - Duncans, Dimarzios, Bill Lawrences, Emgs, Bare Knuckles, Oh my!

A8 Deto sounds pretty good there, and you're right, the A9 is even better.

Standouts are the Evo, Super3, 500T and Nailbomb. The hybrid seems a little bright this time, and the DD sounds nasty, and not in a good way.