Epiphone The Dot stock pups (Epiphone 57 CH) vs Seymour Duncan SH-55 (Seth Lovers)

[Apothecarius]

Hello everybody. I swapped the stock Humbuckers of my Epi The Dot for a pair of Seth Lovers.

You can hear the result (before and after) here: http://youtu.be/d6LIm0N1EO0

What do you think?

[Oinkus]

Re: Epiphone The Dot stock pups (Epiphone 57 CH) vs Seymour Duncan SH-55 (Seth Lovers

Think stock epi pups are awful , the Seth Lovers sound pretty good. Must be very happy with that guitar now. I would suggest removing all the hardware and replacing it , nut, bridge , tuning machines, pots jack, switch, wiring even the inserts.

[symptom]

Re: Epiphone The Dot stock pups (Epiphone 57 CH) vs Seymour Duncan SH-55 (Seth Lovers

You're kidding, right? I know the Seth Lovers are way better than Epiphone pickups. But you obviously had different settings in the clips. Pickups closer to the bridge, more gain, also the tone knob in the bridge pickup is clearly closed when using the Epiphone.

The Epiphone pickups are bad, but not like that.

[Apothecarius]

Re: Epiphone The Dot stock pups (Epiphone 57 CH) vs Seymour Duncan SH-55 (Seth Lovers

Think stock epi pups are awful , the Seth Lovers sound pretty good. Must be very happy with that guitar now. I would suggest removing all the hardware and replacing it , nut, bridge , tuning machines, pots jack, switch, wiring even the inserts.

The nut has been replaced with a Tusk XL. I also changed the switch. The pots seem O.K. (Alpha 500K). I'm really happy with that axe now. Getting very close to the original ;-)

[Apothecarius]

Re: Epiphone The Dot stock pups (Epiphone 57 CH) vs Seymour Duncan SH-55 (Seth Lovers

You're kidding, right? I know the Seth Lovers are way better than Epiphone pickups. But you obviously had different settings in the clips. Pickups closer to the bridge, more gain, also the tone knob in the bridge pickup is clearly closed when using the Epiphone.

The Epiphone pickups are bad, but not like that.

No sir, exactly the same settings! The clips were recorded directly into Garageband. I was amazed as well....

[Chickenwings]

Re: Epiphone The Dot stock pups (Epiphone 57 CH) vs Seymour Duncan SH-55 (Seth Lovers

nice work! night and day difference.

[Aceman]

Re: Epiphone The Dot stock pups (Epiphone 57 CH) vs Seymour Duncan SH-55 (Seth Lovers

I too question the validity of the setup.

If the pups were adjusted EXACTLY the same….then it is interesting. But the real question is "What about when each is set up for it's BEST sound? And then allowing us to blind listen first would be better.

I will also say that I really dug the grind dirty sound of the neck Epi pup in the first clip. But I will give you Garage Band preset Benefit of Doubt. Same settings…oak.

And the Seth clip did sound pretty awesome. Nice job.

[Mr. B]

Re: Epiphone The Dot stock pups (Epiphone 57 CH) vs Seymour Duncan SH-55 (Seth Lovers

Sorry. Don't mean to insult you as I have no idea who you are, but I don't believe for a minute that the settings and/or tone controls were the same on those clips. I play Seths all the time, but I have also installed stock Epiphone Dot and G400 pickups in a dozen student guitars, and they do NOT sound that muddy and bland. I think you may have accidentally had the tone rolled all the way back on the Epi pickups.

[DreX]

Re: Epiphone The Dot stock pups (Epiphone 57 CH) vs Seymour Duncan SH-55 (Seth Lovers

Not changing the EQ from one pickup to the next in a test scenario is useful if you want to know the objective differences between the pickups, but one will pickup will sound unfairly better than another, because the given EQ will flatter one more than another. Whenever I switch out a humbucker guitar for a Strat I usually have to change the treble and mid on the amp quite a bit to maintain a good mix with the bass and drums. You can't expect a pickup to sound great in with any given EQ setting. Some low output pickups in particular have especially awesome properties, but you have to work the gain and EQ on your amp to draw out the goodness.

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Epiphone The Dot stock pups (Epiphone 57 CH) vs Seymour Duncan SH-55 (Seth Lovers

I can believe the difference as far as clarity is concerned. Those Epi pups are higher output than the Seths and thus will sound more distorted ("muddy"). But the tonal difference is quite unbelievable. I mean, no, I really don't believe the difference.

I've got lots of experience with playing and then swapping out Epi pups and they are actually pretty bright and thin sounding along with their muddiness. They don't sound at all like on your clips unless the tone is turned down a lot. The Seths, by comparison, sound fuller, (still pretty bright, and with great clarity but not brighter than stock Epi pups).

So if you swear that you didn't change any of the tonal controls on your guitar and amp between the recordings, then there must have been a huge height difference...the Epi pups were probably much closer to the strings than the Seths.