Fender vs G&L Tele Shootout

[esandes]

US Standard Tele vs ASAT Classic

Two of USA's finest.

I thought I'd share this and ask for your
-opinion on tonal preference
-if you know any details on the pickups and pots
-if you could suggest a pickup swap what would it be and why

Which one do you prefer tone wise?

I think the tele alnicos have more bite, airy, resonance or sustain and are less compressed as the ASAT. The ASAT pickups are hum-cancelling so that may have an influence on the tone. I reckon nothing is free, so the hum-cancelling comes at the cost of tone. Sterile sounding comes to mind, perhaps.

I like the icepick attack the guy talks about. It can be dialed back in the amp.

http://youtu.be/6PzhYH6Q81M

[ItsaBass]

The G&L ASAT Classic pickups are not hum canceling.

They are of the same basic construction as P90s, but with different materials and specs.

Aside from the pickups, the guitars are comparable. The G&L pickups are higher in output and more brash in midrange tone. They sit right in between a classic Fender pickup and a P90. The closest thing I’ve heard is the Gibson Alnico (“staple”) pickups.

IME, G&L build quality and attention to detail is not what it used to be...while Fender is making their guitars as good as they ever have. They’re even with each other in terms of quality.

[esandes]

The guy in the video said they're hum cancelling.

[esandes]

The MFD pups have ceramic bar magnets.

[Mincer]

In this case, it comes down to the individual guitar. There are good Teles and bad ones, so spec to spec, they are comparable.

[ItsaBass]

The guy in the video said they're hum cancelling.

I didn’t watch the video, and in general, I don’t watch gear videos. There are very few that aren’t made by meatheaded dooshbags and bros. But even within that world, if he called ASAT Classic pickups hum canceling, it’s a major mistake. Are you sure he didn’t say they’re hum canceling in the middle position?

Yes, they have ceramic bar magnets and steel poles. I mentioned above that they have the basic design of a P90 pickup. The exact specs are different, but the basic construction is the same: bar magnets below, with adjustable steel poles up the middle. Gibson type construction with Fender dimensions, powered by extra strong magnets, but with a light wind.

[Lewguitar]

The MFD pups have ceramic bar magnets.

Yeah I had those in my G&L SC-3. They were OK. Didn't love 'em.

Liked the guitar though, so I put Duncan SSL-1 pickups in it.

Then it started sounding more like a Strat.

After a while I stopped playing it, put the original pickups back in and sold it.

Mine was white with a black pickguard.

Said something like "Designed by Leo Fender" on the headstock.

[Gtrjunior]

I just watched the video.
He said hum cancelling in the middle position.

[esandes]

Then this just goes to confirm my dislike of ceramic pickups for my style of playing.

[ItsaBass]

Then this just goes to confirm my dislike of ceramic pickups for my style of playing.

That's ridiculous. A certain type of magnet does not "have" a certain tone.

Everyone needs to read what Bill Lawrence had to say on the issue.

"The important factor is the design of a magnetic circuit which establishes what magnet to use."

http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/FAQ/Technical.htm

So, say you don't like G&L MFDs, and no one can argue with you. But if you say that you dislike ceramic pickups for your style of playing, it's a fact that you are stereotyping pickups based on the wrong technical criterion.

[esandes]

That's ridiculous. A certain type of magnet does not "have" a certain tone.

Everyone needs to read what Bill Lawrence had to say on the issue.

"The important factor is the design of a magnetic circuit which establishes what magnet to use."

http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/FAQ/Technical.htm

So, say you don't like G&L MFDs, and no one can argue with you. But if you say that you dislike ceramic pickups for your style of playing, it's a fact that you are stereotyping pickups based on the wrong technical criterion.

I disagree with you, Bill and G&L.

give me alnico 2 bars and alnico 5 rods or give me death. The revolution against ceramic will not be televised.

[ItsaBass]

That's right; we're in a post-fact world now, in which people apply the concepts of agreement/disagreement and opinion to the physically proven truth. My bad for forgetting.

Magnets provide a certain amount of strength. How that strength is made to sound has to do with the design/engineering of the pickup in question.

Magnets do not have a tone. Period. You can say you don't like certain pickups, and it makes sense, but it makes no sense to say you don't like a certain magnet across the entire world of pickups.

You "disagree" with a technical statement on pickups by Bill Lawrence, and you are just announcing to everyone that you don't know what the hell you are talking about, and you are consciously choosing to maintain that ignorance.

[esandes]

Ceramic are like a dumpster fire next to an orphanage. Alnico are like heavenly harp tones.

you preferred the ASAT tone over the tele. Enough said.

[ItsaBass]

You are seriously confusing correlation with causation, and objective with subjective statements.

Nobody cares what tones you or I like or don't like. That's not the point. I don't care to argue with you about who likes what. We each like what we like (and FWIW, I have very few pickups that use ceramic magnets, and I think that you and I might very well have similar tonal and stylistic tastes).

What is the point is that you are "blaming" pickups you don't like on the magnet type, and using that to make the statement that you dislike all ceramic powered pickups.

The reasons you don't like certain tones is not directly caused by ceramic magnets as a whole. It is caused by the overall pickup design, which is a combination of many things. All magnets do is provide a magnetic field of a certain strength. It's up to the pickup designer to use the magnetic strength and other specifications to get something that sounds a certain way...and they very well can using ceramic magnets.

In the pickup world, often times ceramics correlate with poorly engineered pickups. Why? Because many poor sounding pickups are made with cost cutting in mind, and ceramic magnets are cheaper than alnicos of the same size. Therefore many bad sounding pickups use ceramic magnets. That does not mean that ceramic magnets "sound" bad.

[esandes]

The point of a forum is to have a discussion and hopefully have fun too. I'll admit my last post was a drunk post but still.

the intention of the thread (subjective tone preferences) got railroaded by scientific discussions which we all know is for a book to be placed in a bookshelf. Unfortunately there was no actual discerning discussion.

there may be some topics which I may think twice about raising here. Who'd think magnets would have a default or preferred thread outcome as "it's all just personal preference. Read the technical journals about how magnets have no influence in tone."

no thanks.