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  • Pickup Swapping...

    Am I the only one who hates actually swapping pickups yet at the same time seems to always be changing pickups?
    The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.

  • #2
    I used to really love it, but anymore, I'm less enthusiastic. I've been playing for almost 20 years longer than when I started getting into pickups, and my gear as a whole is a lot nicer. It's not that I dislike taking a guitar apart and soldering in new stuff, it's more like it seems futile, and it's gonna sound like me regardless of what I swap in or out.
    “I can play the hell out of a riff. The rest of it’s all bulls**t anyway,” Gary Holt

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    • #3
      While I agree with you I also disagree a tiny bit. True we sound like we sound but there are some things to help us along a bit. I have about 15 sets left to install and I think I will just try and knock as many out at once as I can so I can be done with it. What will really spin me out is if these don't work like I expect them to. I am very confident I am putting the right pickups in the right guitar for what I want but there is always a chance it won't work out like hoped. I would be elated if that didn't happen and I can retire from from doing this for a while...lol. I love doing set ups and such but wiring and soldering, not a fan anymore.
      The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.

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      • #4
        I've never really enjoyed the "swapping" part, but I've had less of a desire to swap things out more recently. I think that's because I know enough that I can usually get in the ballpark of what I'm after on the first try and know where to go if it doesn't work out. I've been moving past the decade-long "swapping for fun" phase and focusing more time/effort on the other aspects of my signal chain.

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        • #5
          I hate the soldering and restringing but love the experimentation.
          Oh no.....


          Oh Yeah!

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          • #6
            It isn't fun. I think it could be made to be a little more fun (and easier) if there was some universal system of swapping. I don't particularly like the process and I'd imagine most people don't.
            Administrator of the SDUGF

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            • #7
              If only those pull out pickup system guitars weren't so ridiculously expensive and didn't look like kids toys.

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              • #8
                I'm getting bothered by it because I'm so addicted to customizing. I think I'm finally zeroing in on my perfect pickguard. Gonna be a single coil size humbucker in the neck, an angled mini right behind that as a 2nd neck, and a full sized hum moved towards the neck a quarter or half inch or so.
                The things that you wanted
                I bought them for you

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Bogner View Post
                  While I agree with you I also disagree a tiny bit. True we sound like we sound but there are some things to help us along a bit. I have about 15 sets left to install and I think I will just try and knock as many out at once as I can so I can be done with it. What will really spin me out is if these don't work like I expect them to. I am very confident I am putting the right pickups in the right guitar for what I want but there is always a chance it won't work out like hoped. I would be elated if that didn't happen and I can retire from from doing this for a while...lol. I love doing set ups and such but wiring and soldering, not a fan anymore.
                  That's the thing for me, too - I love tinkering with tone, and usually swaps work as expected.
                  But sometimes pickups and a guitar that should work great together just don't.
                  Occasionally a guitar has even sounded worse after a swap.
                  And soldering over & over again isn't fun anymore.
                  It's frustrating to go through three or four pickup changes before you hit on a match that's really inspiring.
                  .
                  "You should know better by now than to introduce science into a discussion of voodoo."
                  .

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Clint 55 View Post
                    I'm getting bothered by it because I'm so addicted to customizing. I think I'm finally zeroing in on my perfect pickguard. Gonna be a single coil size humbucker in the neck, an angled mini right behind that as a 2nd neck, and a full sized hum moved towards the neck a quarter or half inch or so.
                    It's amazing how much difference a quarter of an inch can make with a bridge pickup.
                    .
                    "You should know better by now than to introduce science into a discussion of voodoo."
                    .

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by eclecticsynergy View Post

                      It's amazing how much difference a quarter of an inch can make with a bridge pickup.
                      I really notice it with the neck pickup, too. That can be either the distance from the strings, or the distance from the bridge.
                      Administrator of the SDUGF

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                      • #12
                        In my old age, fortunately, between my soldering skills (weak but effective) and my income (strong usually) I have figured out what I like/want/need in a pickup.

                        I rarely make a bad move, and I'm easy to please.

                        Patience and a screwdriver, along with a healthy does of "easy to please" helps.
                        Originally posted by Bad City
                        He's got the crowd on his side and the blue jean lights in his eyes...

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Masta' C View Post
                          I've never really enjoyed the "swapping" part, but I've had less of a desire to swap things out more recently. I think that's because I know enough that I can usually get in the ballpark of what I'm after on the first try and know where to go if it doesn't work out. I've been moving past the decade-long "swapping for fun" phase and focusing more time/effort on the other aspects of my signal chain.
                          I probably should have better clarified my statement. I rarely swap just to swap. 99% of my pickup swaps are from the factory pickups to something else. How people want to try 50 pickups in the same guitar just to see how it responds is not a path I care to venture down.
                          The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by eclecticsynergy View Post

                            That's the thing for me, too - I love tinkering with tone, and usually swaps work as expected.
                            But sometimes pickups and a guitar that should work great together just don't.
                            Occasionally a guitar has even sounded worse after a swap.
                            And soldering over & over again isn't fun anymore.
                            It's frustrating to go through three or four pickup changes before you hit on a match that's really inspiring.
                            True story there! I discovered this first hand years ago? I swapped PRS pickups and struck gold. I had another identical PRS, just different color, same woods, pickups, etc and threw the new pickups in there and was like..........what happened? Wired correct, sounded nothing like the other guitar. Still to this day I am surprised at that.
                            The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.

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                            • #15
                              I don't hate the pickup swapping. The actual swapping part is fine. I hate when you solder everything, jam it all back into the guitar, sit down to enjoy the new pickups . . . and then realize that you ****ed something up and have to do it all over again with debugging. That part sucks.
                              Join me in the fight against muscular atrophy!

                              Originally posted by Douglas Adams
                              This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

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