Pickups don't matter?

[Cynical]

Glenn is an idiot who posts hyperbolic takes in the hopes of getting clicks. The best bet is to not give him what he wants.

FWIW, under a ton of gain, there are still clear differences between pickups... I have a BareKnuckle Ceramic War Pig in my Jackson right now, and it sounds waaaaaaay different from when I had the JB in there.

[Aceman]

Glenn is an idiot who posts hyperbolic takes in the hopes of getting clicks. The best bet is to not give him what he wants.

FWIW, under a ton of gain, there are still clear differences between pickups... I have a BareKnuckle Ceramic War Pig in my Jackson right now, and it sounds waaaaaaay different from when I had the JB in there.

This sounds hyperbolic as well....

[Blille]

This sounds hyperbolic as well....

No. “Glenn is the world’s biggest idiot” would have been hyperbolic.


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[80's_Thrash_Metal]

My abbreviated take-away.

The more distortion/ compression = the less the pickup influences the tone.
Glenn is a lot to handle some days. He has devolved into a clickbait YouTuber.

[Securb]

My abbreviated take-away.

The more distortion/ compression = the less the pickup influences the tone.
Glenn is a lot to handle some days. He has devolved into a clickbait YouTuber.

That is my take also, if you over-compress, over-EG, and over-distort pickups, you will remove the unique characteristics of a pickup. This is obvious to anyone who has played guitar for more than 10 minutes.

So it is not that pickups don't matter. What does matter is the way you dial them in.

[Aceman]

That is my take also, if you over-compress, over-EG, and over-distort pickups, you will remove the unique characteristics of a pickup. This is obvious to anyone who has played guitar for more than 10 minutes.

So it is not that pickups don't matter. What does matter is the way you dial them in.

No doubt. A nice summary. Covers his click-bait approach, and reality.

[misterwhizzy]

I don’t think Glenn is an idiot at all. If he were aware of this thread, he’d know he got exactly what he wanted, which is attention from the guitar-playing community. He also has a recording studio and got Revv to build him a signature pedal. Obnoxious? Yes, but that’s by design. Idiot? I don’t think so.

[Aceman]

I don’t think Glenn is an idiot at all. If he were aware of this thread, he’d know he got exactly what he wanted, which is attention from the guitar-playing community. He also has a recording studio and got Revv to build him a signature pedal. Obnoxious? Yes, but that’s by design. Idiot? I don’t think so.

You know - part of delivering a message is getting attention.

There are some smooth polite people that are outright liars, and a lot of people believe them.

There are obnoxious people that bring the truth, and are dismissed out of hand.

Critical thinking is a DEAD art.

[Demanic]

My abbreviated take-away.

The more distortion/ compression = the less the pickup influences the tone.
Glenn is a lot to handle some days. He has devolved into a clickbait YouTuber.

Funny, I have found that putting compression before distortion actually enhances the differences in pickups because it tames down the highs and lows that can tend to mask the different mid profiles.
But then, that's just my opinion.

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[Seashore]

You know - part of delivering a message is getting attention.

There are some smooth polite people that are outright liars, and a lot of people believe them.

There are obnoxious people that bring the truth, and are dismissed out of hand.

Critical thinking is a DEAD art.

It's really misleading when he conflates the sound he gets out of his signal chain with metal guitar sound in general. His sound isn't some basic universal thing that automatically happens when you "plug into an amp and start adding some gain", or however it was he put it. It's a pretty massaged modern metal distortion sound. A 20-odd year update on Line 6 "Insane". He keeps handwaving his way past that. Counterexamples and players who know better are all over the internet; we haven't all been brainwashed by Big Pickup; I guess framing it that way appeals to some people.

Maybe he's one of those guys who likes to mix by getting exactly the same sound out of everything so he's working with known variables, and then altering it down the road. I don't know. He could have used the same clips and said "look how amazingly well this particular signal chain obscures the differences between these guitars, here's why I use it", or maybe "here's how to dial in a tone that captures more of the nuance of your guitar if that's what you're looking for". That would have been more honest and useful, but he didn't do it.

And even in a situation where someone has choked much of the nuance out of their tone there is a world of distinction between "minor differences" and "no differences". One or two folks have posted along the lines of, well, once you get in a band mix, that doesn't matter as much. My experience says that's backwards. When I actually start dialing in a live sound in the room with my bands, there is a ton of fine tuning to get everything sitting right. Sometimes it's the twist of a knob. Sometimes one guitar really does sound better than another in a certain situation. And sometimes it comes down to pickups. I'm not a wizard, but I've done enough swaps and had my guitars in enough rooms and situations to tell what sounds good.

Can any reasonably suitable pickup be dialed in with a decent setup to get a usable sound? Sure. Just like I might have to play through a different head or cab at a show. Maybe in his studio, in his context, he can make it work for his mixes, and he's talking to kids who live on Some Other Pickup Forums and saying, look guys, that $450 on a set of the blingiest sig pickups from x deathcore musician is not going to make you sound like x deathcore musician. Ok. But just pretending this is what metal guitar is, or that minor differences don't matter, and rushing past it all to share the secret truth that the koolaid drinkers don't want to admit? No.

[zionstrat]

".One or two folks have posted along the lines of, well, once you get in a band mix, that doesn't matter as much. My experience says that's backwards. When I actually start dialing in a live sound in the room with my bands, there is a ton of fine tuning to get everything sitting right. Sometimes it's the twist of a knob. Sometimes one guitar really does sound better than another in a certain situation. And sometimes it comes down to pickups. musician. Ok. But just pretending this is what metal guitar is, or that minor differences don't matter, and rushing past it all to share the secret truth that the koolaid drinkers don't want to admit? No.

This is a crucial point that has deserved many threads of their own. In alive environments, the first thing an engineer does is EQ out most of a guitars lows so the guitar doesn't fight the bass or the low keyboards.

And in some venues with some bands, they'll actually knock off some highs to keep the guitar from fighting symbols, vocal overtones etc.

Compression isn't unusual, it depends on all the variables.

The exact same thing happens in the studio. We notch instruments into the mix so they don't fight each other. The next time you're in a good studio or a professional live environment, ask the engineer if he can solo guitar for you, that has been notched into the mix.

If so, you will be amazed because the guitar will not be the big honking thick thing that we think of, it's a little bit of a thin jangly thing in the mix.

Back to the OP, this is another reason that the original vid is garbage. Good guitarists spend years trying to dial in their particular tone, And yes a lot of it is fingers, but a lot of it is all of the other variables. They end up finding something that works really well for them And then the recording or front of house engineers take that tone and manipulate it to get the best overall tone.

Anyone who ignores scale length, pickups wood, etc will find that the engineer can't save a horrible tone.

[Demanic]

Been playing a few different guitars through my 5w Picovalve set to 2w tonight. Metalzone for distortion. Haven't touched the tone controls at all. And they all sound different.
Perhaps I shall have to make my own video at some point.

[Mincer]

I will say, there are a ton of videos like this about all kinds of things. Like some angry guy proclaiming something that seems to go against all established wisdom. Add a cover photo of an angry face and slap a few logos over it. Much of the video is with a raised voice to really hammer it home.

[zionstrat]

I will say, there are a ton of videos like this about all kinds of things. Like some angry guy proclaiming something that seems to go against all established wisdom. Add a cover photo of an angry face and slap a few logos over it. Much of the video is with a raised voice to really hammer it home.

It's up to us to stop feeding the trolls and let their numbers slide...

[Mincer]

It's up to us to stop feeding the trolls and let their numbers slide...

Yeah, I stopped that a long time ago. I'd rather just play.