Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

[jonsick]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

OK well besides all the IP discussions which while interesting is kind of derailing the topic in a heated manner I didn't intend. Maybe I'm wrong about a reviews forum/thread, but maybe I'm not.

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

So you can start a pickup winding company for $60, is what you're saying? How about packaging, distribution channels, labor costs, sourcing bulk materials, etc? At the end of the day, the cost of determining the specs of a pickup are trivial to business, but is cost prohibitive to us, the loyal and giving customer.



I'm still entitled to an opinion all the same.

yeah you and your selective reading comprehension again. I said directly that the cost of a winder is insignificant. If you go on other forums not so much this one but like MLP there are a dozen or so guys who all make pickups in their garage, hell one on mlp does it in his bedroom on a guitar case. He sells and distributes through the forum it doesnt have to be the huge undertaking.

My point is very simply... Go do it for yourself. Dont expect the company to do it. Build a winder... Buy a few pickups to kill and go find the info on your own.

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

OK well besides all the IP discussions which while interesting is kind of derailing the topic in a heated manner I didn't intend. Maybe I'm wrong about a reviews forum/thread, but maybe I'm not.

Evan pretty much covered it

Way back when, the Vault was the place where we reviewed pickups. If you'd like to start a review thread of a pickup that's not already in the vault, please do so. And at some point, when it's run it's course, we'll Vault it. If you want to add something to a review that's already in the Vault, PM one of the admins, and we'll move it for a day or two into the Pickup Lounge and then return it to the Vault. Just please remember to stay on point and not hijack a review thread.

If you want to lead the charge to revitalize the usage of the vault I say go to it...

[DreX]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

yeah you and your selective reading comprehension again. I said directly that the cost of a winder is insignificant. If you go on other forums not so much this one but like MLP there are a dozen or so guys who all make pickups in their garage, hell one on mlp does it in his bedroom on a guitar case. He sells and distributes through the forum it doesnt have to be the huge undertaking.

The idea that a hobbyist is going to take the time to put together a $60 pickup winder to copy a JB in his garage in lieu of buying an already cheap JB brand new is laughably absurd, and even if they were to do such a thing, few enough people would do this so as to not impact Seymour Duncan's bottom line. IS THAT REALLY WHAT YOU WERE SUGGESTING?

My point is very simply... Go do it for yourself. Dont expect the company to do it. Build a winder... Buy a few pickups to kill and go find the info on your own.

"Build a winder" in order to "find the info" of Seymour Duncan pickups? That doesn't even make any sense.

[Snake Aces]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

You can talk in broad generalities up to a point, but when you get into the details of it, withholding the specifics makes no sense.

Name one company, just one buddy, who does this for any of their products (let alone a pickup company). Seriously, this is ridiculous.

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

"Build a winder" in order to "find the info" of Seymour Duncan pickups? That doesn't even make any sense.

If you cant replicate it... then you dont have all the info. That simple. You arent replicating it without a winder. How do you think Seymour himself found this stuff out? Do you think he asked on a forum or facebooked someone? Hell no. He tore apart real pickups.. made measurements and counted.

Iam suggesting if you want this info so bad... Go find it yourself dont expect a company to give it away. Its just not going to happen.

Hell SD is overly generous with info compared to other pickup makers.

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

Ok, so SD puts the info here on the board for everyone to read. That info is replicated to every other site in a matter of seconds. Hobbyists around the world build $60 bedroom winders out of coffee cans and Playstation controllers. After a while there's a boutique bedroom pickup winder in every neighborhood.

To clarify why that's a problem:
Millions of people go see the Grand Canyon and each person throws one rock into it. How much wood does a woodchuck chuck before the Grand Canyon becomes full of rocks?

Now imagine one of the People's Republic Of Ripoff Manufacturers simply takes that info and begins flooding the market with SD knockoffs.

Oh wait, they can simply put up a disclaimer that this info is for informational use only and may not be used to manufacture pickups. That oughta take care of all the legal issues, right?

Jesus, I cannot wait for the world to end.

[jonsick]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

Ok, so SD puts the info here on the board for everyone to read. That info is replicated to every other site in a matter of seconds. Hobbyists around the world build $60 bedroom winders out of coffee cans and Playstation controllers. After a while there's a boutique bedroom pickup winder in every neighborhood.

I have to be honest, even if that was the case, I'd still pay the extra £15 for the one with Seymour Duncan written on it!

I mean, ESP make a great Les Paul shaped guitar. It doesn't mean I don't want a Gibson.

But no, I'm not disagreeing with you, IP is IP for a reason. SD could wax pot with cheddar cheese for all I care. If that's how it makes it sound right, then I'm cool.

Actually, Evan, have you considered potting pickups with cheese? I'm just now morbidly curious...

[DreX]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

Name one company, just one buddy, who does this for any of their products (let alone a pickup company). Seriously, this is ridiculous.

It's overly simplistic to say "company X does..." or "company Y does not offer specs", because specs are meant in any event to impart information to the customer about how the product will perform, therefore differing amounts of specific data are appropriate or necessary depending on the nature of the product.

The withheld specifications about pickups are wholly relevant to how one pickup choice will differ from another. We would be better informed consumers if we had access to those specification. The reason you don't see detailed recipes for Coca Cola is because a) it costs fifty cents to try it out b) the information will not make us a better informed consumer.

[jonsick]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

I can't agree really. I can't see how knowing exactly the atomic makeup of the wire used is really going to help you. The specs SD already put out are plenty fine enough given that the guitar itself, not to mention the amp, adds a complete wildcard to that inescapable "what does it sound like" question.

To me, it's wholly sufficient to say that "Pickup X uses a YY type magnet. It has more lows/highs/mids than a JB and would suit Plywood guitars". That is plenty enough IMO.

I could go into depth about the type of material used in the fabric of a CPU my company manufactures. But this will be of precious little value to anybody ever. And what would really be different if they demanded we use X rather than Y graded material

[Snake Aces]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

It's overly simplistic to say "company X does..." or "company Y does not offer specs", because specs are meant in any event to impart information to the customer about how the product will perform, therefore differing amounts of specific data are appropriate or necessary depending on the nature of the product.

The withheld specifications about pickups are wholly relevant to how one pickup choice will differ from another. We would be better informed consumers if we had access to those specification. The reason you don't see detailed recipes for Coca Cola is because a) it costs fifty cents to try it out b) the information will not make us a better informed consumer.

No, it is not overly simplistic to say "company X" or "company y" does or does not "offer specs". That's a weak rebuttal. Try again.

When you go to buy a car, do you get the blueprints to the car? Do you get to know everything about how it went from a blueprint all the way to a machine you can drive? No. You get some specs like mpg, horsepower, engine size, features, etc. What you do not get are any kind of company or trade secrets that "company y" holds a patent on. If you were to walk into a dealership and request such information you would be laughed at and shown the door (even if you had a briefcase of full of cash).

Seymour Duncan currently gives you the same kind of specs as a car manufacturer. Magnet/engine size, Color (covered or uncovered, etc)/paint job, Tone chart including readings and EQ/horsepower and mpg.

Sure, anybody with the right resources could reverse engineer the Dodge Challenger Hellcat or the Seymour Duncan Whole Lotta Humbucker but that does not mean Dodge or Seymour Duncan is going to make it easy for them to do so. To request such information and actually believe it to be necessary to make an informed decision about a purchase is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Especially if you live in the States where you can take a 21 day "test drive" of any Duncan pickup with no additional charge. Show me another pickup company cool enough to even provide you with a tone chart let alone hand you the keys to any of their pickups like that.

Quit being so argumentative over stupid little things.

[DreX]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

I can't agree really. I can't see how knowing exactly the atomic makeup of the wire used is really going to help you.

Nobody has asked for "the atomic makeup of the wire".

The specs SD already put out are plenty fine enough given that the guitar itself, not to mention the amp, adds a complete wildcard to that inescapable "what does it sound like" question.

If the scant given info is "plenty fine" then why are there still so many questions on this forum asking what a specific pickup will sound like?

Besides, if you're a believer in the "resistance doesn't equal output" mantra, then you would have contradicted your own claims here in admitting that one of the few revealed specs was not indicative of the product's performance.

To me, it's wholly sufficient to say that "Pickup X uses a YY type magnet. It has more lows/highs/mids than a JB and would suit Plywood guitars". That is plenty enough IMO.

What's sufficient to you is not sufficient to everyone.

I could go into depth about the type of material used in the fabric of a CPU my company manufactures. But this will be of precious little value to anybody ever. And what would really be different if they demanded we use X rather than Y graded material

As already stated, some specific details are irrelevant to how the product will perform. You even admit they are of "precious little value to anybody ever", so why did you see fit to mention this?

[Jocelyn]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

This is entertaining

[DreX]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

No, it is not overly simplistic to say "company X" or "company y" does or does not "offer specs". That's a weak rebuttal. Try again.

When you go to buy a car, do you get the blueprints to the car? Do you get to know everything about how it went from a blueprint all the way to a machine you can drive? No. You get some specs like mpg, horsepower, engine size, features, etc. What you do not get are any kind of company or trade secrets that "company y" holds a patent on. If you were to walk into a dealership and request such information you would be laughed at and shown the door (even if you had a briefcase of full of cash).

When you buy a car you get details that matter, such as the MPG rating, the terms of the warranty, convenience features, horsepower, etc.

Guitar pickups are much simpler than cars, and therefore a deeper level of detail about a pickup will be directly relevant to how the pickup performs. A car, to a much larger extent, is still just a car. Nearly all of it's complexities are abstracted by the user interface.

Seymour Duncan currently gives you the same kind of specs as a car manufacturer. Magnet/engine size, Color (covered or uncovered, etc)/paint job, Tone chart including readings and EQ/horsepower and mpg.

This is the problem with analogies, they are only useful to an extent. There are other details that SD withholds that would be informative. Other pickup winders such as Fralin or The Creamery are much more forthcoming with specifications. It's not strange or unheard of, nothing like asking for "blueprints to the car".

Sure, anybody with the right resources could reverse engineer the Dodge Challenger Hellcat or the Seymour Duncan Whole Lotta Humbucker but that does not mean Dodge or Seymour Duncan is going to make it easy for them to do so. To request such information and actually believe it to be necessary to make an informed decision about a purchase is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

Not ridiculous. Other pickup winders offer more technical details than SD and the sky remains... unfallen.

Absolutely ridiculous.

So you've said.

Especially if you live in the States where you can take a 21 day "test drive" of any Duncan pickup with no additional charge. Show me another pickup company cool enough to even provide you with a tone chart let alone hand you the keys to any of their pickups like that.

Time is money.

Quit being so argumentative over stupid little things.

You replied to me, remember? If you don't like it...

[Snake Aces]

Re: Shoud we have a pickups review thread/forum?

When you buy a car you get details that matter, such as the MPG rating, the terms of the warranty, convenience features, horsepower, etc.

Guitar pickups are much simpler than cars, and therefore a deeper level of detail about a pickup will be directly relevant to how the pickup performs. A car, to a much larger extent, is still just a car. Nearly all of it's complexities are abstracted by the user interface.



This is the problem with analogies, they are only useful to an extent. There are other details that SD withholds that would be informative. Other pickup winders such as Fralin or The Creamery are much more forthcoming with specifications. It's not strange or unheard of, nothing like asking for "blueprints to the car".



Not ridiculous. Other pickup winders offer more technical details than SD and the sky remains... unfallen.



So you've said.



Time is money.



You replied to me, remember? If you don't like it...

Just stop. We're all very impressed by the almighty Drex so you can definitely stop now.