Amp or pickups more important?

[Kac]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

I would say the amp is more influential. Colors the tone a lot. Good thing about amps is they have lots of knobs and sliders to change stuff up, where pickups can have the mag met swapped or be raised and lowered.. I change pickups more often because it is much cheaper to change pickups than change amps. If I had unlimited funds it might be the other way around.


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[Funkfingers]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

Some of my favourite amplifiers have almost no controls on at all. They still sound great because the design fundamentals are right.

I agree with the assertion about matching guitars and amplification. Fender is a case in point. They build both. They test one with the other. Many of the world's best amplifiers owe a great deal to Fender designs. Many of Leo Fender's designs owe a great deal to valve manufacturer's guide books. Simple but effective.

If you want to get sniffy, there is always the area of cabinet materials. Solid v. ply v. particle board.

 

[Red_Label]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

Amp, by a mile. IME, pickup fiddling is really only fine tuning that other small percentage of your tone that the amp doesn't make up. The way I look at it, your amp and its settings choose your basic tone – the real meat of it. Pickup selection is more about choosing how your guitar is going to interact with your amp, mainly whether your guitar is gonna hit the amp heavily or lightly, or in between. If the amp is the meat, the pickups are the spices.

Ditto that. I've owned boutique amps and guitars at various times and in regards to electric guitar TONE, the amp is the bigger factor by far. I'd rather play a cheap guitar into an awesome amp, than an awesome guitar into a cheap amp. The internet is full of guys who rarely leave their bedrooms or man caves, so many of them choose to focus on nice guitars with the amp as an afterthought... because they "can't really use a good tube amp to its potential anyways". No argument there if they're stuck at home. But when you play out with a band is when you really learn how a good tube amp really responds, sounds, and cuts-through the mix. No special tonewoods or pickup windings are going to cut-through. The amp has to do most of that work. So I guess it all depends on your perspective.

 

[Boogie Bill]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

I'd have to say amp. I have played on some amps that simply didn't sound good with certain types of pickups (notably humbuckers).

It is one of the things I love about my Mesa amps--it just seems like every guitar I have ever plugged into the Mark IIIs, IV, or V; and the Maverick 212; or the DC-3--has sounded phenomenal. And it's not just me who notices that, either. Guys that have used their stock Epi LPs and Squire Strats or MIM Standard Strats and Teles into my amp at a jam session have all remarked at how good their guitars sounded through a Mesa.

When I first bought my 1960 LP Classics with the 496R/500T pickups, I loved the tones from those guitars, but the pickups were simply too hot for that amp and the styles of music I play. Wasn't a tone issue--just too much gain with those pickups. Moving to Antiquitys in one guitar, and Seths in the other, solved that problem.

If you look at the history of rock guitar, it's not so much the guitar, or the amp; it is finding that magical COMBINATION of guitar+amp+the players touch that make for great, classic tones.

Bill

 

[El Supremo]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

+1 on Mark type Boogies. Never could get a crappy sound out of them, especially when paired with the EV loaded Road Ready Thiele cabs.
Marshalls are a bit more picky to me, but when you get the combo right they kick some serious butt too.

 

[ehdwuld]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

amp
with one caveat

no amp makes the Ibanez INF3 neck pickup sound un-muddy

 

[AlexR]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

^ is that certain degrees of mud we're talking about then.

 

[Kosh Naranek]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

I'm not real sure how much you can really compare the effect of pickups to an amp. The pickups have a significant effect on the character of the guitar itself, affecting frequency response, dynamics and output.

And it makes a difference what kind of amp we're talking about. Sure all amps have tone controls that allow for significant adjustment of frequency response, and pickups do not. But some amps are great at allowing the tone of the guitar the way the pickups deliver it to be heard through the speaker. Other amps impart their own tone to any instrument you plug into them.

 

[crguti]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

the player is way more important.

 

[IMENATOR]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

Only a Sith think absolutes... but if I had to pick between amp and pickups I would pick the amp. imho you can hear great blues, rock or jazz either with a strat or a LP. So if those different guitars and pickups can do good then what changed among the generes? The amp I would think, from sparkling clean, to mild overdrive, to legendary crunch up to devastating chug, the amp is the one that mos drastically changes. Don't get me wrong, the pickups are very important to sculpt the details of your tone but I think the overall raw shape comes fom the amp.

 

[80's_Metal]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

I would like to interject this order; effects, amp, pups.

A couple good effects can make a pretty crappy guitar sound golden.

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

I would like to interject this order; effects, amp, pups.

A couple good effects can make a pretty crappy guitar sound golden.

You know, at first I was like, are you kidding me? Effects over amps? No way. Then I thought a little bit and remembered all the effects pedals out there that I have tried that just slay amazing amps. They would warp the character of the amp to make it just sound not at all like it normally would. Sucking warmth, cutting highs, over-saturation and compression, feedback and noise etc... grinding the sound to dust before it even gets to the amp. I've never had a pickup or anything ruin an amp on it's own unless it was malfunctioning or something, which I don't count. Something should only be judged by it's quality if it's working as it is supposed to (unless it keeps breaking or other quality control issues are apparent). Maybe I haven't played enough bad pickups! Sure I don't NEED the effects like I do the guitar and the amp, but I see where you're coming from now. I've also seen people take POS amps and make them sing beautifully though effects and their own playing style. So yeah, great comment.

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

Also I feel pickups should be given a little more weight in and because of direct injection scenarios.

 

[Animal]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

Everything will effect everything but in terms of night/day difference the speakers+cab arrangement will have the final say. It's part that projects everything up until that point.

One of my friends has a Mesa Mark IV combo loaded with a Celestion G12H-100, and I HATE the sound of it. Plugged into some of my speakers cabs, some sealed and open back, with a variety of different celestion and wgs speakers , a completely different story. We also experimented with hooking up his Marshall MS2 micro stack into a 2x12 and it sounded quite decent.

It's also ironic that for some players, especially beginners, it might be the absolute last consideration in their rig. It's just a speaker right?

 

[allbutromeo]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

They're all equal to me. An amp can only affect the signal it's given, so crap input signal=crap output signal. There are some amps that also affect the overall tone more than others. Basically everything in the signal chain is vital, but the closer the object is to the end over the chain the more it affects the overall tone (hence why you hear a bigger difference with an EQ pedal in the FX loop vs in front of the amp). Either way if something in the signal chain is bad it will be bad when it comes out of the speaker, but the components further down the line may mask it from being readily apparent.

 

[Nacho8807]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

I like to think amps are like different main courses, with pickups being the seasonings you use. For example:

You can season chicken and salmon with a lemon-pepper rub, but they'll still taste like chicken and salmon. By the same token, You could season chicken with lemon pepper or bbq. Vastly different seasonings, still ultimately tastes like chicken.

Now try it with gear instead of food:

You can play a 6505 and a Deluxe Reverb with a JB, but they'll still sound like a 6505 and a Deluxe Reverb. By the same token, You could use a 6505 with a Dimebucker or a 59. Vastly different pickups, still ultimately sounds like a 6505.

No doubt the all those tones (and flavors) would be different from one another, but the variable with the biggest impact in my mind is the chicken, er, amp.

I'm hungry.

 

[Boogie Bill]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

Everything will effect everything but in terms of night/day difference the speakers+cab arrangement will have the final say. It's part that projects everything up until that point.

One of my friends has a Mesa Mark IV combo loaded with a Celestion G12H-100, and I HATE the sound of it. Plugged into some of my speakers cabs, some sealed and open back, with a variety of different celestion and wgs speakers , a completely different story. We also experimented with hooking up his Marshall MS2 micro stack into a 2x12 and it sounded quite decent.

It's also ironic that for some players, especially beginners, it might be the absolute last consideration in their rig. It's just a speaker right?

I have a blue-stripe Mesa Mark III Simul-Class, reverb, EQ 112 combo that I bought used with a G12H-100, and I agree--that amp does not like that speaker. The Mark IIIs and Mark IV combosI have with the EVM speaker sound much better. I also like them with V30s, but the 100 is, well...grating.

Bill

 

[Demanic]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

Music is an emergent property. It's like asking which is more important to a human being, food or water or air?

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

Music is an emergent property. It's like asking which is more important to a human being, food or water or air?

Water is more important than food, air more important than both of those. Lack of air will kill you in minutes, lack of water in a couple of days, lack of food in a few weeks. Even short term loss of air can cause brain damage where going without drinking for a day has no ill effects same with food.

Being an emergent property doesnt mean that all elements that make it emergent are equal in their contribution. It only means that the sum is greater than the parts.

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Amp or pickups more important?

I like to think amps are like different main courses, with pickups being the seasonings you use. For example:

You can season chicken and salmon with a lemon-pepper rub, but they'll still taste like chicken and salmon. By the same token, You could season chicken with lemon pepper or bbq. Vastly different seasonings, still ultimately tastes like chicken.

Now try it with gear instead of food:

You can play a 6505 and a Deluxe Reverb with a JB, but they'll still sound like a 6505 and a Deluxe Reverb. By the same token, You could use a 6505 with a Dimebucker or a 59. Vastly different pickups, still ultimately sounds like a 6505.

No doubt the all those tones (and flavors) would be different from one another, but the variable with the biggest impact in my mind is the chicken, er, amp.

I'm hungry.

So is gain like hotsauce or something?

Everyone keeps piling it on because they think it will make them seem more hardcore but really it's an acquired taste and adding way too much makes everything unpleasant and ruins what used to be there.

Yet at the same time you can't live without it and start putting it on everything against your better judgement.