Are higher output pickups really darker?

[Securb]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

Also, maybe a silly question, but what's considered "high output"? A DC resistent of...?

If you ask five guitar players, you will get five different answers. That number will also vary from pickup brand to pickup brand. I play hot pickups so my WLHs are probably my mildest pickups whereas they might be too hot for a classic rock, country or jazz guy. It is like heat in food, what I find to be mild might burn your mouth off and vice-versa.

 

[backporchpicker]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

Those mV stats are worthless. A pickup doesn't have an inherent mV output the way it has an inherent inductance or resistance, etc. The mV is the product of V = I * Z (voltage equals current times impedance), so you know V (but not even whether it's Vpp or Vrms), and you don't know what the breakdown of I or Z are.

In pickup design, Z, the impedance, is decided by the coil, which the DC resistance alludes to, but doesn't describe accurately. The current I is decided by the magnetic geometry of the pickup, so if you use a stronger magnet, and put the coils really close to the strings, you get more current. The total voltage you get depends on how much current and impedance is there, so in the case of a Dimebucker, what they might lack in impedance they somehow make up for with added current, by using a large ceramic magnet, for example.

The 16k DC resistance of the Dimebucker suggests it has a lot of turns of wire, but if they wound it with 45 AWG, the resistance is due to the small wire size, not the number of turns. I've seen it said that the Dimebucker specifically has a high resonant peak, strongly suggesting that it is using fewer turns of tiny wire in order to get that high DC resistance. The Dimebucker looks like it borrows heavily from Bill Lawrence's designs, and Bill Lawrence exercised this layout with Microcoils and some other models he made.

Not worthless, mV output can be very useful.
http://www.muzique.com/lab/pick.htm

 

[thanaton]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

Not worthless, mV output can be very useful.
http://www.muzique.com/lab/pick.htm

1) DiMarzio's measured values are not compatible with Seymour Duncan's, because as stated earlier, we know the output, but not the inputs.

2) We don't know what method DiMarzio uses, though I believe Seymour Duncan Co did disclose their method in a forum post a while back, and we have no assurance that their methods are consistently applied from one pickup to the next. There is a lot that can go wrong, depending on the method they used.

The values Seymour Duncan were also full of questionable values, such as pickups regarded as hot showing low numbers and vice versa, as well as some pickups with what appeared to be joke values, like "666".

 

[LLL]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

All depends on your gear (guitar, pedals, amp, speakers).

Better way to look at it is to (in general) try matching the pickup to your gear to get the desired result.

 

[thanaton]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

So I guess this is why generally speaking ceramics are used to balance out that "darkened" sound in a higher output pickup?

Ceramic magnets both increase the perceived brightness and increase the output, so I wouldn't say it's used exclusively to win back high end that is lost by a lower resonant peak, though it appears that it can serve that purpose.

Or maybe they can use a thicker wire too to counter said darkened tone. So technically speaking, and going back to my previous question, DCR doesn't determine tone profile, right?

DC resistance doesn't determine tone profile. The main reason DC resistance is a commonly stated spec is that multi meters are cheap, so it's an easy value to measure, and it can help with troubleshooting problems. Inductance is more telling, but a good LCR meter costs at least $150 USD.

 

[backporchpicker]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

1) DiMarzio's measured values are not compatible with Seymour Duncan's, because as stated earlier, we know the output, but not the inputs.

2) We don't know what method DiMarzio uses, though I believe Seymour Duncan Co did disclose their method in a forum post a while back, and we have no assurance that their methods are consistently applied from one pickup to the next. There is a lot that can go wrong, depending on the method they used.

The values Seymour Duncan were also full of questionable values, such as pickups regarded as hot showing low numbers and vice versa, as well as some pickups with what appeared to be joke values, like "666".

you said "worthless" , the link points out that under controlled conditions the data can be very valuable to someone designing say an overdrive or flanger pedal. I don't think Duncan or Dimarzio publish the data to be used to say "hey, my mV's bigger than yours."

 

[thanaton]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

you said "worthless" , the link points out that under controlled conditions the data can be very valuable to someone designing say an overdrive or flanger pedal. I don't think Duncan or Dimarzio publish the data to be used to say "hey, my mV's bigger than yours."

They don't provide enough context to make the mV useful. Is that Vpp or Vrms? Is this the peak voltage at the transient, or an average over time? With what input frequency was the resulting voltage measured? Without knowing these things, it's just as misleading as DC resistance, if not more so.

 

[backporchpicker]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

They don't provide enough context to make the mV useful. Is that Vpp or Vrms? Is this the peak voltage at the transient, or an average over time? With what input frequency was the resulting voltage measured? Without knowing these things, it's just as misleading as DC resistance, if not more so.

did you bother t read the link posted in my initial response? do you read and comprehend or just do data dumps.

 

[Gunslinger_505]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

I recently read an article that argues that high output humbuckers will sound darker than low output buckers. Apparently the higher DC resistance compresses the sound and darkens the tone somehow. Now I don't know much about pickups but the JB comes to mind and from clips I've heard it definitely doesn't sound dark at all...quite trebly in my opinion. And the JB is a high output pickup.

So is there some truth to this? Also can someone explain what reviewers mean with "open" vs "compressed"?

I'll kind of go against the grain,,,, I think these generalities are true when looked at globally. However, when looked at locally (e.g. within a similar range), the differences appear greater.

Low to medium output pups sound more open and much more touch sensitive (less compressed) than high output pups to me. I can also pretty much tell most the vintage from high output pickup players.

 

[EDX]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

duncan mV chart is useful to compare only duncan pickups, with the added data of inductance and resonant freq the mV chart can be used to get an idea of the actual distribution of pickups output, let's take the dimebucker, join all it's data and you not only get that it's stupid hot compared to the rest of duncan passives, but a lot of that heat is on the higher end frequencies, it's more, with the right software tool if you input all the data it should print a very accurate graph of the pickup's tone curvature

the dimebucker design is actually based from bill lawrence pickups, although it looks and it's build like a L500 pickup it differs from modern, vintage (till 80's), old (90's), Bill Lawrence Usa and Wilde and Becky L500L pickups as it was reverse engineered from vintage/old L500L's (at least a dead one pulled from one of dime's deans, while a couple working ones pulled from his old deans too) and a custom thing called L500L + (not to be confused with a L500XL) that came from dime's main guitar of that time, once they hybridized those designs and tones they started to add dime's tonal tweakings

 

[thanaton]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

duncan mV chart is useful to compare only duncan pickups, with the added data of inductance and resonant freq the mV chart can be used to get an idea of the actual distribution of pickups output, let's take the dimebucker, join all it's data and you not only get that it's stupid hot compared to the rest of duncan passives, but a lot of that heat is on the higher end frequencies, it's more, with the right software tool if you input all the data it should print a very accurate graph of the pickup's tone curvature

There are no enough data points to plot a curve. As I've said a few posts up, the mV spec raises more questions than answers. You would need the inductance value at the very least to plot an impedance curve, and you could rough guess the other values, but you can't extract the inductance from the data on hand, not from the DC resistance, nor the mV output. To get a very accurate curve, you would also need to know the capacitance and the eddy current impedance, which can be substantial whenever you have steel parts involved in the construction of a pickup.

 

[thanaton]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

you said "worthless" , the link points out that under controlled conditions the data can be very valuable to someone designing say an overdrive or flanger pedal. I don't think Duncan or Dimarzio publish the data to be used to say "hey, my mV's bigger than yours."

OK, that data is supposedly useful for people who design effects pedals, because it makes perfect sense to design a pedal around a particular pickup, how many of us here are in the effects pedal racket?

 

[backporchpicker]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

OK, that data is supposedly useful for people who design effects pedals, because it makes perfect sense to design a pedal around a particular pickup, how many of us here are in the effects pedal racket?

Most everybody here uses some sort of effects pedal. So mV is not only measurable but very useful, not worthless. As far as Mv as an output measurement when searching for a pickup it is not a very useful data point. A guitar player can get just about any output level desired with the array of excellent boosters available. Beyond that the amplifier will boost the crap out out of the pickup anyway.

So are higher output pickup darker? My opinion is it doesn't matter. Choose the pickup based on the tone you want, using your ears as Demoniac says, and go from there.
Now wasn't that straightforward? We didn't need to introduce mV into this in the first place.

 

[EDX]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

the input impedance and all other parameters used to take the mV readings were released by duncan and then also confirmed by an user who got the same numbers while measuring a seth lover set, using those too it must be possible to graph a tone curve

 

[backporchpicker]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

the input impedance and all other parameters used to take the mV readings were released by duncan and then also confirmed by an user who got the same numbers while measuring a seth lover set, using those too it must be possible to graph a tone curve

And what purpose will this tone curve serve? Would you lay down a couple hundred bucks for a set based on a curve? I wouldn't.

 

[thanaton]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

And what purpose will this tone curve serve? Would you lay down a couple hundred bucks for a set based on a curve? I wouldn't.

The same could be said of DC resistance.

 

[thanaton]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

the input impedance and all other parameters used to take the mV readings were released by duncan and then also confirmed by an user who got the same numbers while measuring a seth lover set, using those too it must be possible to graph a tone curve

Impedance is frequency dependent. You can say a pickup has a particular impedance at a particular frequency, not a single overall impedance. But even still, it's not clear how that would be "used" to derive a voltage, because again, you still don't know what current the pickup was subjected to, or even how it was applied, directly through the lead wires, or magnetically like a transformer. And again, we're still not talking about inductance or capacitance, so we can't even begin to plot a response curve. A guitar pickup is parallel RLC low pass filter with resonance. If you google that, you can see what variables are required and how they all relate to get a response curve.

What blows my mind is that the inductance is much more useful and easier to acquire than the voltage output from an arbitrary test scenario, and yet they wen't through all that trouble to get those voltage measures. It's as if they're trying to maintain secrets while making it appear as though they're being forthcoming. You see the same thing here http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/product-news/pickup-comparison-chart , going through the trouble to publish peak resonances when, here again, it's a data point that is both less useful and more difficult to acquire than the inductance. Maybe Carter Duncan Co. figures that giving up the inductance figures would make it too easy for others to create knockoffs of their pickups.

 

[greekdude]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

IMHO "hotness" should be also related to the noise reduction. A hot but noisy humbucker would not be better for high gain than a weak but fully noiseless (e.g. stacked) single coil. So at least for me, noise cancellation should go somewhere in the formula.

 

[backporchpicker]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

Impedance is frequency dependent. You can say a pickup has a particular impedance at a particular frequency, not a single overall impedance. But even still, it's not clear how that would be "used" to derive a voltage, because again, you still don't know what current the pickup was subjected to, or even how it was applied, directly through the lead wires, or magnetically like a transformer. And again, we're still not talking about inductance or capacitance, so we can't even begin to plot a response curve. A guitar pickup is parallel RLC low pass filter with resonance. If you google that, you can see what variables are required and how they all relate to get a response curve.

What blows my mind is that the inductance is much more useful and easier to acquire than the voltage output from an arbitrary test scenario, and yet they wen't through all that trouble to get those voltage measures. It's as if they're trying to maintain secrets while making it appear as though they're being forthcoming. You see the same thing here http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/product-news/pickup-comparison-chart , going through the trouble to publish peak resonances when, here again, it's a data point that is both less useful and more difficult to acquire than the inductance. Maybe Carter Duncan Co. figures that giving up the inductance figures would make it too easy for others to create knockoffs of their pickups.

There you go again off into thd wild black yonder. Of course atone curve is possible! You can plot just about anything. Ask that Faldo guy, he can give you tone curves.
The point is what is it's value?
And the topic is are hot pickups darker? The answer to that is an unequivocal yes, but again it doesn't matter. Choose the tone you hear and want that has everything you want...you can always subtract but never add to that base tone you choose.

 

[thanaton]

Re: Are higher output pickups really darker?

I didn't say you couldn't plot a response curve, I said, more than once now, that we've never been given nearly enough information to do this. In the reply you quoted, you'll see that I mentioned that with inductance and capacitance, it would be possible to plot a reasonably accurate curve.

What's the value? Well it tells you most of what is objectively knowable about a pickup. All of these specs and data points beat around there bush, where as a response curve says almost all there is to say about the "Z" in V=I*Z. Whether or not you personally find that information useful or not is another matter. You might not intuit much by looking at one response curve alone, but if you compare the curves of several pickups, some which you're familiar with, you can make better educated guesses about what to expect from pickups you've never tried out before. If pickups cost $5 a piece and plugged in a easily as a video game cartridge, then simply trying them all out would make a lot of sense. But at $100 a pop, and half hour of your time to swap them out, trial and error alone is a lot to ask.