Duncan mV output chart - Perpetual Burn vs 59

[CarlosG]

Hi!
I came across this post.
https://forum.seymourduncan.com/for...08433-seymour-duncan-pickup-output-experiment
I was very surprised by some of the readings.
For example, Perpetual Burn is often recommended as a lower output JB.
Jason Becker - bridge Black 582mV
TB-59 '59 Trembucker 593mV
SH-PG1b Pearly Gates 543
​APH-1b Alnc II Pro Humbuckr 499
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Perpetual Burn appears to be a JB with a PAF output.
I wonder how accurate these readings are. The SD page says 59 is vintage output and Perpetual Burn is medium output. From the mV readings it appears that Perpetual Burn has less power than the 59.

I'm also surprised at how low the readings are on the firebird copies:
SM-2b Custom Mini-Humbkr 327
​SM-3b Seymourized Mini-Humbkr 354
I've never played them but I liked how great the Firebird sounds in other guys' videos. It's probably because of the narrower coils and low output.
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[freefrog]

mV output depends on the height settings of a pickup, on its location relatively to the bridge, on the DCR of pots, on the capacitance of the cable used, on the strenght of the stimulus sent to the PU, on the impedance of the input to which it's plugged... non limitative list (even the acoustic resonance of a guitar can make a pickup louder than in another instrument).

IOW, it's necessarily a relative measurement*.

That's potentially why the Duncan chart didn't have much success.

That's also why the most interesting thing to do is to find a multimeter able to record a maximum voltage output. Put its probes on hot and ground at the output of the guitar, dig the strings and watch the screen. At least you'll have your direct idea of what is going on.

All that being said: unless they have a much stronger magnetism, pickups of smaller size and/or lower inductance are most often less powerful than regular sized humbuckers. Pretty logical.


*Footnote: a PGb, for instance, is rated @ 543mV in the Duncan chart. My own measurements didn't go beyond 460mV.

 

[Mincer]

As I recall, at the time, they tried to keep everything the same from pickup to pickup, but the height they chose might not be the height you might like the pickup at. It also depends on how hard you pick, and how consistent the picking is from pickup to pickup. Also, real players don't play that way, so we would all get different readings...which makes this experiment less effective.

 

[CarlosG]

I think they made some mistake, that's why they didn't include it in the specification. Full Shred in particular came out pretty damn hot.
SH-1 bridge 593​, Full Shred neck 709.
But on website, when i see output stripe Full Shred neck is lower output than 59 bridge. ​

 

[Rex_Rocker]

IMO, that chart was kind of ballpark output levels, but no 100% gospel.

It shows the Black Winter as not being as hot as the Distortion, for example. And no way. I've had the Distortion and Black Winter in the same guitar, tracked DI's, and can tell you, IME, it isn't. At all. I'm not talking about "perceived" output either.

A few pickups are like that. They highly underrate the Nazgul there too. They highly overrate the Full Shred too. Perhaps those are not the right words, because I doubt they'd lie about the results their experiment yielded. But I don't know what methodology they used to get some measurements that highly disagree with peoples' experiences with a few of the pickups.

So my opinion... best way to know for sure is to try stuff out yourself and record DI's. I don't find those results to be 100% accurate in the "real" world.

 

[Juanhanglo]

I think attack and eq played a factory in that chart.

The full shreds attack, and the machine they tested on would reward this.
it should also have slower responding a2 types as lower output than they really are.

High bass will cause huge mv numbers, but is bext to useless if the mids are scooped. This expalins the '59s high numbers.


i hear stuff like this all the time about dimarzios too. 30 to 50 mv lower output sometimes sounds equal in volume or sometimes louder. Their eq ratings are also sometimes very off to what others hear

 

[Mincer]

Yeah, other than curiosity, I don't think any mV reading would be all that useful over any other factors (or even in the top 3) when deciding between pickups.

 

[ToneFiddler]

I think attack and eq played a factory in that chart.

The full shreds attack, and the machine they tested on would reward this.
it should also have slower responding a2 types as lower output than they really are.

High bass will cause huge mv numbers, but is bext to useless if the mids are scooped. This expalins the '59s high numbers.


i hear stuff like this all the time about dimarzios too. 30 to 50 mv lower output sometimes sounds equal in volume or sometimes louder. Their eq ratings are also sometimes very off to what others hear

this, the human ear is most sensitiv to the frequencies of children screems or something like that. Say mids around 1kHz.
mV data won't reflect this.

 

[jeremy]

i think knowing the output is a useful thing, but ive always had issues with this list. for the most part, tone is the most important thing for me almost all the time, but too little or too much output can be an issue

 

[RanchManSandy]

The mV output chart is interesting, but I also question it. It's pretty convenient the Nazgul is exactly 666 rofl. also the testing page mentions the guitar is a tele with an oversized rout. are we to assume the rout was so big that they were testing the 7 and 8 string versions in that same body? with only 6 strings? and they all happened to have the same exact output as their respective 6 string model?

yikes and the Blackouts metal puts out 3.6 whole volts? lol. lmao, even

 

[ErikH]

Speaking from experience, the Perpetual Burn is certainly a hotter pickup than the 59. I do love the Perpetual Burn though. It's very responsive and very versatile. It sounds amazingly good split, probably the best of all the Seymour Duncans I've tried, and the list is long. I have one sitting on the shelf at the moment but it might end up in my old Kramer. Haven't decided yet.

 

[jeremy]

yikes and the Blackouts metal puts out 3.6 whole volts? lol. lmao, even

they have crazy output

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Yeah, but all Blackouts run on the same preamp, don't they? At 9V, there is a limit as to how much they can put out, so in theory, if you strum REALLY hard, you should get the same output from a regular Blackout compared to a Metal Blackout or an EMTY. Of course, one would feel hotter than the other or one would distort more than the other because their preamp is clipping different amounts depending on how how the pickup is before the preamp. But the output in mV or dBU should be the same.

IIRC, when I had the regular Blackout, it clipped a whole lot less than an EMG, but it did clip when struming hard. I would think the Blackout Metal would clip a whole lot more.

That's another inconsistency I find with that chart. Or maybe they're doing something that I'm not considering.

 

[Artie]

I can't imagine how one would accurately measure pickup output voltage in real world terms. I had the luxury of taking a few of my guitars into work a couple times, (Navy Cal lab), to "play" into a really expensive o'scope. A typical 'scope has a 1 meg input Z, which makes a direct connection ideal. On one strike, you'd have an initial peak. The 2nd peak was around 2/3 to 1/2 the 1st peak. Then it faded off quickly. If you put the scope on it's "envelope" function, and strummed like a madman, you could get some semblance of an RMS voltage. But the slightest variation in strumming intensity, was a significant variation is RMS voltage.

I don't see how this could be measured without a robot playing.

 

[Seashore]

I can't imagine how one would accurately measure pickup output voltage in real world terms. I had the luxury of taking a few of my guitars into work a couple times, (Navy Cal lab), to "play" into a really expensive o'scope. A typical 'scope has a 1 meg input Z, which makes a direct connection ideal. On one strike, you'd have an initial peak. The 2nd peak was around 2/3 to 1/2 the 1st peak. Then it faded off quickly. If you put the scope on it's "envelope" function, and strummed like a madman, you could get some semblance of an RMS voltage. But the slightest variation in strumming intensity, was a significant variation is RMS voltage.

I don't see how this could be measured without a robot playing.

For some reason this reminds me of when I first learned how to replace a bandsaw blade, and the shop manager told me to check the tension by seeing how far the blade would deflect under "normal pressure".

 

[Artie]

^^^^ That's funny. I have a little Rikon. I believe that's what the owners manual says. It makes me apprehensive to use it.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

I actually find a pickup's output is the loudest if you strum chords loudly past the 15th fret or so. I assume that's because you're acutally pushing the strings closer to the pickup itself when you fret higher up.

 

[freefrog]

I can't imagine how one would accurately measure pickup output voltage in real world terms. I had the luxury of taking a few of my guitars into work a couple times, (Navy Cal lab), to "play" into a really expensive o'scope. A typical 'scope has a 1 meg input Z, which makes a direct connection ideal. On one strike, you'd have an initial peak. The 2nd peak was around 2/3 to 1/2 the 1st peak. Then it faded off quickly. If you put the scope on it's "envelope" function, and strummed like a madman, you could get some semblance of an RMS voltage. But the slightest variation in strumming intensity, was a significant variation is RMS voltage.

I don't see how this could be measured without a robot playing.

As said in my previous post, we obtained coherent results here with a lab meter set to record maximum output voltages then fed by a guitar whose strings were brushed altogether with the strongest possible attack. It always ended with a peak voltage impossible to exceed. Results were not the same than in Duncan or DiMarzio data but weren't that different either and allowed to rank pickups relatively to each others in a totally logical way...

This approach based on peak levels has been used also to record the frequency response of pickups plugged directly to the board. Results were consistent enough to be practically identical with a same pickup tested in the same conditions at 3 years of distance...

So, no need of robotic playing IME. Brute force seems to give meaningful measurements (and it's really the only context in which I'd praise brute force). ;-)

 

[Chistopher]

Pickup output is meaningless to measure scientifically. To be scientific enough to have any meaning, you would have to run pink noise through the pickup, and display the output as a graph. This is how they do it with speakers. The difference between speakers and guitar pickups is that when you buy a speaker you are assuming that the rest of your system has a fairly neutral color. This is far from the case with a guitar. And if you use pink noise, you aren't taking into account that some pickups tend to be placed closer to the strings than others.

Even if we got this info, how is the layman going to know whether or not the JB's midspike is going to be interpreted by their ear as creating more volume than a Distortion?


Maybe we need to take a step back and consider, in what use case is having this information of any benefit to us. Just reading the advertising literature is generally enough to know if two pickups are going to work together volume wise.

 

[Mincer]

This brings up the question...what method would provide information the consumer would need in picking out a pickup? 5, 7, 9 EQ graph? Some sort of Scoville scale of hotness?