Expensive Pickups that should song great but don't
- Thread starter Aceman
- Start date
Chistopher
malapterurus electricus tonewood instigator
I have yet to find a pickup that sounds bad in isolation. Some don't play well with others, and some require extreme settings on my amp. But Burstbuckers frigging suck
Rex_Rocker
Well-known member
Yeah, not sure. We're gonna start running into subjective a lot here. For example, I really like Bursbucker Pros, yet Chistopher says they suck.
I don't like the Custom 5, for example, but I wouldn't say it sucks. It's just not my kind of pickup. Plus it's not that expensive, I suppose.
Personally, I think people ask too much money for vintage T-Tops. I will say that, LOL.
I don't like the Custom 5, for example, but I wouldn't say it sucks. It's just not my kind of pickup. Plus it's not that expensive, I suppose.
Personally, I think people ask too much money for vintage T-Tops. I will say that, LOL.
Last edited:
soulforger
Active member
There are some expensive pickups I would replace, USA PRS 85/15s, but not because they don't sound good, I just don't like how "squabbins" look lol.
Chistopher
malapterurus electricus tonewood instigator
I have never tried the Pros. I've used the BB1, BB2, and BB3. All of those have A2s. I think the BB Pros are supposed to be the 2 and 3 but with A5s.
My BB2 and BB3 set has been in almost all my HH guitars, yet the neck and bridge just don't ever sound well together. The Classic 57s, which are similar, sounded great in the two guitars I've gotten with them.
Chistopher
malapterurus electricus tonewood instigator
I'm sitting on this very fence.
Rex_Rocker
Well-known member
My old Epiphone 1959 came with the 2 and 3, but I don't really remember what they sounded like. I honestly ripped them off for Black Winters as soon as I got it. Not sure if I'd dig them, though. I don't usually get excited over PAF types with a few exceptions, the BBP being one of them.
Gibson pickups have a tendency to get a lot of hate, though. I know people hate the 498T and the 500T, but I love them both, personally. I don't mind the 490R either.
I do think the 57 Classics are some of the better-regarded ones, but I've never tried them.
Señor Verde
Member
People rave about Wizz Premium Clones, but they've been bright, thin and flat sounding in every guitar I've tried them in. This involved much tweaking and several guitars.
freefrog
Well-known member
I've no horse in the race (no Wizz in my guitars) but most boutique P.A.F. clones I've tried were/are bright... just like real ones. And the ones in my main LP, built with NOS parts, can be super bright too if I want.
IME, such pickups need a vintage context to shine: vintage braided shielded wiring in the guitar, vintage long and/or coily cables from instrument to first host, primitive pedals with poor buffers like a vintage wah... Parasitic capacitance has to be high, input impedance is better to be low somewhere in the sonic chain.
Plug all that in a cranked non master volume amp and it sounds glorious.
But if one puts a P.A.F. replica in a guitar wired with low capacitance Mogami and plugged through 10' of VanDamme, the sound will probably be ear piercingly bright.
Mainstream contemporary P.A.F. clones are often voiced for modern gear, IOW bassier / darker than in the past. Gibson even puts highly capacitive braided shielded wire on vintage style models and give 'em a lower Q factor by design, in order to make 'em less bright out of the box...
I suppose what I'm trying to recall in all this rambling is that passive pickups have no defined sound by themselves. ;-)
The response of many noiseless stacks suffers of a "camel syndrome": they produce a dual resonance, scooping the audio spectrum just right where a real single coil would focus its energy in a pointy narrow resonant peak... Reason why even models with non symmetrical coils like the Area's alter the response to high harmonics.
There are various ways to avoid that but pickups designers often seemed to ignore the problem as well as its solutions... until Fender launched their gen4 noiseless pickups, whose resonant peak is finally like the one of a real SC (proof that it's doable).
nienturi
Active member
AFAIK That's why Dimarzio designs their PAF clones to sound warmer. Not to replicate the old recipe, to reanimation of the final sound.
Chistopher
malapterurus electricus tonewood instigator
I remember some power player was saying that most people don't want PAFs, they want the PAF sound from old records. The signal chain from strings to
mixing console has changed so much. So even if you have a real PAF in a real 59 LP playing into a real 59 Tweed, you aren't going to sound anything like the record.
I'll throw my own two cents in that most people that want a "real PAF" sound, are only playing into marketing. As opposed to most people on here, who use PAF to refer to a full spectrum of low to medium output traditional design pickups.
freefrog
Well-known member
Absolutely... and it suggests to users that warmth was a sonic feature of "P.A.F.'s" (with dots, unlike in the acronym trademarked by DiMarzio)... and from there comes the idea that those who search to get closer to the original recipe are fooled by boutique advertising, which is objectively quite a paradox...
I agree that the Seths/Deluxe combo is glorious. No pedals needed.
