Experience with Custom shop start bridge pickup- '78 or Pearly Gates?

[schofnsteen]

Re: Experience with Custom shop start bridge pickup- '78 or Pearly Gates?

Ok. Put '78 in same guitar. The PG has more sizzle and doesnt require higher gain on amp to distort. The '78 is more midrange. More gain needed to distort. Not a fan of the neck/bridge split position. Too ice picky on both. I will leave the '78 in for a few days before i make the final decision. I'll give up the bridge/middle position for the better bridge tone . Glad I did not have to route.

 

[DreX]

Re: Experience with Custom shop start bridge pickup- '78 or Pearly Gates?

Ok. Put '78 in same guitar. The PG has more sizzle and doesnt require higher gain on amp to distort. The '78 is more midrange. More gain needed to distort. Not a fan of the neck/bridge split position. Too ice picky on both. I will leave the '78 in for a few days before i make the final decision. I'll give up the bridge/middle position for the better bridge tone . Glad I did not have to route.

Thanks for reporting back. One rep said the '78 was lower output than the Little '59 and another said it was hotter, so that clears that up. I think I generally prefer hotter single space sized humbuckers because the lower output ones get into the realm of stacked humbucker tone, which I'm not a fan of. It's like a single coil tone that waaaay too smooth.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Experience with Custom shop start bridge pickup- '78 or Pearly Gates?

One rep said the '78 was lower output than the Little '59 and another said it was hotter, so that clears that up.

Best two out of three?

 

[DreX]

Re: Experience with Custom shop start bridge pickup- '78 or Pearly Gates?

Best two out of three?

I wonder if the aftermarket pickup makers sit back and laugh at all the supposed pickup aficionados, like they take three basic pickups, "quiet", "moderate" and "loud" and release them under ten difference names, knowing that with such small variances that if you call one "vintage" and another "texas hot" people will hear what they want to hear through the suggestion of the name alone, and it might be the same pickup. They say there's so much that goes into a pickup; the wire gauge, the magnet type, the number of winds, etc. and there are some "out there" pickups that are crazy hot winds and stong magnets, but most of the pickups people covet fall within a pretty narrow range of parameters and most of the variable factors are not highly varied anyway; 42 AWG and alnico V, or one step away from that. When I see things like silver coil wire, scatter wind, and "aged" magnets, I think I hear quiet laughing off in the distance.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Experience with Custom shop start bridge pickup- '78 or Pearly Gates?

I wonder if the aftermarket pickup makers sit back and laugh at all the supposed pickup aficionados, like they take three basic pickups, "quiet", "moderate" and "loud" and release them under ten difference names, knowing that with such small variances that if you call one "vintage" and another "texas hot" people will hear what they want to hear through the suggestion of the name alone, and it might be the same pickup.

There may be some of that going on. People's tastes have always been influenced by marketing, just look at what cigarette makers have done with it.