Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

kill your scene

kill your scene

New member
A lot of the time, people buy a guitar or bass with the intent to swap out the stock pups for something more powerful or something that simply sounds better. Sometimes, however, you run into an instrument that has the sound you want right off the bat.

I happen to love the way stock USA Fenders and Gibsons sound, and I'm really impressed whenever a guitar comes with Duncans already in it.

What is your favorite "right out of the box" guitar (as far as pups are concerned)?
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

Schecter C-1 Classics, but only the newer ones with the Jazz neck.

My Schecter C-1 Stealth kicks ass, besides the 59n
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

Don Grosh Bent Top Custom - wonderful pickups from the start... just not my taste.

Same thing with the Parker Fly Mojo... JB and Jazz pickups sound like a stock winner to me.

While I wasn't crazy about the stock G&L Legacy pickups, I haven't heard a whole lot of people change out pickups in G&L guitars, so apparently they're pretty awesome.

The Dean Hardtail comes stock with Duncans as well.

Some ESPs come with quality Duncans.

In fact, most high end guitars I see seem to come with Seymour Duncan pickups... so there's no doubt that Duncan makes great stuff.
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

My Fender Mexi P-bass Deluxe Special (that's a mouth full) came stock with Fender Vintage reissues in it. I was skeptical of them, but, almost two years later, I've yet to trick them out for Duncans. I also found that the pots and caps were of higher quality than normal mexican instruments. And upon further inspection, I found that the body and neck were American 2nd parts (on mine, there's two knots in the wood on the back of the neck and the Jazz pickup route is too big) so, it's essentially an American Fender.

But the pickups in it... aw-man, those are on-par with my duncans (the P-bass at least, I never use the J-bass pickup in it)
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

Indie P Bass said:
I never use the J-bass pickup in it
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You should. I don't have that particular model, but the bass I'm currently using is a P/J and I love that setup for it's sheer versatility alone. You can get SO many sounds by using both.... congrats on having really good taste, BTW. I love P/J's and the bass you have will probably be my next. :)

Incidentally, I'm not sure that they're BOTH Vintages. I'm checking that bass out on Fender.com and the specs make it seem like the J is a Vintage and the P is a Standard.... unless I'm reading it incorrectly. Click on "Specs". Again, maybe I'm wrong. Thanks for posting your thoughts, and like I said, you have great taste in gear. That's my next major purchase in all probability.
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

kill your scene said:
You should. I don't have that particular model, but the bass I'm currently using is a P/J and I love that setup for it's sheer versatility alone. You can get SO many sounds by using both.... congrats on having really good taste, BTW. I love P/J's and the bass you have will probably be my next. :)

Incidentally, I'm not sure that they're BOTH Vintages. I'm checking that bass out on Fender.com and the specs make it seem like the J is a Vintage and the P is a Standard.... unless I'm reading it incorrectly. Click on "Specs". Again, maybe I'm wrong. Thanks for posting your thoughts, and like I said, you have great taste in gear. That's my next major purchase in all probability.
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Mine's a slightly older model, they've revamped it. It's got American Standards in it, to save money. Mine are vintage, I can tell becuase of the clothe wires. American Standards have plastic wires. If I got a new one, I'd definately slap a SPB-1 and SJB-1b in it.'

edit:
Hmmmm... in the specs on the site, they must have revamped it again... I opened a 2003 up at a guitar shop and it had Am. Std's in it. Now it seems like they put a vintage J-bass and a std. P-bass... I hope it's not the standard mexi-p-bass p'up. It's probably one of the best playing basses ever, but it's no match for my Mexi-standard. I got a freak mexi-standard that just melts in your hands.
:offtopic:
Even old guys that are used to 60's P-basses and the likes play it and have to double check that it's actually mexican. The neck has the thick finish on it and has AMAZING action. It's my favorite bass, even with the rosewood board.

I bought that one and it had an EMG active p-p'up in it with only volume and tone, for a while I thought that was an amazing pickup and then decided that I liked the way my epiphone (with stock pickups) sounded better. So, I switched out the EMGs for SD's. Never looked back.

Speaking of great stock pickups, my Epiphone Fat-310 had an AMAZING stock humbucker in it. It had a great tonal range and really sang at high volumes. Only issue was, it fedback like a siren, even without any gain. A perfectly clean channel would feedback at high volume, it was wierd. I switched it out for a mystery PAF model that's either an early Duncan 59' or Gibson reissue.
 
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Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

Indie P Bass said:
Mine's a slightly older model, they've revamped it. It's got American Standards in it, to save money. Mine are vintage, I can tell becuase of the clothe wires. American Standards have plastic wires. If I got a new one, I'd definately slap a SPB-1 and SJB-1b in it.
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Gotcha. I see what you're saying. :)

Like I said, it sounds like an awesome bass. Stock Fenders are damn near my favorite pickup anyway (next to Duncans).
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

kill your scene said:
Gotcha. I see what you're saying. :)

Like I said, it sounds like an awesome bass. Stock Fenders are damn near my favorite pickup anyway (next to Duncans).
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it is an amazing bass, best 520 bucks I ever spent.
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

I've kept the stock pups on all of my guitars, except for one: my '79 Strat; I put Joe Bardens into that one. Very soon I will be putting a Bare Knuckle Miracle Man in my Kami 4, however, to get the tone a bit different from my other Lynch gtr ...
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

Have no experience of the benefits of after market pups in my gear, but have played some duncan loaded guitars briefly and my friend's evolution loaded RG. All i can say is im still using the 'Quad-rails' that came in my Kramer and they deliver the chunk my sound needs and i don't know if theyd benefit from new pups.
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

i quite like the pups on the american wolfies, they suit high gain stuff well
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

Parker Fly Mojo, jacksons that have the original jackson actives on them, some rickenbackers, and the schecter c-1 classic.
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

my PRS McCarty has those sweet McCarty humbuckers that i won't swap for anything else. fusion/ blues/ metal- no problems! :)
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

well i wouldn't change the pickups in my bluesbird, but it came stock with duncans. I had a great set of pickups in my mim 50's tele. I might try putting them in my newer 50's reissue because the pickups it has are crap. I must have gotten one like you indie, my blonde 50's tele is just like butter and had vintage style pickups. The new one came with pickups like a standard tele and it had lower quility components.

So my list of guitars that i wouldn't change the pickups in is:
Guild Bluesbird
(Old) Fender 50's reissue Tele
 
Re: Guitar or bass with GREAT stock pups

G&L's, MFD (magnetic field design) pickups are awesome in my opinion. Some of the Gibson pickups are good too.

Sprinter
 
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