Pickup Overload

[PFDarkside]

I was browsing through Duncan and Dimarzio’s websites and was just kind of surprised how many options are available just from these two big companies. Just looking at passive Humbuckers alone I counted:

Dimarzio Humbuckers
29 High Output
22 Mid Output
12 Vintage Output

Seymour Duncan
18 High Output
16 Mid Output
24 Vintage Output

I didn’t even count the Custom Shop Duncan options which are all easily available.

I’m not really sure what the point of my post it, mostly just awe of what’s available from the big aftermarket makers.

 

[Mincer]

That is pretty interesting, actually. The biggest difference are the vintage humbuckers.

 

[PFDarkside]

I’m counting neck and bridge as separate pickups, but spacing, covers, etc. would be under a single pickup.

 

[beaubrummels]

It's necessary for tone chasers to EQ their guitars to their liking/needs, guitar models themselves being plentiful and possessing different tonal characteristics. The difference between vintage and modern reflects on how the two companies got their start.

 

[JamesPaul]

I have recently gone through my parts shelf and seeing this makes me think I'm overloaded on pickups I'm not using. Some are older which I have swapped out for something different and some are for projects which haven't happened yet.

I currently have 9 distinct pickups, from the the SD line and Custom Shop, which I don't have installed in any guitar. That's ~15% of the SD line.

I have a few "spares" also, but I'm not counting them. Still I'm confident someone out there has more than 9 which aren't installed in any guitar.

 

[PFDarkside]

The difference between vintage and modern reflects on how the two companies got their start.

Fantastic point. I was looking at Dimarzio bass pickups and I don’t think they even have a vintage style Precision or Jazz pickup. Meanwhile Duncan has the vintage lines, and several Antiquity versions of jazz, split P and original P.

 

[PFDarkside]

I have recently gone through my parts shelf and seeing this makes me think I'm overloaded on pickups I'm not using. Some are older which I have swapped out for something different and some are for projects which haven't happened yet.

I currently have 9 distinct pickups, from the the SD line and Custom Shop, which I don't have installed in any guitar. That's ~15% of the SD line.

I have a few "spares" also, but I'm not counting them. Still I'm confident someone out there has more than 9 which aren't installed in any guitar.

I didn’t even count custom shop offerings.

 

[ToneFiddler]

i never counted them but wow they really have a lot of PUs in their lineups.
and still i think there is room for more...

duncan already has a lot PAF style pickups, but not even one with a coil offset.
or a rocking 10kish 50s style tele bridge.
just to name some of the top of my head.

...Still I'm confident someone out there has more than 8 which aren't installed in any guitar.

:wave:
if your counting neck and bridge as separate, i own/owned over 40 different SD PUs and tried only 30 out of them(, yet).
not counting spares

 

[Mincer]

Stuff that SD is missing can usually be made in the Custom Shop.

 

[PFDarkside]

Stuff that SD is missing can usually be made in the Custom Shop.

At some point there is option paralysis, and people just ask forums “what is the best”. As it stands right now, there are some pretty good choices for each player.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

I was browsing through Duncan and Dimarzio’s websites and was just kind of surprised how many options are available just from these two big companies. Just looking at passive Humbuckers alone I counted:

Dimarzio Humbuckers
29 High Output
22 Mid Output
12 Vintage Output

Seymour Duncan
18 High Output
16 Mid Output
24 Vintage Output

I didn’t even count the Custom Shop Duncan options which are all easily available.

I’m not really sure what the point of my post it, mostly just awe of what’s available from the big aftermarket makers.

It's an exercise if psychology and economics.

Even though most genres are played with stock pickups, a lot of these models are marketed as being genre specific, so people buy them thinking it will make their attempt at playing some genre sound better.

Pickups are a lot cheaper than amps. If have one amp, the difference between pickups is easy to tell. But when you start playing though many amps, then that multiplies everything, and pretty soon it's hard to know where the pickup stops and the amp starts. If someone has $200 to spend, pickups seems like a better choice, but if you have $2,000 to spend, you're probably more likely to stick with stock pickups and change amps.

DiMarzio has added a lot of vintage models in the past 20 years. I think they've been in a state of denial, the guitar markets has been moving vintage since the 90's but they've been slow to cater to that market.

 

[JamesPaul]

At some point there is option paralysis, and people just ask forums “what is the best”. As it stands right now, there are some pretty good choices for each player.

Hard to argue against that however, every now and then one needs something which isn't in the standard SD offerings. When that day comes, the Custom Shop will deliver. I'm thinking of trying to match the X-1 in my old Lead II.

 

[Dave Locher]

At some point there is option paralysis, and people just ask forums “what is the best”. As it stands right now, there are some pretty good choices for each player.

Option paralysis is right! A few years ago I cycled through quite a few classic high-output bridge humbuckers (JB, M-22SD, L500XL, Custom, an overwound paf-style, Tone Zone, etc) and ended up deciding that the good old Super Distortion I've used on and off for 30 year9ks was good enough to make a huge amount of music I love so it's good enough for me. Not because it is perfect but because it is damn good. The quest was fun at first but started to drive me nuts after a dozen or so. I just stepped off the moving sidewalk.
Of course then I started trying to find the "perfect" OD pedal. That just ended. (There isn't one, but there are a lot of really good ones and at least half the ones I went through were just fine for me.)
So it always a balancing act between wanting to try every possible choice and wanting to just pick something good and use it. These forums tip it toward curiosity! I never did try a Suhr Aldridge. Or an Invader. Or a Duncan Distortion...
:banghead:

 

[dystrust]

Option paralysis is right! A few years ago I cycled through quite a few classic high-output bridge humbuckers (JB, M-22SD, L500XL, Custom, an overwound paf-style, Tone Zone, etc) and ended up deciding that the good old Super Distortion I've used on and off for 30 year9ks was good enough to make a huge amount of music I love so it's good enough for me. Not because it is perfect but because it is damn good. The quest was fun at first but started to drive me nuts after a dozen or so. I just stepped off the moving sidewalk.
Of course then I started trying to find the "perfect" OD pedal. That just ended. (There isn't one, but there are a lot of really good ones and at least half the ones I went through were just fine for me.)
So it always a balancing act between wanting to try every possible choice and wanting to just pick something good and use it. These forums tip it toward curiosity! I never did try a Suhr Aldridge. Or an Invader. Or a Duncan Distortion...
:banghead:

I've never played a Suhr Aldridge (that I know of) but have tried a bunch of others. For me the Duncan Custom just feels like home; I've been using it for 18 years in one guitar or another. Ironically enough I've had a late 80s Duncan Distortion (DDL) in my parts bin for over a decade, but never installed it in anything. One of these years I'll get around to it. I also have a Parallel Axis Distortion waiting on completion of my Charvel Model 2 project.

 

[Mincer]

We can only do research before we take the leap. Read descriptions, listen to reviews, and in the end make an educated choice. Ideally the company or store has a good return policy.

 

[ryanpullin]

I was just thinking about that today. I have a bigger issue with Dimarzio's catalog as I feel like a large portion (feels like a majority) of their pickups are artist signatures (or at least the new pickups coming out always seem to be artist signatures).

Duncan seems to be a little more straightforward in not making me hunt for the differences, but still does get overwhelming.

 

[PFDarkside]

I was just thinking about that today. I have a bigger issue with Dimarzio's catalog as I feel like a large portion (feels like a majority) of their pickups are artist signatures (or at least the new pickups coming out always seem to be artist signatures).

Duncan seems to be a little more straightforward in not making me hunt for the differences, but still does get overwhelming.

Exactly, how many Steve Vai and John Petrucci pickups are needed?

 

[Mincer]

Well, they make a lot because they sell. And both guitarists have long careers with many different sounds over many years. I wish more players were as well known and had as many models.

 

[PFDarkside]

This was the ad I was served on Facebook. I’ve been spending a lot of time on the Duncan homepage looking at all the models the last few days... Those cookies always tell the story!

 

[ryanpullin]

I wish Dimarzio did a better job at filtering the artist from the non-artist pickups on their site so I could at least get a better perspective as to what's what. At the end of the day, a pickup is a pickup imo, but you do get some pickups like the Dreamcatcher and Rainmaker that mentions something like "made specifically for his Signature EBMM" so at that point it just makes me question why it's part of the catalog in the first place. I don't believe this pickup would only sound good in a Majesty, but I also find it odd to market a pickup like that.

Looking at the Dimarzio site, specifically, by descending Part Number in the humbucker section, it's roughly in this order: 8 artist pickups > 2 non artist > 7 artist pickups > 2 non artist > 13 artist pickups > 5 non artist pickups > etc.

Granted, using the crunch lab/liquifire set for a bit I do think that's a pretty awesome pickup set for a certain style. I'm sure the other artist pickups have great potential, but I'm one of the people that typically doesn't go straight to an artist pickup. I'm sure some artist pickups are inspired by base DiMarzio models with some tweaks that may be better, in a sense. I.e., I'm super interested in the Fortitude model for Joe Duplantier.