Pickups and milli volts : high output

[always SD]

hi

i read here that a pickup is loud when the millivolts are high
ok

but with Seymour Duncan and Gibson pickups, we can only know the DC resistance

sh4 : 16k
burstbuckers pro : 8k

so?
only dimarzio tells us the dc resistance and the mv
so it's funny to read "read the mv first "when nobody can read the infos because the companies don't tell us the infos :nervous:

the unique infos we have are the alnico or ceramic and dc resistance
and it's with that we can decide
and with the description too and not the mv because only dimarzio write the infos in his website

 

[dave74]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

You're preach'n to the choir man! lol

 

[Archer250]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?t=278978

Sent from my EVA-L19 using Tapatalk

 

[dave74]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?t=278978

Sent from my EVA-L19 using Tapatalk

This must be a put-on lol.

"Nazgul Trembucker, Bridge 666"

 

[AlexR]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

Output still doesn't give you tone. Nor does it give you where that output is produced. Then what is the protocol for the input signal and if that is the same between testers?

As we have told you many times already with the various questions you have asked, the only way to know is to try. Do I hope against hope you might actually listen this time??

 

[always SD]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

i can't buy a pickup for his sound because for that
i will need all the pickups in the market
+ a very good guitar

a sh4 can sound dark with a cheap guitar and better with another one
a 498t sounds bright with my sg and dark with a LP studio

i just notice a lot of guitars have sh1 sh4 inside like ESP with their LP
so i don't know if it's a good think to have the sh4 which has not a bright sound

but it sounds rock for those who can't play loud with the amp and want harmonics like me : yes
but you loose the brightness of a Pearly gates or other

a better sound would be a brighter sh4 or more bluesy for example
but no and i don't know this pickup so
every guitar with ESP, Jackson and others wants their sh1 sh4
that's a fact before choosing a sound: there is the guitar first and the wood and the price

and a pickup won't change that

i tried 498t +orange drop
a sh4
you can buy the best pickup in the market
i won't sound amazing (= dark)
because the guitar first
to choose a good pickup

videos : strat, LP studio, standard, sg, ibanez js for example, evh, steinberger, hohner, esp

clean sound
dirty sound
harmonics
active pickups too
after that, yeah, we can choose the good pickups

one guy made that with youtube: one guitar with a lot of pickups
it was very good
so i bought the 498t and not the sh4 even if i had not his guitar
but it was a good idea

the MV data will be useful : ) good

what i notice too is a charvel +sh4 san dimas : not bright enough

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

As near as I can tell in the current landscape, one company's mV results won't match up with another. That seems to leave it only relevant to the brand.

When it comes to some of the tone charts out there, some are DEFINITELY done by ear more than a form of charted data.

Maybe at some point, it might make sense for companies to agree on a standard for such things. Well, some would say it makes sense to the customer and that's the only thing that should matter to a company, but that's a different topic.

 

[always SD]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

where is the sh1 here?
and
when you see the paf joe =Output mV: 272

the sh2 =more than 500 = very strange no ???

 

[always SD]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

Gibson does not want to tell us the mv

our ears? yes but for example the youtube demos with metal songs (with SD) did not help me to find which pickups were good or not
make some VERY GOOD DEMOS SD with a lot of guitars with every pickups in HD
a long work
but it's the only one solution to choose

even if sh1 sh4 is in almost every guitars in the world (except gibson pickups, tone zone ,paf pro ... )
why not a PG ? a 36th anniversary dimarzio sounds good too with ESP guitars
so ?
a mix between harmonics, heavy metal, bright tone, sustain for a new SH4x ) would be good

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

where is the sh1 here?
and
when you see the paf joe =Output mV: 272

the sh2 =more than 500 = very strange no ???

On the DiMarzio scale, the SH2 would be about as loud as the X2N. Which we all know is not quite accurate. The product of different companies using different measurement standards. There's no apples to apples.

 

[thanaton]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

The inductance of the pickup is the most objective metric for determining output.

 

[MakerDP]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

Buy the SD booster pedal and you can have pretty much whatever "high output" mV level you want with any pickup you choose.

 

[thanaton]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

The reason you would want to know output is for matching the levels of the different pickups in a single guitar without having to set one pickup very high or low in order to compensate for the differences in output level. Issues concerning the pickup's tone are irrelevant in that case, and a booster pedal wouldn't solve this problem.

 

[Davii]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

That would only act as a start point though I'd have thought, given how the player's ears are likely to dictate where they move relative to the strings after that.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

taking the respective manufacturer's own mV readings into consideration, here are some #s on how DCR and inductance may or may not play into the matter

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

The reason you would want to know output is for matching the levels of the different pickups in a single guitar without having to set one pickup very high or low in order to compensate for the differences in output level. Issues concerning the pickup's tone are irrelevant in that case . . .

If all one cared about were how high the pickups are and tone were irrelevant - this defeats the very purpose of putting replacement pickups in a guitar in the first place. (I'm not saying that's your view or what you are doing, just responding to the premise of the comment itself.)

I have all those Duncans, but I would have never guessed numbers like that based on the sounds I heard. To turn that around, if I had depended on frequency plots and those numbers before buying, I would have been seriously mislead into thinking totally wrong about what the pickups can do and what they sound like. (I'm not directing that at you, Darth, because I know you have first-hand experience with these pickups and know better, I'm just responding to the idea of trying to read those numbers and correlate that to what those pickups actually sound like.)

This is precisely why I listen when 15 guys in 15 different countries with 15 different guitars on a forum say "pickup {B} was hotter and ice-pickier than pickup {A} in my {X guitar}", and I don't dismiss it as communal psychological bias, because these guys went through the life experience and either saved up to buy that instrument or got out their iron and did the work to find out. I take their personal experience and weigh it as honest opinions of fellow musicians who went through the experience and heard something with their ears in their environment - which is my target medium in the first place. I don't care so much where the pickup reads on an inductance meter or oscilloscope or frequency chart, though I will weight that as indicative information also.

For me, when people in vastly different environments can observe a similar phenomena, I find that most compelling and worth considering. It is sufficient to give me direction and put me in the ballpark of something to try myself, knowing full well that sometimes, while matching other people's descriptions, disappoints in getting me what I needed (though other times it works out perfect, better than expected). But that is the game if you are a tone chaser.

 

[always SD]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

tone zone 300 ? less than a sh4

and so, why don't they sell every guitars with 2 sh1
2 paf pro
2 seth if a sh4 is useless lol

 

[freefrog]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

The inductance of the pickup is the most objective metric for determining output.

Totally agreed.

That said, Gauss levels are a game changer...

My TV Jones Classic's with their double thick A5 bars sound almost as loud as all my P.A.F. clones while a Classic neck measures an inductance of 1,6H only...

And Burstbucker pro's seem to include fully charged mags since I've measured them @ 660mv while a SD of exactly the same inductance (4,67H for the bridge model) gave me only 2/3 of this output.


Regarding output values in mv, here are my two cents:

1) All depends on the methodology used... If one single string is plucked, the voltage measured will necessarily be much lower than expected. :-/

For more than twelve years, I personally use another method: I connect the probes of a lab multimeter to the hot and ground of the guitar. I set the meter on "max" in order to make it record peak power only. I dig all the strings until the measurements don't rise no more... It works well and gave me 721mv with a SH4 while the value published by SD is 737mv, for example.

My measurements with P.A.F. clones are also on par with those published by SD.

But when I do the same with DiMarzio's, I obtain almost twice the voltage mentioned by the brand (700mv for a Tone Zone measured by DM @ 375mv, if memory serves me). I suppose that DM measures mv by plucking only one string...

2) Anyway, the overall LRC circuit formed by a passive pickup, its pot(s) and the cable capacitance will interact with the output...
When I take a P.A.F. clone and plug it through various cables of 220pf to 1400pf, the voltage measured goes from 440 to 550mv just because of the variable capacitance involved (!).
Same thing if I try 250k to 1M controls or no load pots and so on: my screenshots show output variations of several db's.

FWIW (= my two cents, no more no less).

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

tone zone 300 ? less than a sh4
lol

Like as been covered, not every company uses the same standards and practices for measuring mV.

If all one cared about were how high the pickups are and tone were irrelevant - this defeats the very purpose of putting replacement pickups in a guitar in the first place. (I'm not saying that's your view or what you are doing, just responding to the premise of the comment itself.)



I have all those Duncans, but I would have never guessed numbers like that based on the sounds I heard. To turn that around, if I had depended on frequency plots and those numbers before buying, I would have been seriously mislead into thinking totally wrong about what the pickups can do and what they sound like. (I'm not directing that at you, Darth, because I know you have first-hand experience with these pickups and know better, I'm just responding to the idea of trying to read those numbers and correlate that to what those pickups actually sound like.)

Exactly.

I dig what you're saying. I started to build a catalog of reading for the purpose of trying to get an idea of what's going on with some of these pickups. There have been many conundrums that indicate specs have their place, but generally after the fact. Of the winders and engineers that I talks with, they might take measurements after the fact but don't wind a pickup to meet a certain inductance or capacitance, for example.

As has been mentioned, the magnet also has an impact, as well as the type of wire and how it's wound.

Not to beat a dead horse, but it could be potentially advantageous if there were a standardized method for such companies to measure things like mV so we would not flip out when we see a X2N at over 500mV and marvel at how a JB is over 700mV....knowing the JB has less output than the X2N

 

[thanaton]

Re: Pickups and milli volts : high output

Totally agreed.

That said, Gauss levels are a game changer...

My TV Jones Classic's with their double thick A5 bars sound almost as loud as all my P.A.F. clones while a Classic neck measures an inductance of 1,6H only...

The flux difference between PAFs and Filter'trons very similar when measured at the tops of the screws, because even though the Filter'trons have a double thick AlNiCo magnet, the metal fillister screws have a similar permeability, so much of the additional flux is lost in the screws, though the wider screw heads might be more efficient than the smaller radius screws and poles of the PAF. It's also possible that since the screw heads protrude more n a Filter'tron, they are set to be close to the strings than they would be for a PAF. In other words, I bet you can get a Filter'tron closer to the strings without it looking like it's closer to the strings.

And Burstbucker pro's seem to include fully charged mags since I've measured them @ 660mv while a SD of exactly the same inductance (4,67H for the bridge model) gave me only 2/3 of this output.

2/3rds seems like a huge drop, but without knowing more details of the test setup, it's hard to conclude too much. Since induced current is determined only by flux change (minimum to maximum as the string moves), and not absolute flux, the difference shouldn't be that great. When you double the total flux, for example, the max increases, but so does the minimum, so you would get more current, but not double the current for double the flux.

Regarding output values in mv, here are my two cents:

1) All depends on the methodology used... If one single string is plucked, the voltage measured will necessarily be much lower than expected. :-/

For more than twelve years, I personally use another method: I connect the probes of a lab multimeter to the hot and ground of the guitar. I set the meter on "max" in order to make it record peak power only. I dig all the strings until the measurements don't rise no more... It works well and gave me 721mv with a SH4 while the value published by SD is 737mv, for example.

My measurements with P.A.F. clones are also on par with those published by SD.

But when I do the same with DiMarzio's, I obtain almost twice the voltage mentioned by the brand (700mv for a Tone Zone measured by DM @ 375mv, if memory serves me). I suppose that DM measures mv by plucking only one string...

Do you make sure to set the pickups to a certain height? Strumming as hard as the string will allow sounds like a good idea, but it would only hold true for a given positions, like it will read more voltage in the neck position than the bridge, for the exact same pickup. You also want to strum in the same place every time, I'd recommend strumming over the 12th fret in order to put maximum energy into the strings, and not induce harmonic-specific excitation (which you hear very easily when you strum beside the bridge).

2) Anyway, the overall LRC circuit formed by a passive pickup, its pot(s) and the cable capacitance will interact with the output...
When I take a P.A.F. clone and plug it through various cables of 220pf to 1400pf, the voltage measured goes from 440 to 550mv just because of the variable capacitance involved (!).
Same thing if I try 250k to 1M controls or no load pots and so on: my screenshots show output variations of several db's.

FWIW (= my two cents, no more no less).

This makes sense; the 1400pF cap will move the resonant peak down into the lower harmonics, the stronger harmonics.

With an inductor, reactance and output voltage will increase with frequency (Faraday's law), so if you fed the pickup white noise, the voltage would be higher with higher frequencies, but since guitar strings produce more flux change the lower the harmonics, the current output they generate slopes downwards as the harmonic count goes higher. That's why electric guitars sound fairly balanced, despite the tendency for reactance and output voltage to increase with frequency.