Pickups don't make a difference

Re: Pickups don't make a difference

KnifeR said:
I will start with sentence from some polish lutier:
"No hardware can give you this what you should have in your fingers."
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I wholeheartedly agree. When I was born, my fingers had a full set of 12AX7 and EL34 valves in them, as well as a pair of Vintage 30's and a Les Paul.
 
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Re: Pickups don't make a difference

People certainly do make much more of the difference between pickups than they should. I firmly believe that most of your guitar' s tone comes from how you play the damned thing and how you set your amp. What we split hairs and argue about here accounts for the other 10 to 20 percent of your tone. I love nitpicking the finer details as much as anyone here, but, honestly, I believe that if you can't do what you need to do with pretty much any pickup out there, then you aren't much of a player in the first place. Pickups are a minor detail in the grand scheme. But this is a pickup-based Website, so of course we're all going to talk about this **** with an undeserved air of self importance. This is the place to do it, if anywhere.
 
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Re: Pickups don't make a difference

I've gotta say the thread title =/= the post content. You're saying it doesn't make a difference, then you condition it to being same quality pickups within a same output range all trying to replicate a certain archetype humbucker. I do kind of get what you mean though. I would say instead that same quality pickups within a same output range all trying to replicate a certain archetype humbucker make a slight but noticeable difference. Like, I can tell the difference between a '59 and a 36th Anniversary PAF but the difference is not worlds apart.

My conclusion over the few years in my life as a guitar tweaker regarding the impact of a pickup in tone is something along the lines of:

Bad pickups can break a guitar's tone. Good pickups can't make a guitar's tone. That's why you buy good pickups and pray you chose a good slab of wood.
 
Re: Pickups don't make a difference

All i'm going to say is if pups really don't make a difference then let me see you swap out that Seth to a Epiphone stock bucker then report back and tell us how it goes.
 
Re: Pickups don't make a difference

Good pickups make a massive difference at low gain. If you're high gaining it it means far less. I have a wonderful beefy tone out of my oddball Godin single coils when I put an HM2 after them.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk
 
Re: Pickups don't make a difference

We tend to exaggerate differences that we find meaningful in terms of our personal experience. To anyone who's swapped out, say, a JB for a Distortion (or vice versa), you probably heard a difference. If you found it easy to decide which you liked better, you likely considered it a big difference, or a huge difference, or a night-and-day difference. And that's only natural. You were dialed in on those pickups and focusing on the differences between them. You were looking through the microscope, so to speak. The guy across the room wasn't looking through the microscope; all he saw was you looking at two slides that appeared to be identical from where he was sitting.

Most of us know that human DNA shares much in common with that of chimpanzees. If you look at the entire DNA sequences, you might say that the differences between the two are negligible compared to their similarities, perhaps concluding that they belonged to the same species. If you focus on the small percentage of the sequences that are different, you're not looking at the similarities. Your observations and conclusions are going to focus on the differences.

And, as ItsaBass noted, if there's a place anywhere on Earth or the in general arena of human discourse, for analyzing the minutiae of guitar pickups, it's here.
 
Re: Pickups don't make a difference

Rodney Gene said:
at some point through experience we refine and develop our ears and then the little inches become highly noticeable, we become very sensitive to details and then we argue about them on the internet.

PAF to PAF should be like drinking different brands of the same roast of coffee. They are all great tasting coffee, but some just really 'have that flavor' that works for you.
To the uninitiated, it just tastes like coffee.
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+1. Part of it is training your ears to hear more details. But it's that way when you start with anything: experienced people can see and hear differences, when you think they're all pretty much the same, whether it's gourmet food, art, wine, coffee, or tone. Gradually you learn to look beyond glaring differences and appreciate subtleties. Great PU winders like Seymour have devoted their lives to bringing out incredible subtleties and nuances. He has a huge PU line, and every one has a personality of it's own. It takes an artist to do that.

Remember too, the differences in PU's become less apparent the more distortion and effects you use.

As with the originals, there's a lot of variety in current-production PAF's. Not huge differences, but they're there and a trained ear can hear them.
 
Re: Pickups don't make a difference

Tone is not in your hands but in your gear, it is the sonic quality of your instrument and it's parts. Your technique and the sound that comes out is in your hands. Your tone is your paint and you are the painter. With just 2 colors like red and yellow used skillfully, you can have red, yellow, even orange, and a variety of shades, but you will never get blue.Your gear matters plenty to sound but hardly anything when it comes to tone. You need better tone? You're gonna have to buy something. You wanna sound better? Practice!
 
Re: Pickups don't make a difference

Rockstar216 said:
All i'm going to say is if pups really don't make a difference then let me see you swap out that Seth to a Epiphone stock bucker then report back and tell us how it goes.
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Re: Pickups don't make a difference

tc said:
I've gotta say the thread title =/= the post content. You're saying it doesn't make a difference, then you condition it to being same quality pickups within a same output range all trying to replicate a certain archetype humbucker.
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That's what i was thinking. the post title was either horribly misworded or a successful attempt to rustle the forum's collective jimmies. But while i disagree with the title, i do agree with the idea that a PAF replica, be it from Duncan, Dimarzio, etc etc will sound similar. Because thats the idea, they are all attempting to nail a specific sound. You got your coke, pepsi, rc, jolt cola and so on, and everyone has their favorites, but at the end of the day its just water sugar and caramel.
 
Re: Pickups don't make a difference

superpete said:
That's what i was thinking. the post title was either horribly misworded or a successful attempt to rustle the forum's collective jimmies. But while i disagree with the title, i do agree with the idea that a PAF replica, be it from Duncan, Dimarzio, etc etc will sound similar. Because thats the idea, they are all attempting to nail a specific sound. You got your coke, pepsi, rc, jolt cola and so on, and everyone has their favorites, but at the end of the day its just water sugar and caramel.
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This. It's just different flavors of the same essential drink. Pepsi does taste different from Coke, but they are both classified under "cola".
 
Re: Pickups don't make a difference

Rockstar216 said:
All i'm going to say is if pups really don't make a difference then let me see you swap out that Seth to a Epiphone stock bucker then report back and tell us how it goes.
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True, but in all fairness, that applies to the old Epi '57 Classics and others in the past affectionately known to players as 'Mudbuckers.' Epi's adressed this by starting a PU upgrade program in 2010, and has been putting better-quality PU's in more models. They currently have Gibson '57's, BB's, and 498T/490R, along with EMG's, in a number of models. Probuckers are a decent PAF & stand head and shoulders above any other Asian-made HB that Epi's used.
 
Re: Pickups don't make a difference

Falloffthebonetone said:
Tone is not in your hands but in your gear,
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Time, once again, for the Chet Atkins dressing room story, methinks.

Quick version. Fan gets backstage to meet 'n' greet Chet in his dressing room. A gibson CEC is resting on its stand. Fan tells Chet, "Mr. Atkins, that guitar sounds fantastic." Chet replies, "Well, it ain't sounding so good now, is it!"

Yes, the components of an instrument are important. How the sum total of the parts sound depends in part on the ability of the player to get the best out of them.

I still say that wax is important - specifically, its location. :fingersx:
 
Re: Pickups don't make a difference

Little Pigbacon said:
I wholeheartedly agree. When I was born, my fingers had a full set of 12AX7 and EL34 valves in them, as well as a pair of Vintage 30's and a Les Paul.
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Guys, Sorry but You may not get the sense of this sentence :)
It means - If you dont hear the difference - you just don't hear it. No hardware will give Your ears ability to hear it.
Like no hardware will give You this what the finger should have.
It is just a small transformation of this sentence (the metaphoric sense still remain there).

If the guy is using good hardware and still do not hear the difference! He will not hear it! It is Sure.

If I am offensive with this simple an true sentence more than most of you puting some gifs - I am really sory...
regards,
 
Re: Pickups don't make a difference

KnifeR said:
If you dont hear the difference - you just don't hear it. No hardware will give your ears ability to hear it.
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I know several people to whom this description fits. (Might be the wax.)

I nearly agree with Jessie EXCEPT that my taste is for 6L6 rather than EL34. I must have thicker fingers. :D
 
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