Pretty much a newbie about pickups

[Laser23]

Ok first of all, I appreciate the help of anyone who wants to help me a lot.
These are my questions:
1)What makes a humbucker "hot"?
2)Why do you change pickups? I mean, I know they change your tone, but can't you do that in your amp head?
3)I have a Fender Fat strat and I want to change the bridge humbucker. Do I need to also change all the other pickups (neck, middle)?
4)What pickup would you recommend for rock music? (from motley crue to u2 to smashing pumpkins)
thank you for your help!

 

[Laser23]

Re: Pretty much a newbie about pickups

p.s. What's the difference between the bridge, middle, and neck pickups?

 

[Christobevii3]

Re: Pretty much a newbie about pickups

Bridge pickups pick up smaller vibrations than the neck/middle. You don't have to change them all either.

A pickup gives you a different sound. You can't play a slayer song really with srv type pickups, they are just too different. You got to give an amp a decent sound to be able to effect it for the right sound still.

For rock i just put in three pickups to my HSS jackson. I put a pearly gates bridge, cool rail middle, and lil 59er neck. It is probably versatile enough to do what you want. The cool rail and lil 59er split give a decent smashing pumpkins type sound.

 

[Foeburner]

Re: Pretty much a newbie about pickups

If you play lead then the Sh4jb would be the pup. The pearly gates is great to rhythm.

 

[Laser23]

Re: Pretty much a newbie about pickups

pickup stuff is really confusing...

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Pretty much a newbie about pickups

Ok first of all, I appreciate the help of anyone who wants to help me a lot.
These are my questions:
1)What makes a humbucker "hot"?

THis is universal betweeen humbuckers + single coils, hot = high output

2)Why do you change pickups? I mean, I know they change your tone, but can't you do that in your amp head?

1. replacing defective POS stock pickups to eliminate feedback or other common issues

2.You can only change so much with the amp.... when you´re in the ballpark but can´t nail the tone, that´s generally where most turn to pickups for the final polish

3)I have a Fender Fat strat and I want to change the bridge humbucker. Do I need to also change all the other pickups (neck, middle)?

No

4)What pickup would you recommend for rock music? (from motley crue to u2 to smashing pumpkins)
thank you for your help!

JB or Duncan Custom would be my choice, but a lot of pickups like the ´59 or Jazz can cover that ground as well with the right fingers and amp.

 

[PoorMan]

Re: Pretty much a newbie about pickups

Check out the FAQ at the main site. It's a very good resource and all this is pretty much covered.

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Pretty much a newbie about pickups

Laser-
Welcome and there's no better way to learn than to ask specifics as you are doing-
1. Pups, amps, wood, hardware and gtrs are all part of the tool set- The more you play around with them the more exceptions to the rules you will find..ie Fenders are theoretically 'to thin' to use with Marshalls, but Hendrix nailed the sound, where as Bonnie Rait litterally played nothing but a single strat for years- So imho, put most of your energy and effort into practice/lessons/performance and the pup thing and all of these other variables are just 10% icing on the cake-

2. Agree with Zerbs recomendations- Any semi-PAFish humb could be a good place to start, 59 custom and JB are good potetinal starts-

3. Maybe you were asking what does hot sound like? It's more powerful, tends to overload the amp at lower volumns, but can loose highs and classic sound if you take it too far.

4. Ok, I told you pups and guitars dont really matter, but if you are like me you will keep experimenting anyway I happen to love rail pups because I like to cover as much space as possible in the Fender to Gibson sound continuo- Others like full humbuckers for thicker sounds and others like classic single coils for brighter or snapier sounds-

5. LAst but not least, if you have a 'trading post' or equivient in your city, I used to pick up a used pup or two a month and stash them away- All I looked for was good condition name brands, at very loew cost- all brands (of coruse this was 1978 so there were only like 6 manufactures

I then rewired my tester guitar (univox) about every 2 weeks with a differnt pup combination. I never touched my good axes until I found somethign that worked well in the test guitar-

Again, all guitars sound different, but between this playing and fixing other buddies guitars, you can keep busy 200% of the time-

Peace!