The perfect pickup?

[TwilightOdyssey]

There's so much talk of the perfect pickup, and it got me to thinking.

There really are only 2 kinds of pickups:

#1. Pickups that will allow the natural tone, resonance, and harmonics of the guitar you are playing to come out, amplified, but unchanged.

#2. Pickups that will alter the perceived tone, resonance, and harmonics of the guitar you are playing, in order to colour it tonally to be more of something you hear in your head.

There really is no right or wrong, tho for my taste, I love the tone of all my guitars, and am more interested, personally, in #1.

You see threads all the time from people wanting their Strat to sound more like a Les Paul, and some who want to get more of twang from their Paul, and all too often (to me), someone with a cheap as free guitar looking to improve the "tone" of their crappy wood + cast molded steel.

The worst sort, or the most lost, I should say, are those that feel that by getting a certain brand name, that they are on the road to tonal Nirvana. "As long as it's a [insert name here], I'll be fine." Of course, that boarders more on the psychology of marketing, but what the heck -- it's my thread!!

Oftentimes, I think it's a matter of improving the guitar and amp, and then, once you have something you're totally happy with, then seeking to eek out the last nuances from the instrument. That's just my opinion, tho.

So, there ya have it, folks. Discuss.

 

[nuntius]

Re: The perfect pickup?

Oftentimes, I think it's a matter of improving the guitar and amp, and then, once you have something you're totally happy with, then seeking to eek out the last nuances from the instrument. That's just my opinion, tho.

I agree with that. But I haven't gone about things in that particular order simply due to money. A pickup costs considerably less than an amp or guitar, hence why I own a few different pickups but only the one decent amp.

As for the perfect pickup, I have no idea... More towards #1 deffinately.







I still swear oftentimes isn't a word. Dictionary.com can lie all it wants but it's not in my oxford (pocket my arse) dictionary. :^(

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: The perfect pickup?

I still swear oftentimes isn't a word. Dictionary.com can lie all it wants but it's not in my oxford (pocket my arse) dictionary. :^(

Well, you're wrong and I have www.dictionary.com to back me up :laugh2:

 

[mrfjones]

Re: The perfect pickup?

i always thought it was supposed to be often times.

back to the post, though i think there are a lot of people looking to change the tone of their guitars with pickups and whatever cause they didn't get a great guitar and sometimes it is money but other times it is like a dead gibson, just bad wood. pickups don't really help that. A good amp on the other hand can make a crappy guitar sound good or a bad amp can make a great guitar sound bad. there isn't a magic potion though. basically all i can say is to get the best stuff you can and it will show. a good sounding amp, a good guitar and a good set of pickups and you will have a pretty good tone and the rest is up to you.

 

[Artie]

Re: The perfect pickup?

I think I'm somewhere in the middle of your #1 and #2. I buy my guitars to fit my reality, that is, budget, my level of talent, styling and "feel". I then try to "dial-in" the sound I want by careful selection of pups and electronics.

 

[Luke Duke]

Re: The perfect pickup?

There's so much talk of the perfect pickup, and it got me to thinking.

There really are only 2 kinds of pickups:

#1. Pickups that will allow the natural tone, resonance, and harmonics of the guitar you are playing to come out, amplified, but unchanged.

#2. Pickups that will alter the perceived tone, resonance, and harmonics of the guitar you are playing, in order to colour it tonally to be more of something you hear in your head.

There really is no right or wrong, tho for my taste, I love the tone of all my guitars, and am more interested, personally, in #1.

You see threads all the time from people wanting their Strat to sound more like a Les Paul, and some who want to get more of twang from their Paul, and all too often (to me), someone with a cheap as free guitar looking to improve the "tone" of their crappy wood + cast molded steel.

The worst sort, or the most lost, I should say, are those that feel that by getting a certain brand name, that they are on the road to tonal Nirvana. "As long as it's a [insert name here], I'll be fine." Of course, that boarders more on the psychology of marketing, but what the heck -- it's my thread!!

Oftentimes, I think it's a matter of improving the guitar and amp, and then, once you have something you're totally happy with, then seeking to eek out the last nuances from the instrument. That's just my opinion, tho.

So, there ya have it, folks. Discuss.

Ben, that's a very objective look at pup types, and tone breakdown. I am probably different than everyone else because of my tone/guitar tastes. I have A core tone. It is manufactured by me, my pup booster, and my Dr. Z amp.

My guitars are different flavors of this core tone. So I try to match pups to the guitars to sculp the core tone into exactly what I'm looking for, with that guitar. I'll use my strat as a finish example, since it was the last guitar I worked on. I was switching from buckers to singles and was wondering about which direction to go with my strat. I read Lew's "Ultimate Strat Tone" thread which gave me a GREAT starting point. I knew my alder body was bright and wasn't sure the vintage staggered would give me the more middy tone I wanted.

I had good luck with my A2P in the bridge slot of my Heritage, the pup sounded very warm, organic, and alive. I then started to wonder if the strat equivalent would do (That's about the time I read Lew's thread) that's when I started listening to the clips and comparing folks feedback of the pups. Then I pulled the trigger.

My project guitar will have hotter pups and will hopefully take the "core tone" to a new level, while still maintaining the core tone. I'm comparing the wood's natural EQ to the pup's eq right now.

Hopefully some of that makes sense.

Luke

 

[Quencho092]

Re: The perfect pickup?

i think the perfect pickup is the seth lover, or the antiquities 1 for humbuckers, antiquity 2's for singles.

Heck, IMO nothing beats the organic woody tone a seth lover can deliver, and it even covers all metal bases as Maiden used PAF's in their strats for killers and self titled. It sounds amazing clean, and even better distorted. Because of it's low output, it let's you and your axe do the talking, not covering itself up with harsh amounts of signal.

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: The perfect pickup?

I lean towards #1. I prefer to get the wood right, and then shade the tionality slightly with the pickup. Time and again I've tried to get a guitar that didn't intrinsically sound good to work with new pickups, and each time I've failed to get what I want. So nowadays I always judge on the wood first.

 

[Anthem]

Re: The perfect pickup?

Dave Murray always used guitars loaded with DiMarzio Super Distortions in the bridge and PAFs in the neck position. He didn't use anything else until the 90's. I've seen pics of his Dean, Ibanez, Gibson, Jackson, ESP and of course Fender guitars and they all have a Super Distortion in them. I think he used the neck PAF for cleans and trill solos. You can often tell in his solos when he switches pickups. Adrian Smith also played some guitars with a Super Distortion.

 

[aleclee]

Re: The perfect pickup?

A wise man once said "There's no such thing as 'best' when it comes to something as subjective as tone".

Of course, one should avoid pickups that are a "scam". :laugh2:

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: The perfect pickup?

A wise man once said "There's no such thing as 'best' when it comes to something as subjective as tone".

Of course, one should avoid pickups that are a "scam". :laugh2:

Oh, no! You won't get me THAT easily!

 

[JeffB]

Re: The perfect pickup?

I think I'm somewhere in the middle of your #1 and #2. I buy my guitars to fit my reality, that is, budget, my level of talent, styling and "feel". I then try to "dial-in" the sound I want by careful selection of pups and electronics.

+1. Ditto.

Good thread Ben