What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup brands?

[Xeromus]

I mean, pickups are plastic, magnets, wire, etc. It's old tech and pretty basic at that. So why is there a massive range in prices across winders and manufacturers, and why do some sound like complete poop while others sound great? It used to always be, if you bought a cheaper import guitar (I'm looking at you, Ibanez), the pickups always sounded like garbage. Is that by design, so that you trade up to a better guitar later? What I getting at, is at this point, it would seem that with basic materials and manufacturing consistency, you can make a really good sounding pickup at a low price point. Or, is this a legal issue, where anyone that winds a pickup has to avoid the specs patented by other manufacturers?

I'm just thinking out loud.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

Consistency usually costs money. It doesn't matter what a pickup is designed to sound like without consistency . . .

Maybe you're making a balanced sounding guitar and spec a bright sounding couple pickups. A clear sounding pickup reads around 7.1K . . . but sloppy production means that it ends up being 6.5K in the finished guitar. It'll sound shrill and gutless. Maybe the magnets in the pickups aren't all gaussed to the same level . . . changing the output and tone. Maybe the wire originally specced is substituted with something the same gauge, but has a different coating on it, which changes the thickness and therefore the wind/sound.

I can buy a pickup from SD like the SSL-1, or the Seth Lover . . . and ten years later buy the same pickup and get pretty much the same sound. I don't know of any cheap pickup manufacturer that this is true of. (Actually, I often wonder if the good/bad reviews that cheaper pickups like GFS often get is because of variation in the pickups from inconsistent construction. Maybe one guy gets astounding pickups, and the other guy gets rejects from the same batch.)

 

[Mincer]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

Well, you are paying for the expertise of the person who designed it, and the fact that lots of famous players might be using that brand. Single employer builders have more overhead, and might not have access to custom-built parts, much less access to big stars that use their pickups.

 

[LesPaulPlayer001]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

There is actually a difference in the different wires used to wind the pickups. Cheap pickups will use a cheaper wire, and it will most likely have less of it as well. For example, I have heard that the cheaper Squiers use a very thin wire and then the are under wound, and then use a ceramic magnet because it's cheaper and will give it a slightly hotter output, although they still have an output of around 4K. Also, the different manufacturers have different designs. For example, wire gauge, quality, magnet type (A2, A3, AIV, AV, AVIII, Ceramic), magnet size, pole piece type/size (Invaders), for active pickups the circuitry, and how much to wind the pickups. All brands have a different combination for this and they will all sound different. Some brands are better than others, this is because they have figured out a good combination of all of the different options and the other brands haven't perfected it yet. I personally love Seymour Duncan and I think all of their pickups sound great.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

I was surprised when I learned that the “copper” wire in import pickups is barely copper, just enough to be ductile and conductive. Combine that with the cheapest magnets and little care for the overall design and it makes sense.

However, if you have the right materials and a decent method to wind, I can see being able to make a pickup that sounds like we expect it to.

 

[Dave Locher]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

I think I see the OP's point: with all the technology and with the global marketplace for materials it is a little surprising that someone isn't making dead-on Bareknuckle knock-offs for $39 each. Like Joyo or Mosky but with pickups.

I think it is because they don't really want to? They skimp at every possible point to save pennies per unit and are happy to produce pickups they can sell. But it should be really easy to reproduce any mass-manufactured pickup by simple reverse engineering so the answer must be "why bother?".

 

[Masta' C]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

There are tons of "good" sounding pickups out there today at very low price points.

Like you said, pickups are really just some plastic, some wire, a few screws and a magnet sandwiched in the middle. Sure, the parts aren't expensive, but you're not just buying "parts" when you buy Duncan, DiMarzio, etc.

You do end up paying a small premium for the brand on the box, but you are also paying to have those pickups made with U.S. labor and parts (or U.K. in the case of BareKnuckle) and those parts are the best quality you can buy.

The premium brands also have reputations for building top-notch products consistently and often hold patents for proprietary technology. You get their expertise and knowledge, their never-ending R&D process, and a willingness to engage with actual musicians to ensure their products are the best they can be and change as players' needs and preferences change.

 

[shadowfire90]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

Ooh this is a tough one to answer. Especially without sounding condescending so hopefully I don't come off as that or a know it all.

There already is a ton of insight and all which is great so I'll see what I can add on. As usual I put spaces between everything to make it easier for my big wall of text to digest.

Import pickups from places like Yibuy which are under 20$ american a set prior to 2019 I used to do a ton of project guitars for fun. I found every year the wind was totally different. A 16k pickup became 14k and all sorts of subtleties. Yet if you know what you're after or as much about electronics as I do they can be quite good.

A bad or low quality pickup to me anyways is not potted properly (yet should have been) aside from that it's preference. When it comes to stock pickups in beginner guitars we automatically assume it's why we're not getting our heroes guitar sounds (or talent..mostly talent). We stare at the strings there and it's usually the part of the guitar that gets most of the blame. Seeing a name brand is reassurance the guitar will sound good or doubt why it doesn't. Putting the right stuff in based off of research , word of mouth or whatever is releases rewarding chemicals in the brain. I'm just glad I didn't put active EMG pickups in a guitar when I was younger. I grew to hate them. I'd buy a guitar and they are out by the end of the week as for a while the only good metal guitars had actives I was after.

Always remember everything in the guitar shapes the tone. If anything you either like a guitar or don't I find. That is why buying used or online is so tricky. You meet a guy in a parking lot and if you don't buy the guitar they get mad they wasted their gas or whatever in between. If I've learned anything it's whether the guitar was 50$ or 5000$ it can either sound good or bad. No matter how they market the guitar or parts. I thought when I was 16 my guitars pickups were holding me back. What did I end up doing. Sold my line 6 spider III and after trying a few pickup swaps I oddly enough went back to the original bridge pickup it had. Years would pass and I tried a spider IV with an LTD M1000 and a few other really nice imports and none sounded good through that amp for what I wanted and I knew how to do everything on that amp even assign presets that you've got to read the manual to find out.

I find it's not always the pickups fault. If the guitar doesn't sound good unplugged it probably won't plugged in, if it's the case it's just a bad sounding guitar. Unless you get a good deal on a les paul and want a heavier tone than a pickup swap is vital if it's got low output pickups in it and you've tried everything else. One of the best examples is the lower end squiers from time to time depending on the series they have wrong potentiometer (controls) and capacitor values. Even a cheap 2 wire ceramic strat pickup sets everyone talks bad about will benefit from putting the right stuff in.

in terms of the marketing team trying to imply buying a better guitar sure it's a real thing kind of like seeing an expensively priced item on a menu at a restaurant first than seeing a cheap one is a tactic I vaguely remember. However the best advice is if the guitar sounds good based on a few you try through the same amp , pedals and settings what the headstock says means nothing. I used to only think this or that brand could make a good metal guitar but so much of it is the player and once i started trying other brands it opened my eyes. I've played 200$ jacksons I liked more than 1000$ ones with allegedly better "Everything". The only "low end" guitars made by a company I really liked were PRS SE models. Aside from the Mark Tremonti one I really liked them.

With low end Ibanez guitars dare I say I liked the powersound pickups in this Gio. It worked with the guitar. Im not an ibanez fan by any means. The V8 in particular has around 16k and 8H so the "muddiness" is because of the really high inductance more than anything. Same can be said about an Epiphone Hotch pickup found in a ton of Epiphone guitars. But now a lot of people getting into guitar 30 years ago wouldn't have the resources we do today. For example adjusting the height to get more output, the pole pieces and all to shape the tone of our guitar. On beginner guitars usually tuning isn't as stable which can be an issue on higher end guitars such as the les paul headstock or if you bend really hard on a floyd rose / edge. There are tricks around both. Of course too fret buzz is a big concern with budget guitars. At the end of the day though wth materials and hardware if we bake a cake lets say with all generic imitation branded stuff we can only expect so much.

One big misconception some have is they will get studio tones of finished records on guitars if they match the same pickups into even say a mexican fender trying a DG20 EMG pickguard to get David Gilmour's late 80s tones. It won't happen The way I see it is it's someones job to choose which parts and what sound they are going for based on a trend or a style. Without pedals and using the same amp clearly I'm not going to play Nile or Necrophagist on a Gibson ES-335 with 57 classics and 300k pots. Yet I'm not going to play smooth jazz with a Dean Razorback with a kent armstrong M-bucker and 1M pots

having the right pedals and amps and working with the guitar goes a long way. One of the most extreme stories is of Eric Johnson the cliffs from dover guitarist if anyone remembers guitar hero 3 how seriously he chased tone was insane. At the end of the day I don't see putting a custom shop seymour duncan in a squier affinity or bullet going well. Try a few amps or perhaps a pedal of some sort. It took me years to realize how important an overdrive or similar pedal was. Kind of miss my old MXR Distortion + from the late 70s now that I'm thinking of it. Depending on your situation though it's usually easier to find a guitar you'll like than upgrading one you don't.

Here's a good would you rather play a gig with
the perfect guitar you chose everything and yet have to play the most beginner amp possible
or
a beginner guitar and your dream guitar rig - every pedal, amp, everything to get that perfect tone

 

[LesPaulPlayer001]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

Yeah, as for the copper wire that is barely copper, I think it was Philip McKnight on Youtube who had a video showing the cheap copper, it was actually pink because it was so diluted with other metals. I don't find Seymour Duncans to be that expensive, they have some humbuckers for $79 and singlecoils for $59 and they sound amazing.

 

[MakerDP]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

Just buy what sounds good to you and make no apologies if a cork-sniffer comes your way.

That being said, it is easier to find that if you stick with reputable brands. As they say, it's cheaper to do it right the first time.

 

[LesPaulPlayer001]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

I agree with MakerDP, if you like it then it is a good pickup. Listen to people playing it and if it sounds good then you should try it.

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

OEM pickups are designed to be functional not high performance. A lot of entry level guitars are designed to be throw aways so the materials aren't good quality. As the price point increases so do the quality of materials. Some OEM's like GOTOH, Artec, Skye, and Schaller are sold as mid-market replacements and aren't bad quality. GFS pickups are actually made by Artec. Skye pickups are Kent Armstrong designs and are marketed under a number of different names.

 

[Discharged]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

It's like asking why, if you use the same notes of the same pentatonic scale, even in the same tonal key, B.B.King solos sounded great and your own suck.

Let it sink for a minute... then you've got the answer.

/Peter

 

[greekdude]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

Frankly we are approaching 2020 and the tech in question belongs to 1920. Chinese nowadays make the largest bridges, largest tanker vessels , thrive in tech and engineering, I find it stupid to assume that they cant make some little guitar pups to sound great for a fraction of the cost of <insert your premium brand here>, and it seems that experience of mine and many others having bought from aliexpress, dhgate, etc just proves this. Pickups are just a part of the rig after all.
Also lets remember that the Koreans (and the Japanese some decades before them) were the "Chinese" 20 years back.

 

[beaubrummels]

What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup brands?

I have pickups off the shop floor, and I have the exact same model pickups that Seymour himself wound. There is an absolute huge effing difference. Night and effing day difference. For example: a JB that is never piercing or dull in any scenario (including an SG or Las Paul) and cleans up perfectly by rolling the volume off. Somebody knows something that the production line doesn’t seem to know.

 

[Obsessive Compulsive]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

As a matter of fact more reasonably priced pickups with SD-level quality have been available for at least a decade from Tesla from South Korea. But apparently it is nearly impossible to make inroads in the already polarized pickup market (SD-DM), and if you ain't comin' from the west, fuggedabout it. Maybe Japan, but Korea? Pfft...

They went defunt a few years ago, then I heard it got resurrected or taken over by some investor. Google it.

So yeah, it's all market perception.

 

[stevie_bees]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

Guitar electronics are extremely basic and you could easily level the same argument at pots/switches etc...

 

[MGW]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

Law of supply and demand.
What the market will bear.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

Frankly we are approaching 2020 and the tech in question belongs to 1920. Chinese nowadays make the largest bridges, largest tanker vessels , thrive in tech and engineering, I find it stupid to assume that they cant make some little guitar pups to sound great for a fraction of the cost of <insert your premium brand here>, and it seems that experience of mine and many others having bought from aliexpress, dhgate, etc just proves this. Pickups are just a part of the rig after all.
Also lets remember that the Koreans (and the Japanese some decades before them) were the "Chinese" 20 years back.

Absolutely Chinese folks can make stuff of the same quality as people in the US. But usually stuff is moved to China to cut costs, not produce something that's high quality. The Chinese will make whatever you want at exactly the level of quality you pay for. So far we've been paying 'em very little, and they're happy to oblige with cheaply made crap.

 

[Chad]

Re: What really is the difference in prices and quality across pickups and pickup bra

Where do Duncan Designed fit in? Aren’t they supposed to have similar components with overseas production?