Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

HeftyMetalGuitar

HeftyMetalGuitar

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There are hundreds of choices for high-gain amps these days. Even boutique amps have increased in available gain in recent years. Metal/rock doesn't seem to be taking over because the insipid masses still latch on to hip-hop and dance. The trend seems to be going to high output pickups though. I know that hot pickups push the amp into overdrive and makes playing fast more effortless because they are powerful enough to even give some punch to light picking, but what is the main reason that the trend seems to be going toward hotter pickups when amps are ever increasing in gain?
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

Cause its not the same sound... Low output or even medium output pickups into a higher gain amp doesnt sound the same as high output pickups into a lower gain amp. One of the big things is compression. If you hit the input hard it compressed and it smooths out the sound. A low output pickup like a PAF sounds clangy cause it doesnt compress so the loud parts are louder and the quiet parts are quieter. This in particular becomes a problem with things like the volume difference between heavy down picked chugs and lighter things like tapping or pull offs during soloing. Many of the guys like Satriani who use lower output pickups use compression somewhere else to smooth out these volume differences.

But that being said more than ever do players have more choices for gear and the pickups really arent getting any louder. New pickups like the black winter and nazgul are all in the same output neighborhood as the invader thats been around forever. If anything you have more choices on the low end of output than before. Now you just have more flavors in the same output ranges...
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

To me, high output pickup is not about gain. It's about the compression and inherent eq. I'd rather use a pickup that has the qualitys I want, rather than have a low output thingy and then have to add a bunch of pedals to do the same thing.

I spend 80% of my time on the dirty channel, so for me it makes sense.

But I do get a little tired of the arguments that PAF's can do it all, even metal. But high output humbuckers is just good for one thing: play effortlessly. It's just not true.

It's a preference. And that's all it is. But a high output humbucker can fake cleans just as good as a PAF/low output humbucker can fake metal. IMO. YMMV. NASA. CIA. Etc. :)
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

I use a JB not because of the output but because of the tone. Meany GOOD high output pickups have a tone of thier own.
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

I would argue that the majority of existing aftermarket pickup are not high output, but instead are vintage replicas.
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

Dahla said:
To me, high output pickup is not about gain. It's about the compression and inherent eq. I'd rather use a pickup that has the qualitys I want, rather than have a low output thingy and then have to add a bunch of pedals to do the same thing.

I spend 80% of my time on the dirty channel, so for me it makes sense.

But I do get a little tired of the arguments that PAF's can do it all, even metal. But high output humbuckers is just good for one thing: play effortlessly. It's just not true.

It's a preference. And that's all it is. But a high output humbucker can fake cleans just as good as a PAF/low output humbucker can fake metal. IMO. YMMV. NASA. CIA. Etc. :)
Click to expand...

PAF's can do it all, even metal. Not sure why you are tired of facts. It's not fake, it's real.

You are right about two things:

1. the compression argument (besides the fact that a player would need to add a "bunch of pedals" to do the same thing which just isn't true... a player would have to add a single compressor not a bunch of pedals).
2. It is a preference. At the end of the day this thread will be about opinions and preferences.

I think Edgecrusher said it as best as could be said:

Edgecrusher said:
Cause its not the same sound... Low output or even medium output pickups into a higher gain amp doesnt sound the same as high output pickups into a lower gain amp. One of the big things is compression. If you hit the input hard it compressed and it smooths out the sound. A low output pickup like a PAF sounds clangy cause it doesnt compress so the loud parts are louder and the quiet parts are quieter. This in particular becomes a problem with things like the volume difference between heavy down picked chugs and lighter things like tapping or pull offs during soloing. Many of the guys like Satriani who use lower output pickups use compression somewhere else to smooth out these volume differences.

But that being said more than ever do players have more choices for gear and the pickups really arent getting any louder. New pickups like the black winter and nazgul are all in the same output neighborhood as the invader thats been around forever. If anything you have more choices on the low end of output than before. Now you just have more flavors in the same output ranges...
Click to expand...
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

idsnowdog said:
I would argue that the majority of existing aftermarket pickup are not high output, but instead are vintage replicas.
Click to expand...

Yes this is true. And the only reason I like the JB is as i said not because of the big output but that "musical upper mid range'
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

I think some players may think more is better. But I agree with others here that they are different tone-wise and that makes all the difference in peoples choices. For example the JB: some love it, but that unique sound has never been my taste. My favorite bridge pickup is the WLH, but for some tones, I like the Alt 8 as it has a unique sound all its own.
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

SnakeAces said:
PAF's can do it all, even metal. Not sure why you are tired of facts. It's not fake, it's real.
Click to expand...

*Sigh*

I know it can. That wasn't the point. Read the sentence after it. :)

PAF's can do metal. High output can do cleans. It isn't about pushing an amp. At least not for me.
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

Dahla said:
*Sigh*

I know it can. That wasn't the point. Read the sentence after it. :)

PAF's can do metal. High output can do cleans. It isn't about pushing an amp. At least not for me.
Click to expand...

My apologies, I misunderstood you.
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

Musical styles have changed and amplifiers have changed to meet the demand. Pickups also need to change in order to meet the demands of new genres. Something voiced to work with a 100watt non-master volume amp from the 60's - 70's isn't necessarily going to be a great fit for an amp designed 3 years ago which makes no effort to emulate an earlier amplifier. So the real question is what genres are the impetus for change coming from? Blues, Country, Adult-Contemporary or Jazz?
All of those genres can be played on equipment from 30-40 years ago and new equipment focused on those genres is designed to increase flexibility, ease setup, improve performance while emulating classic tones. With a passive pickup you need a certain amount of output in millivolts to do tonal alteration, with active pickups you can do much greater tonal alteration. So while the pickup may not be designed to push the preamp section of an amplifier hard it still needs enough output to do tonal alteration.
 
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Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

People like what they like. If you were raised on metal, you probably started out with powerful pickups like JB or Super Distortion (or copies thereof) and it's still what you like. I started out on Fenders, so any humbucker seems high output to me, and I get disconcerted by the feel of very high output buckers. I put a boost pedal in my chain to bump them up if necessary.
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

If cleans are any part of the equation, I'll go for low output pickups every single time.

On a non high-gain amp, you might need a high output pickup to overdrive your amp to the point you need.

When it comes to a high gain distortion channel or amp, to me low output and high output are just different frequency responses, or EQ curves, if you will. Simply a matter of opinion about the sound desired.

Oh, and as far as volume and compression go...pickups aren't compressed. What you're probably hearing is the amp compressing more from increased volume. On a high gain amp, the preamp gain knob is basically and input volume knob. Also...you can buy a volume booster or EQ pedal to boost volume.
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

MacBradley said:
Oh, and as far as volume and compression go...pickups aren't compressed. What you're probably hearing is the amp compressing more from increased volume. On a high gain amp, the preamp gain knob is basically and input volume knob. Also...you can buy a volume booster or EQ pedal to boost volume.
Click to expand...

I already said the compression was from over loading the preamp. You can buy all the boosters you want its still not the same sound as a loud pickup... Look at guys like Ola Englund... He runs hot pickups...with a boost pedal (usually an OD808) into amps that have butt loads of gain.

Its all a matter of what flavor you like... But no amount of boosting will make a PAF hit an amp the same way an Invader does.
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

Interesting observation...I haven't noticed it but that doesn't mean it's not a trend. For me it's the tone, and all of the pickup replacements I've ever done were for hotter pickups...
 
Re: Why are hot pickups the trend these days?

Edgecrusher said:
I already said the compression was from over loading the preamp. You can buy all the boosters you want its still not the same sound as a loud pickup... Look at guys like Ola Englund... He runs hot pickups...with a boost pedal (usually an OD808) into amps that have butt loads of gain.

Its all a matter of what flavor you like... But no amount of boosting will make a PAF hit an amp the same way an Invader does.
Click to expand...

Of course its not the same. Different pickups will have different resonant frequencies, which in turn changes the fundamental point for where harmonics above the resonant frequency are going to be posted. I never stated otherwise, hah. I just stated that pickups don't compress, which is not an opinion, its a fact. Are you enjoying arguing with a point you fathomed and applied to my post?
 
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