Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

[alkeys]

Personally I don't really like Vai, Petrucci, or Satriani and their music is not at all memorable to me and is just muzak IMO, but I have noticed that all of those guys use super hot pickups. Why is that?

Please educated me: I am confused. Weren't hot pickups like the DiMarzio Super Distortion originally designed to drive older lower gain amplifiers? Most "modern" amps seem to have plenty more gain to them than the vintage ones. Vai and Satch don't really use vintage amps at all.
Hot pickups+Hot Amp = sounds like garbage. Am I wrong?

Hot pickups seem to sound like absolute garbage in a lot of settings- especially clean. You'd think that those guys would use vintage or low to med output pickups and then use their amp or pedals to boost the sound if they wanted to dirty it up.

You can always ad something later but you can't always take something away if you have a limited place to start from. Why not do yourself a favor and have more options? Hell I'm not even a guitar player- I'm a piano player- been playing keys since I was 4 and have just been playing guitar for about a year now but this is pretty logical to me. For me, I'd rather use a lower output pickup, be able to get great cleans, more sustain and no compression (unless I want to add it later) and throw a Metal Zone or similar pedal on there to boost the bass, color it like I want, and get a real dirty sound that way rather than just use a high output pickup to begin with and never get a good clean sound, crappy compression that you can't take away and bigger magnet pull which equals less sustain. Am I wrong? Isn't that just logical math?

Why do so many players use high gain pickups? I don't understand why Satriani and Vai in all their proclaimed geniusness are still stuck in high output land and why they haven't learned after all these years that less is more? It's like someone dropped them on their head or something and they can't get it. It seems to me much of your volume and tone is in your fingers not in a hot pickup. But then again, I'm just a piano player with a guitar head so please educate me. Thanks

 

[Rand-O-Monium]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

Lost me @ Metal Zone...

Yngwie's p/ups are pretty low output,& the only "hot" p/ups mentioned from those guys are the Evos,to the best of my knowledge?

 

[Artie]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

You can always ad something later but you can't always take something away if you have a limited place to start from.

I'm not sure I'd agree with that. Its easy to roll the volume back a little. A high-output pickup has a greater signal-to-noise ratio than a vintage pup. If you simply lower the volume a bit, you drive the noise even lower while maintaining a "vintage" output. That could be important in a live situation.

Just a thought.

 

[alkeys]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

Well like Breed and EVO- "developed for Vai"
Fred, Mo Joe etc... "developed for Satch"

I guess Vai is more guilty of this than Satch but Satch is not far behind.

I'm just saying I'd like to see those guys play on some old T-Tops or P90s or something sometime ya know?

 

[alkeys]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

Well see- it's just my initial reaction as a newbie- I can be totally wrong and retarted- and I'll freely admit that I'm green and under-educated in guitar land being I'm a piano player, I just couldn't help noticing that Vai and Satch are all over high output thiss and that on DiMarzios webpage.

 

[barbarianbrute]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

satch doesn't use high-output pups to my knowledge. his fred and mo joe pickups are, if i'm not mistaken, in the medium output category. satch does use his volume knob a lot though, so i guess he likes to have the gain there when he needs it.

i assume petrucci uses high output pups because he does some heavy drop d stuff and likes a thick loud sound. i don't know what other people think about it, but i personally have an easier time playing fast with high output pups because you barely have to touch the strings to sound a note. you can play all left handed if you wanted to. that's going to be very hard to do smoothly with low output singles or something.

i prefer medium to medium-low output pickups because i think they're a nice compromise between tone and output. i can't say for sure because i'm not a pickup expert or anything, but it's easier to make the low output pups sound good.

my dimarzio single hums i think are great and they're not anywhere as loud as the duncan distortion i used to use.

 

[Curly]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

I think it has something to do with the times during which they came of age as players.

 

[hanumanlangur]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

Sometimes a lower output pickup can sound thin or brittle in the bridge position. A higher output pickup can often thicken the tone into something more usable. Even a warm, dark Alnico II Pro can sound too thin and harsh in the bridge position of some guitars.

 

[gnoj_LL]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

steve seldoms dimes his JEM's volume as well as the tone knobs.

when you see vai, satriani (etc..) live, you would always see them adjusting there guitar's knobs "always".

they use high output pups if they need the extra crunch or extra push for their amps. they do this by maxing their volume knobs. if they want to to be dynamic or sound vintage, they lower the volumes or coil tap thier pups.

steve uses notch positions to imitate single coils sounds.

satch on the other hand has the coil tap on his ibanez.

i love satch's tone better than vai. he somtimes use mid out put pups. he gets his nice crunch gain on his wonderful peavey!

but i love vai's melody and technique more

 

[Metalblaze]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

It's what priorities you have. Not all go for those more options. Some players don't care about their clean sound. They want a pickup to handle distortion in a more controlled, articulate way. High output pickups can do that better.

Others want great clean sound and overdrive. Vintage pickups do that better.

Others want versatility/compromise between the two. Moderate output pickups (and not only) do that very well with exceptions of course

All pickups have a range of tones you can get but there are limitations defined by output, EQ, clarity, tightness, etc.

As you can see the output is not the only factor but it can be a catalyst to get the others.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

These three all not "tone" players. Not an insult to them, but that's what it is.

They use the guitar to get notes out of the guitar and they use the pickup and amp combination that delivers a constant tone that doesn't sound interrupted when play varied due to too much acrobatics. The high gain doesn't only mean that you can use an amp with too insensitive input. It also means that lower string vibrations get you something closer to what a full hit on the string brings you. So techniques that get you the notes you want but don't have constant "string gain" get evened out.

I also guess but have no direct knowledge that all three of these use pretty thin strings.

Having said all this, Morse (one of my favorites, just not for his tone) make use of quite a bit of single-coil play, he even has a real single coils in there.

 

[alkeys]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

Aha okay okay fair enough- I'm learning slowly- thanks all. Those are good reasons. True those guys are all knob twiddlers agreed-

Yes Morse! Isn't that the guy from the Dreggs? If so- Chicken pickin master!!!

 

[Metalblaze]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

I'm not a huge fun of those guys' tones. But if we don't like their tone, doesn't mean they don't have good tone. They like their tone and that's the only thing that matters for them, as for any guitarist. Your music can be for everyone but your tone is only for you.

 

[gnoj_LL]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

These three all not "tone" players. Not an insult to them, but that's what it is.

They use the guitar to get notes out of the guitar and they use the pickup and amp combination that delivers a constant tone that doesn't sound interrupted when play varied due to too much acrobatics. The high gain doesn't only mean that you can use an amp with too insensitive input. It also means that lower string vibrations get you something closer to what a full hit on the string brings you. So techniques that get you the notes you want but don't have constant "string gain" get evened out.

I also guess but have no direct knowledge that all three of these use pretty thin strings.

Having said all this, Morse (one of my favorites, just not for his tone) make use of quite a bit of single-coil play, he even has a real single coils in there.

i would not agree at some part.. specially on satch. ive read an interview. he even used custom single coil guitars for his surfing with the aliens album for his backing guitars. he had a homemade strat with three different pickguards with different pup config. he would always let it be resoldered and change the pickguards depending on the song he wants to record. point is, satriani has good tone IMO. there are some of his songs that are ice peak to my ears but there are a lot of his songs where i appriciate his tone.

 

[alkeys]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

Agreed- sorry for my pointed intro there. It's just that I hear so many guitar guys including friends of mine just the other day giving Satch and Vai endless amounts of props and bjs for who they are and I'm just really left scratching my head and going- "uh are you hearing the same thing I'm hearing?" I mean even as far as modern players go- Jake E. Lee, Vitto Bratta and Andy LaRocque are far and away more interesting to me to listen to and way more soulful than Vai or Satch. I daresay I like Tony MacAlpine better than Satch and Vai as well- he always gets lumped together with those two knuckleheads and I don't even really like that guys playing that much!

 

[alkeys]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

Anyway, slowly learning more about this vintage vs hot output, vintage tone vs modern tone thing.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

I really didn't want to slam them, as I said I am even a fan of Morse and I highly respect Petrucci.

All I'm saying is that their tone is more "on-off", static during the lifetime of one tone, as opposed to a "blooming" tone that has a life of it's own after you started it.

A little like the difference between an organ and a piano.

 

[Metalblaze]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

Anyway, slowly learning more about this vintage vs hot output, vintage tone vs modern tone thing.

That's what these forums are for. We all learning each time we visit here...

 

[gnoj_LL]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

I really didn't want to slam them, as I said I am even a fan of Morse and I highly respect Petrucci.

All I'm saying is that their tone is more "on-off", static during the lifetime of one tone, as opposed to a "blooming" tone that has a life of it's own after you started it.

A little like the difference between an organ and a piano.

hehe yah satch and vai, i guess are leading to the flashy high-gain solo lead guitars.

anyway this is one cover song i liked by joe satriani. somthing really different from the rest of his music
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wUZtr2thX70
the recording on youtube does not do justice, hope you can hear the actual track




i also like andi timmon's tone! (gig mate of satriani and vai) listen to his high gain sweet spot (2:40)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SiW22O914Cg

 

[heymcz]

Re: Why do Steve Vai, Petrucci, Joe Satriani use high gain pickups?

Let's not knock the Breed bridge too much, I think it's a great pickup. It really sounds great in my Ibanez. It's Alnico 5, but it's the warmest pickup I've ever heard. It reminds me of a Custom Custom without the weaknesses, or a more organic regular Custom, it's "medium-hot" really...the Full Shred was much more brutal even though the D.C. resistance of the Breed is higher, it's a lot more "polite" and lower output.

Tone is different things to different people, of course. But for me, it has to do with power, smoothness, and the way a pickup responds under your fingers. You can either start with a hotter signal, or artificially compress it at some other stage to get the same result, say, using a compressor pedal...the later path always adds more noise to the signal.

I think it depends on what kind of music you want to play. For hard rock and metal, compressed pickups can work. For blues, probably not. What seems to work for me is "medium-hot" all around.