Does your choice of pickups really matter?

Yeah I want my guitars to be different, sound different, play different. There for a while, while learning I wanted everything to be a super strat with a Floyd and emg's.. one day while having 10 guitars like this, it dawned on me, why. So I started looking for things that sound different. I like guitar with a sound, and makes me play different / approach it differently....
 
In these days I'm listening to the differences between 2 of my Ibanez RG guitars, both with Di Marzio pickups, one with Evolution neck/bridge and one with D-Activator bridge and Air Norton neck. With the same Axe FX patch you can hear so many different nuances, as each pickup can "fill" the sound in a different way and enhance different frequency ranges.
Even more with clean to overdriven tones, the difference is huge sometimes.

And as soon as I use other guitars with stock pickups, I cannot obtain the same quality in the sound which usually results harsh, less clear or whatever. Axe FX can compensate, but will not work at the best of his possibilities!
I think this is the main point: Axe FX can make almost any guitar and pickup sound decent, but just quality guitars and pickups allow the Axe FX to sound at his best, which simply means "unbelievable".
 
I have to say that the Pearly Gates bridge pickup in my Mockingbird tends to sound like a Pearly Gates no matter how I dial in a preset on the Axe.
 
Bodde said:
I think it starts with the player first, then the quality of the guitar itself, then the pickups and then the amp.
A low quality guitar will never sound good in my experience even not with the most expensive pickups. What is not in there in the first place can not come out of any pickup. Pickups can contribute to the sound but only to some extent. I never had a pickup swap change my opinion on a guitar that I didn't like in the first place.

Also if you use a lot a gain pickups matter less. Maybe only for signal/noise ratio. But with (very) high gain you won't hear much sound difference no matter what guitar you plug in. This also counts if you use (too) many effects. When you play clean the sound character of the guitar itself and the pickups will become more apparent.
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haa yes of course.. the player is a significant contributor..
many times I've seen guys go through repeated bouts of GAS in search of "the holy tone" only to find that once the euphoria of having something new has worn off they're back to being unsatisfied.. and so GAS kicks in once more..
in most of these cases that I've seen up close the issue was more that of technique than that of hardware..
so rather than trying to buy your way out of trouble.. invest in time and effort developing better technique rather than shelling out $$ on new things..

I consider build quality and pup to be on a par when it comes to the voicing of a guitar..
a bad neck joint for example or poor jointing between the neck and fingerboard can spill off all kinds of frequencies as well as sustain.. I have had personal experience of both of these phenomena.. once rectified the difference in tone was startling.. more so than I'd ever have expected in a massive way..
pup's are deliberately voiced to boost some freqs more strongly than others
once you have your well constructed guitar, your pup choice will head for the voice you're looking for

I agree with your point about gain.. a thing to add to that with clean tones is compression..
even with a clean tone, if you compress the tits out of the guitar it'll start to lose it's voice..
you'll begin to hear more compression and less of the guitar's voice

when I was working with Bulldog to develop my pups I made a bit of a discovery that surprised me..
very high gain pups with ceramic magnets riff like a demon - no surprises there.. lmao
but when you head north up the neck for a solo they can get pretty thin and shill [no matter how much gain you use]..
when we swapped the magnet out for an AlNiCo 4, the soloing tone was sweet but the riffing lacked focus..
for my tastes, the AlNiCo 5 was the 'Goldilocks zone'..
although it didn't riff quite so well as the ceramic, or solo quite as prettily as the AlNiCo 4, it was very good at everything and so the most flexible..

when I was working with Bulldog on my pups it was really quite a revelation..
it really is quite an art..
 
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dpeterson said:
Yeah I want my guitars to be different, sound different, play different. There for a while, while learning I wanted everything to be a super strat with a Floyd and emg's.. one day while having 10 guitars like this, it dawned on me, why. So I started looking for things that sound different. I like guitar with a sound, and makes me play different / approach it differently....
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I like to have my stage guitars in pairs that I want to be identical in every way [except for the colour.. lmao]
basically.. pop a string, pick up the other, everything is the same..

and even though my V6's are [intentionally by design] identical twins, you can hear and feel a difference between them..
it's ever so small and really quite subtle.. but it's there none the less..
 
There is a huge difference between cheap pickups and good pickups.
Also, there are very big differences between pickup types too.
The axe won't make a cheap single coil sound like an expensive humbucker and you can't solve that with tone matching or eq's or whatever else the axe fx gives you...
So yes, pickups matter.
My opinion though: At a certain point, it's just not worth it to pay a lot more for pickups that sound just slightly different. You'll still get a good tone with the axe and you won't really notice, so whatever...
 
In terms of "sounding good", you can get away with a lot with an EQ in front of the amp block (except if you're comparing Humbucker vs Single-Coil). However, pickups do make a huge difference in tone. I have a PRS Mira (stock pups), Carvin DC7X (stock actives), and an Ibanez RG550 (upgraded to Bareknuckle Nailbombs) and all three sound VASTLY different.
 
FreeMind said:
There is a huge difference between cheap pickups and good pickups
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this absolutely..
compare a stock low end Ibanez INF pup with any quality pup [no matter if it's mass produced like DiMarzio / Seymour or a little more exotic like Bare Knuckle / Bulldog] and the outcome will stare you in the face..

pups like the INF have very poor definition especially in the low end
it's like looking at the world through a stained glass window
replace it with something better and the whole world comes into focus
the nature of what you replace it with [make / model] will determine exactly where you want that focus emphasised..

about 11 million years ago, I got my first Ibe.. it was a lowly RG470..
plays wonderfully but tone wise just it just wasn't the whole package..
I saw a pair of used PAF Pro's going for just £50 [about $70 I guess] and slung them in..
right away this lowly RG470 was punching well above it's weight
about 5 or 6 years ago I swapped out the PAF Pro's with a pair of Bulldogs and now it's like it's on steroids..
 
It won't matter if you don't give a sh*t about nuances... IMHO, pickups are a huge deal but it is a PITA to demo them. I have 4 guitars and two of them, I have changed pick ups more than once.

Even if both are 'good' an Alnico is going to sound way different than a ceramic; unless you are darn near deaf.

Those things along with the wood and strings are the very START of your signal chain, dude.
 
There was a day when I would say a great amp and a great guitar is the magic, but now, I say a great guitar and the FX is the magic. The right gear is very inspiring to play through, so yes, pups matter. I would not go so far as to say that they are the critical aspect of tone, but they certainly do make a difference, IMHO.
 
Assuming put in the exact same position etc, what makes "the same" let's say medium gain pickup sound better than the other? Just the type of wiring?
 
claham said:
Assuming put in the exact same position etc, what makes "the same" let's say medium gain pickup sound better than the other? Just the type of wiring?
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it's not about sounding better, it's about sounding different and having different strengths of output..

pups can be 'tuned' EQ wise due to the construction materials [type of wire, wire thickness, wire's insulation material and thckness, magnet type and so on]..
also how it's wound.. hand wound will not be all precision tidy like a machine [hand wound is supposed to be better but I don't know why]

its all that stuff that determines if some pups are bright, others mid-strong, or scooped, or 'warm' etc..
it's all rather clever..

EDIT: if however you're asking for example: why would two different pups by different Co's that are supposed to have the same / similar voicing be different?
I can only guess that it's to do with the materials and manufacture..
INF pups are a cheaper alternative to other make / models.. so I'd guess that reducing the costs would somehow compromise them..
all this stuff is a bit of a dark art.. so to get the details I'd need to chat with the very clever Bulldog people.. and even then, I'm not sure I'd fully understand the answer..
I'm not an authority in this topic.. lol..
like anything, I'd imagine that top quality stuff means exacting materials and manufacturing methods..
 
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Another point - besides pickups, what else is left to buy? If Cliff simulates pickups, then I'm toast. The Axe has all the pedals and amps I need (I still 'shop' but don't buy pedals because I feel silly buying them). I have TOO many guitars already (though of course I want them). What else is left? New pickups and guitar mods!
 
TheScientist said:
Another point - besides pickups, what else is left to buy? If Cliff simulates pickups, then I'm toast. The Axe has all the pedals and amps I need (I still 'shop' but don't buy pedals because I feel silly buying them). I have TOO many guitars already (though of course I want them). What else is left? New pickups and guitar mods!
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the VG-99 already simulates pups..
but the reason it can do this is because it has a consistent input signal from the hex pup..
essentially, it don't matter what guitar you attach the hex pup to, it's output will be pretty much the same [in terms of voicing]..

however, if you were to have pup modelling in the Axe you'd need to somehow 'normalise' your pups first so that the "pup emulation" can then do it's thing.. because for example.. the starting point voicing from a DiM Breed would be very different from a Seymour Hotrail..
not an easy prob to solve.. especially if you have loads of guitars fitted with loads of differently voiced pups..
 
I can clearly hear a difference with different pickups and even the same pickups with different magnets! Wether it's an improvement or not is subjective!
 
Pickups matter to me. Not so much in tone (with the exception of single vs humbucker vs p90s obviously) but playability due to how hot a pickup is really matters to me for the "feel" and "response" of a guitar. Low output pickups vs high output pickups do have a lot to do with the playability of the guitar for me personally.

I'm a hybrid picker, legato style player so I definitely work a lot harder with lower output pickups when I'm playing leads. I like medium output double screw humbuckers personally, but I can make anything work if necessary.
 
dpeterson said:
Yeah I want my guitars to be different, sound different, play different. There for a while, while learning I wanted everything to be a super strat with a Floyd and emg's.. one day while having 10 guitars like this, it dawned on me, why. So I started looking for things that sound different. I like guitar with a sound, and makes me play different / approach it differently....
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been thinking about this comment a while…
I totally get where you're coming from..
different tones.. different feels..
they take you to different places and make you approach things in ways that pull you away from your stock bag of tricks..
especially tones that are less 'forgiving'.. they force your path..
 
clarky said:
been thinking about this comment a while…
I totally get where you're coming from..
different tones.. different feels..
they take you to different places and make you approach things in ways that pull you away from your stock bag of tricks..
especially tones that are less 'forgiving'.. they force your path..
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yep, exactly what I was thinking.
 
Recent limited production pickups like the Les Paul signature pieces ran around $600-$700? But if it made a real difference why not.
The Fishman Fluence pickups look promising, they cut signal noise with the printed circuit production technique for the pole pieces.
 
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