Guitar Pickup Representation

EG 2006

Inspired
I'm interested to know your thoughts on how well the Axe FX 3 represents different pickups (and guitars). So today I was doing the old A/B/C/D trick of swapping guitars into the same preset to try and identify the differences in the pickups. Pickups tested were Guitar 1 (Les Paul): SD Pearly Gates, Guitar 2 (PRS Custom 24): SD Saturday Night Specials, Guitar 3 (Les Paul): Lollar P90's and Guitar 4 (Strat) with Texas Specials.

I was using the Blankenship Leeds for one test amp and the Swart Atomic Space Tone for another (same Greenback IR for both). Both amps set to 5 on the Volume so not massively overdriven - just midrange bluesy. No changes or tweaks with ideal settings etc expect I did up the Sag to 4 on both. I'm running through Adam A7X's in a studio environment and I had the volume up to a decent level.

Upshot? The differences to my ears were not as much as I expected - very, very subtle. Now my ears could have drifted over time as I sold my last valve amp a year ago when I became a 100% Fractal convert but I would have expected more notable differences. The PG pups are Alnico 2, the SNS are Alnico 4 and the P90's are P90's! The guitars all have different tonewoods. For the record, the Strat showed the biggest difference. Having said that, with the guitar volume at 10 on positions 4 &5 it was still very overdriven but it did clean up from lowering the guitar volume control better than any of the others.

What have been your experiences? Have you found a particular amp model that is more sensitive to different guitars/pickups than others? Is there a limitiation in the "Special Sauce" that homogenises the results?

(IMPORTANT. This is by NO means a complaint of any sort. I am blown away every day by the incredible tones from this machine. I never cease to be staggered by just how good this is. I have owned over 40 valve amps in my time and hundreds of guitars. This is the BEST piece of kit I have ever owned - period!)
 
Last edited:
I can hear a pretty marked difference. I have quite a few different guitars and they all behave differently even when used with the same patches.

For high gain stuff I use one of 5 guitars depending on what I'm playing: An RG8570 with DiMarzio Air Norton / True Velvet / Tone Zone pickups, or a MusicMan JP6 with DiMarzio Liquifire / Crunch Lab, an RDG7 with Bareknuckle Aftermaths, RG971 With DiMarzio D-Activator X, or an RG2228 with EMG 808.
Out of all those, the 8570 and JP6 sound the smoothest and tightest to me, particularly on lead sounds. It makes sense since John Petrucci had DiMarzio tweak the Air Norton and Tone Zone to make his pickups... The RGD7 with the BKPs sounds pretty close but those pickups run a fair bit hotter, but on the other hand the neck pickup sounds a lot cleaner and tighter especially on the low end. The EMGs in the RG2228 sound quite compressed, but also very "focused" for lack of a better term. The RG971 with the D-Activator X just runs insanely hot. I've lowered them as far as they will go and they still peak the input of the Axe very easily even if I turn it down a lot.

I mostly play through the Mesa models, either the IIC++, Mark V, or the Recto Red, recently I started to delve into the Angle Severe model as well. I use the USA Pre Clean for my clean channel. The differences in the tone between those 5 guitars are quite apparent to me. Maybe I should record some samples for comparison...

Then on the clean, lower output side of things I've got a Jazzmaster and a John Scofield Ibanez with Super 58s. The difference in sound between those is like night and day on amp model, but especially edge of breakup type tones.
 
I can hear a pretty marked difference. I have quite a few different guitars and they all behave differently even when used with the same patches.

For high gain stuff I use one of 5 guitars depending on what I'm playing: An RG8570 with DiMarzio Air Norton / True Velvet / Tone Zone pickups, or a MusicMan JP6 with DiMarzio Liquifire / Crunch Lab, an RDG7 with Bareknuckle Aftermaths, RG971 With DiMarzio D-Activator X, or an RG2228 with EMG 808.
Out of all those, the 8570 and JP6 sound the smoothest and tightest to me, particularly on lead sounds. It makes sense since John Petrucci had DiMarzio tweak the Air Norton and Tone Zone to make his pickups... The RGD7 with the BKPs sounds pretty close but those pickups run a fair bit hotter, but on the other hand the neck pickup sounds a lot cleaner and tighter especially on the low end. The EMGs in the RG2228 sound quite compressed, but also very "focused" for lack of a better term. The RG971 with the D-Activator X just runs insanely hot. I've lowered them as far as they will go and they still peak the input of the Axe very easily even if I turn it down a lot.

I mostly play through the Mesa models, either the IIC++, Mark V, or the Recto Red, recently I started to delve into the Angle Severe model as well. I use the USA Pre Clean for my clean channel. The differences in the tone between those 5 guitars are quite apparent to me. Maybe I should record some samples for comparison...

Then on the clean, lower output side of things I've got a Jazzmaster and a John Scofield Ibanez with Super 58s. The difference in sound between those is like night and day on amp model, but especially edge of breakup type tones.
Great write up - really appreciate your input. I will do some higher gain work with the Mesa amps you mentioned and see what I find although my pickups aren't in the hot category that yours are. I do have an EMG equipped guitar and also noticed the focused response you mentioned. Interestingly I was just playing with the Soldano 100 and Suhr Badger amps and the differences were much more noticeable with my guitars - as noticeable as my memory tells me valve amps were ;).
 
I've always noticed clear differences between the different pickups, since the Axe-FX Standard. I choose the guitars depending on what I want from the pickups.

If it depended only on the playability, I would always choose the Ibanez JS2450 for everything. But I select others when I want a different pickup flavor.

- Strat with Seymour Duncan SSL5 / Fender CS Fat '60 / Fender CS Fat '50
- Strat with EMG SA EXG/SPC
- Ibanez RG550LTD with Dimarzio Gravity Storm / Dimarzio DP163 Bluesbucker (P90 tone)
- Ibanez JS2450 with Dimarzio Satch Track and Mo Joe
 
Last edited:
I can actually hear a lot of difference between:
  • Les Paul (with 57s)
  • Strato (SSL-5 + Fat50s)
  • Tele (TexMex + Twang King)
  • Warmoth Superstrat (JB+Jazz)
Using the same preset. General rule (IMHO): the higher the gain, the lower the differences.
 
I can actually hear a lot of difference between:
  • Les Paul (with 57s)
  • Strato (SSL-5 + Fat50s)
  • Tele (TexMex + Twang King)
  • Warmoth Superstrat (JB+Jazz)
Using the same preset. General rule (IMHO): the higher the gain, the lower the differences.
The higher the gain the lower the differences makes perfect sense. Great summary note.
 
My experience is The different characters of guitars, woods pickups are very well represented. Cleaner and breakup tones give more detail, higher the gain the less difference. Real amps are the same way for me. (Higher volumes are more revealing as well)
 
All my guitars sound very different from each other using the Axe FXIII just as they do when using real amps. Stratocasters, Telecasters, Les Pauls, Rickenbackers, Gretschs, Brian May model, Dan Electro, etc, all sound very different from each other when using the same preset. Just as I expected they would. I create presets specifically for different guitars.
 
Definitely can hear the difference...

And also the difference in tone woods used.

I can compare a 1988 Ibanez S540Pro with a mahogany body and Rosewood fretboard with a 1988 R540Pro with basswood body and maple fretboard with the exact same pickups and they definitely sound different.
 
I hear a pretty brutal difference.
Actually, I have a guitar with a JB on thr bridge position that can be used in the following configurations: Series/Paralell/Single coil(N)/Single coil(S).
And I can hear a pretty noticeable difference between each one of them.
Just imagine when I switch guitars.
 
The differences to my ears were not as much as I expected - very, very subtle.
I still stand behind my statement about pickups. Yes they make a difference but a very small one. It's nearly impossible to quickly A/B pickups but all the clips you'll find on YouTube will tell you that it's placebo or a feel thing because they don't change the overall tone much. Here's a video I posted before where IMHO you can definitely hear a big difference between different pickup types like single coil vs humbucker but humbucker vs another humbucker or single coil vs another single coil, not so much:



My comparison has always been to compare this to IR's. Change the speaker on the IR and you'll have a night and day difference while a pickup change will be as you said very subtle. The only difference is that IR change doesn't require a soldering iron nor does it cost $250 like premium pickups do.
 
I still stand behind my statement about pickups. Yes they make a difference but a very small one. It's nearly impossible to quickly A/B pickups but all the clips you'll find on YouTube will tell you that it's placebo or a feel thing because they don't change the overall tone much. Here's a video I posted before where IMHO you can definitely hear a big difference between different pickup types like single coil vs humbucker but humbucker vs another humbucker or single coil vs another single coil, not so much:



My comparison has always been to compare this to IR's. Change the speaker on the IR and you'll have a night and day difference while a pickup change will be as you said very subtle. The only difference is that IR change doesn't require a soldering iron nor does it cost $250 like premium pickups do.


I've never seen that before ML so thanks for sharing into this thread. I think it really highlights the sublety of the differences between the pickup/guitar types. I was surprised at how the P90 was much closer to a Humbucker than a single coil even though it is a single coil. Aaaah, the magic of a P90!

I think the video also confirms what the majority of people have said in that the Axe FX produces the difference as well/accurately as any tube amp - it's just that the differences are not inherently that significant when our ears become accustomed to IR changes! IR changes being "night and day" and pickup changes being "dusk and night" :). I think this most defnitely applies to me and why the differences I heard were not as much as expected. It's the IR comparing I've been doing!

For me, the video also tended to dismiss the "higher gain = lower difference" portrayal as I definitely heard the same fundamental differences in the video whether it was clean or dirty.

There's also the human element where we all have slightly different hearing capacity and ability to differentiate sound. Particularly when it comes to analysing relatively slight differences. Now we need a similar video from Reverb doing a TUBE comparison - and I would expect tubes to have an even more subtle difference than pickups/guitars.

How much fun do we have chasing tone!!!!
 
For me, the video also tended to dismiss the "higher gain = lower difference" portrayal as I definitely heard the same fundamental differences in the video whether it was clean or dirty.

I think the differences are not less obvious between clean and dirty, rather between dirty and way dirtier :)
 
Back
Top Bottom