Guitar Pickups Don't Matter?

[shemihazazel]

Pickups make a HUUUUUGE difference. When I got a new guitar in the spring, it came loaded with a Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge. It sounded like hot garbage with my presets no matter how much tweaking I did.

 

[mistermikev]

now to settle this once and for all...
(Guitar-tone-wood + pickups (your-ears / new-strings) / axefx)/-1 modulus 19.................QED

 

[ML SOUND LAB]

I still believe most guitar players do not understand the difference between pickups and microphones. They have magnets in them. They "pick up" what your strings are doing. They don't pick up what wood is doing because it's not made of metal. Hence - tone wood is not real. Most people will change strings when they swap out pickups - that string change made a bigger difference in tone than the pickup change.

Of course pickups make a difference - single coil vs humbucker vs passive vs active... but most of time people switch out very similar pickups to their guitars like f.ex. replacing their Gibson PAF style pickups with some other PAF style pickups just like what I did the OP. The difference is a couple of decibels of pre-EQ. Try simulating this by placing an EQ block in front of your amp block and scoop out the middle frequencies by 1-2dB and you'll have an understanding of what that difference will be. For me that kind of a difference "doesn't matter". That being said - all my guitars have proper pickups in them.

 

[mistermikev]

I still believe most guitar players do not understand the difference between pickups and microphones. They have magnets in them. They "pick up" what your strings are doing. They don't pick up what wood is doing because it's not made of metal. Hence - tone wood is not real. Most people will change strings when they swap out pickups - that string change made a bigger difference in tone than the pickup change.

Of course pickups make a difference - single coil vs humbucker vs passive vs active... but most of time people switch out very similar pickups to their guitars like f.ex. replacing their Gibson PAF style pickups with some other PAF style pickups just like what I did the OP. The difference is a couple of decibels of pre-EQ. Try simulating this by placing an EQ block in front of your amp block and scoop out the middle frequencies by 1-2dB and you'll have an understanding of what that difference will be. For me that kind of a difference "doesn't matter". That being said - all my guitars have proper pickups in them.

seems at least possible that the type of wood would promote/detur the vibration, and reflection of that vibration of the string, and as such, change the signature/effect/interruption imparted on the magnetic field of a pickup... but so far as I know no one has proven or disproven this.....
other than me (above hehe).

 

[Rex]

I still believe most guitar players do not understand the difference between pickups and microphones. They have magnets in them. They "pick up" what your strings are doing. They don't pick up what wood is doing because it's not made of metal. Hence - tone wood is not real.

Take the strings off of your guitar, plug it in, and crank up your amp. Now tap on your guitar. What do you hear?

 

[antcarrier]

Tone wood is definitely a real factor that affects tone. I am a bit surprised that this is even disputed, because to me, the effect is so obvious.
It is just less significant than other factors such as choice of pickup (which, too, is obviously important) or choice of IR. I do agree that the IR makes the biggest difference to the final sound produced.

I may be wrong, but I expect that wood choice wood behave a bit like an ADSR that affects different frequencies differently. If you were to build a guitar out of hard cheese, I don't expect it wood sound very good.

 

[Piing]

I still believe most guitar players do not understand the difference between pickups and microphones. They have magnets in them. They "pick up" what your strings are doing. They don't pick up what wood is doing because it's not made of metal. Hence - tone wood is not real. Most people will change strings when they swap out pickups - that string change made a bigger difference in tone than the pickup change.

Of course pickups make a difference - single coil vs humbucker vs passive vs active... but most of time people switch out very similar pickups to their guitars like f.ex. replacing their Gibson PAF style pickups with some other PAF style pickups just like what I did the OP. The difference is a couple of decibels of pre-EQ. Try simulating this by placing an EQ block in front of your amp block and scoop out the middle frequencies by 1-2dB and you'll have an understanding of what that difference will be. For me that kind of a difference "doesn't matter". That being said - all my guitars have proper pickups in them.

You should take the advice to visit the ear doctor

If you can't hear the HUGE difference between the pickups in this video you should see an ear doctor.

 

[Rex]

I may be wrong, but I expect that wood choice wood behave a bit like an ADSR that affects different frequencies differently.

Sort of. The strings are mounted to the body. As they vibrate, they transfer energy through the hardware into the body, and the body vibrates with its characteristic resonances (press the back of a guitar against your ear and play it; you'll hear the wood vibrate with radically different EQ from what you hear directly off the strings).

That energy is reflected back into the strings with a strength that varies with those body resonances (sound waves are reflected when they hit the interface between two surfaces), and the energy that's reflected is transferred back into the strings. That affects the way the strings vibrate.


Also, the pickups are mounted to the guitar's body. They vibrate along with the guitar, and that vibration is relative to the strings — which is the same thing as the strings vibrating relative to the pickup.


Also, all pickups are microphonic to one degree or another.

If you were to build a guitar out of hard cheese, I don't expect it wood sound very good.

I expect you're right.

 

[Muad'zin]

As usual you all have the Golden Ears of the Gods. Tone wood is a non-issue as far as electric guitar tone is concerned. So many factors go into a guitar tone that is of infinitely greater importance then the wood of your guitar. New strings are a factor, pickup height is a factor, the pick you use is a factor, how you pick your string is a factor, the effects you use are a factor, your amp is a factor, your cabinets or IR's are a factor, how do you feel that day is a factor. Tonewood? That's between the ears. Does the body vibrate with the strings? Sure. Does it have an impact on the overall sound. Probably. Is it as great as tonewood believers make it out to be? Not at all.

Every time you change your pickups there are various factors which could easily explain why new pickups sound better. You could have installed them a fraction higher then your previous pickups, if you also put on new strings that is a factor, and just the confirmation bias of I bought some new pickups and I want them to sound better so therefore they do matters. We are not objective creatures, we do not perceive reality in an objective way. We don't even perceive reality at all. All we perceive is a reality that our mind constructs for us. We are the stars in a movie that plays in our brain. This is why some people when faced with even overwhelming evidence to the contrary will still continue to adhere to their old beliefs. Because when faced with the invalidation of everything they believe in they would rather double down and construct a new reality.

 

[Rex]

So many factors go into a guitar tone that is of infinitely greater importance then the wood of your guitar.

Infinitely? Objectively, no. But there are certainly larger factors in the tone of a solid-body electric guitar.

New strings are a factor, pickup height is a factor, the pick you use is a factor, how you pick your string is a factor, the effects you use are a factor, your amp is a factor, your cabinets or IR's are a factor, how do you feel that day is a factor.

All true.

Tonewood? That's between the ears. Does the body vibrate with the strings? Sure. Does it have an impact on the overall sound. Probably. Is it as great as tonewood believers make it out to be? Not at all.

The body affects the strings and what you hear. The word "tonewood" is an artificial construct.

We are not objective creatures, we do not perceive reality in an objective way. We don't even perceive reality at all. All we perceive is a reality that our mind constructs for us. We are the stars in a movie that plays in our brain. This is why some people when faced with even overwhelming evidence to the contrary will still continue to adhere to their old beliefs. Because when faced with the invalidation of everything they believe in they would rather double down and construct a new reality.

A knife that cuts both ways.

 

[Piing]

~ When the only difference that you can find between pickups is when you change from single coil from humbucker, or from passive to active, you should relegate your Metal Zone to be used only as a door-stopper, lower the gain of your amp, pick a guitar with only six strings, and try to play without an ever-angry face. But perhaps your ears are already djented too much to appreciate the nuances ~

 

[FrankenStrat]

I agree that pickups do not interact with wood, but tone woods are in fact real due to the the transfer of energy from the strings to the wood of the instrument. Different woods are biased to different frequencies. As an example, mahogany more readily accepts high frequencies thus leaving more lows and mids in the strings for the pickups to translate into signal.

I view the electric guitar as a series of EQ filters:

1. The wood and hardware that absorbs energy from the strings thus affecting the frequencies that are left in the strings for the pickups to “listen” to
2. The pickups which have their own EQ curve and their own gain structure
3. Volume, tone and other on board electronics.

Given this view, I disagree with the premise that pickups don’t matter. I would agree that a lot of guitarist do not know what they are doing when they swap pickups and as a result get poor result. Misuse does not equal irrelevance.

I had a Jackson with a DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge and a Seymour Duncan Jazz in the neck. That was a miserable pickup mismatch for what I wanted from the guitar. I did not like how weak the Jazz was compared to the SD. Volume and gain levels were way off.

I replaced the Jazz with a PAF Joe (A variation of a PAF Pro). After all SD Bridge, PAF Pro Neck is a classic pickup combo for rock. I was happy with the gain but found it was too muddy in that guitar. I decided to try to a DiMarzio Super 2 in the neck to provide strong gain and an EQ that was more in line with what I wanted.

The Super 2 was a “home run”. That instrument became exactly what I wanted it to be. It cleans up with low gain amps beautifully too... an unexpected plus. I can now see why Jerry Garcia used the Super 2, it is a deceptively versatile pickup.

Now, what would have happened if I had added gain and treble after the guitar? I would have added more noise, right? You can always reduce levels via EQ, but when you add you do so with the addition of noise. Any noise added by the increased gain of the pickup was already dealt with by the intelligent gate on my Axe Fx, since it was already set for the higher output Super Distortion.

Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis pickups also cast doubt of the OPs premise. The lack of noise, harmonic response, tone, and the versatility derived from the unique design of these pickups provides things you simply could not achieve anywhere other than at the source.

If one accepts the premise of the MIMIC white paper and thinks of the guitar as part of the signal chain, the idea that pickups are irrelevant does not make sense. The guitar is a series of filters that set the foundational tone that everything further down the signal chain operates on.

 

[Disco Cat]

Every little thing that's changed on an electric guitar affects the resulting sound.

Changing the nut material, the bridge material, the saddle material and their size, the tailpiece material, the tremolo block material and size, the fret material and size, how rounded the frets are, the string tree material, whether there's one or two string trees on the guitar, how sharp the angle between the nut and the string trees is, the pickups, the pickup height, tilt, and relation to other pickups, the wiring, the value of pots, the strings... the neck wood, the neck thickness, the body wood, the body heaviness, the neck and body finish...

Every material resonates in a certain way, and the density or volume of it changes how it resonates. And the particular orientation and density of wood grain between two pieces of the same type of wood causes each of those pieces of wood to resonate a certain way and differently from each other.

Take a guitar and start chopping off chunks of the body wood, playing it between each chunk that's removed... and the more wood that's removed, the more the low-end will disappear.

A guitar's sound isn't the result of one thing, but is the result of everything. And the sound that strings let off and that pickups pick up is produced by all those things coming together to produce an idiosyncratic sound.

 

[FrankenStrat]

The kids dialogue at the beginning almost reminded me of “The audience is listenjng”

 

[juanpmoran]

I still believe most guitar players do not understand the difference between pickups and microphones. They have magnets in them. They "pick up" what your strings are doing. They don't pick up what wood is doing because it's not made of metal. Hence - tone wood is not real. Most people will change strings when they swap out pickups - that string change made a bigger difference in tone than the pickup change.

Of course pickups make a difference - single coil vs humbucker vs passive vs active... but most of time people switch out very similar pickups to their guitars like f.ex. replacing their Gibson PAF style pickups with some other PAF style pickups just like what I did the OP. The difference is a couple of decibels of pre-EQ. Try simulating this by placing an EQ block in front of your amp block and scoop out the middle frequencies by 1-2dB and you'll have an understanding of what that difference will be. For me that kind of a difference "doesn't matter". That being said - all my guitars have proper pickups in them.

I wanna join your religion of nonsense

 

[Kamil Kisiel]

For a comparison of different body or neck woods the best I've seen so far is the videos on Warmoth's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/WarmothGuitars/videos

They will keep everything about a guitar the same except for the part that is under test. There are definitely differences caused by body woods, neck woods, chambering or not, etc. In many cases they are pretty minor but as @Disco Cat pointed out, your guitar tone is a sum of all the parts. Some but not necessarily all of the differences can achieved through different means such as EQ.

Here's a comparison of Alder vs. Mahogany vs. Swamp Ash bodies:

 

[Disco Cat]

Here's a video showing that the bass response disappears with less body material.



Something funny, though, is that the person making the video says the difference isn't that big to him. But not only do I hear appreciable differences (the less body, the thinner, twangier the sound, the quicker the note fade-off), but the frequency analyzer demos (at around 8:38 in the video) plainly show that the less body material there is, the less bass there is and also that the bass decays faster.

 

[Kamil Kisiel]

Ah yeah, I forgot about the Darrell Braun video too. That's another good demonstration.

I learned all I needed to know about guitar body mass when I got my Yamaha SG2000. That thing weighs a ton but has way more sustain than any other guitar I've played, especially in the low end. It's almost like that Spinal Tap Les Paul.

 

[FrankenStrat]

Here's a video showing that the bass response disappears with less body material.



Something funny, though, is that the person making the video says the difference isn't that big to him. But not only do I hear appreciable differences (the less body, the thinner, twangier the sound, the quicker the note fade-off), but the frequency analyzer demos (at around 8:38 in the video) plainly show that the less body material there is, the less bass there is and also that the bass decays faster.

That is a cool video.

This video does not indicate a direct interaction between wood and pickup. It illustrates an indirect interaction via the strings. The electro-magnetic interaction between strings and pickups produces the sound we hear on an amp. The physical interaction between strings and guitar affects the energy in the string which indirectly affects what is “heard” by the pickups.

As you remove wood, the body would be able to remove less energy from the strings. The majority of the string energy dissipates through the floating tremolo and through the air due to friction as the string vibrates anyway. A floating tremolo is a great tool to absorb and dissipate energy. The larger the diameter string, the more pronounced the damping effect due to a greater surface area of the string that contacts air. In other words, the greater the surface area of the string the more energy that is spent “moving” air as the string vibrates. Some of the energy absorbed by the tremolo also dissipates into the air.

Look at the spectrum graphs for sustain (around the 5:00 mark), there was an interesting trend in the data. The overall graph length was variable, probably due to slight variations in the pluck of the string. But if you look at the data as the graph tapers down (I.e. the note decays), the taper of the graph was slightly fatter and more focused as body wood was removed. As wood was removed the initial note bloom got tighter, velocity was retained longer, and the decay was more uniform... in the initial third of the graph then it “flat lines”. This was very visible on the third series, right before the graph goes to flat line. This would also seem to indicate that more energy stayed in the string longer due to the removal of wood. It also seems to show the frequency bias the wood introduces (more uniform dissipation as wood is removed).

I would be interested to see this same experiment performed on a hardtail guitar.

 

[ML SOUND LAB]

You should take the advice to visit the ear doctor

I love how ear doctors get recommended in these conversations when the people making the biggest hit records in the industry are old enough to have age based hearing loss and not only that - they've been listening to loud amps all their life. You'll never hear me praise my hearing even though I am personally confident with it - I've had it tested a couple of times and I have a really good frequency range but I believe it has nothing to do with understanding good guitar tone. I pity the fool who thinks they have better hearing than everyone else - most of the times they're the ones who in reality aren't confident with their hearing. I much prefer measuring differences and having actual proof of something rather than try and make a case based on my personal feelings on the matter. Feelings aren't reliable - feelings change based on the color of the wood or based on what you had for breakfast. And once again what "matters" or not is subjective. I didn't say "there's no difference". That's very different from something having such a small difference that it doesn't matter to me personally.