Guitar Pickups Don't Matter?

Did any of the last 20 posters watch that Rig Rundown about Misha's Ragnarok pups?

If not, watch the OP video, then watch that rig rundown. I thought the two videos were nice end caps on the thread.
 
I just spent the last 7 hours playing 5 different ; but similar , Les Pauls with different pickups , all reading between 7.4k and 8.3k. ( bridge pickups )
One Alnico II , one Alnico V , and three with Alnico III's.

Solid body with original A2 57 classics -7.4k (2016 standard)

Traditional weight relief with swapped A3 JB skinnerburst - 8.2k ( 2004 standard )

Solid body with original A5 Live Bucker -7.8k ( 2011 R0 reissue )

Solid body with original A3 Custom Bucker -7.9k ( 2010 R0 reissue )

Modern weight relief with swapped A3 Custom Bucker -8.3k ( 2008 ....I think.... Axcess )

Playing thru a jumped Marshall ( AX8 ) , none of them sounded the same. I have the same potentiometers and caps in each BTW.
None reacted the same with gain reduction as guitar volume was lowered.
None could simulate the others with input trim ( AX8 ) changes , and pickup height changes.

It was more/less gain , more/less clarity , more/less dynamics , more/less depth.....

For me , there was one clear winner , with MORE of all of the above.
But , given the title of this thread , it must be all in my head.
I’m gonna guess the skinner burst was your winner......
 
Don't forget that IR's are linear. They do not take into account the minute differences you get from changing levels. Even for speakers and cabinets, the response you get at 80dB may not be exactly the same as the response you get at 110dB. It's usually pretty close, but there are usually minute differences (and sometimes even big differences if you push the speaker into breakup). Pickups are physical systems as well and they too can sometimes have similar idiosyncrasies (resonances, microphonics, etc.) that an EQ curve isn't going to fully capture.
Here's a quote from Cliff:
This is an IR of a speaker taken twice. The first time the drive level is around 1W (in red). The second time the amp was turned way up, I would estimate at least 50W (in blue).
View attachment 44467

So the changes in volume and IR's is first of all very small and in the low frequencies like 50hz low. That being said I shoot my IR's quite loud with real tube amps.

On topic, I just saw this video that IMO once again supports my opinion that pickups don't really make a huge difference in tone when $15 pickups sound pretty much the same as $150 pickups.



Sure after seeing the end result it's easier to start saying that "I heard a difference" and I did as well. The point was never to say that changing pickup doesn't make a difference. The point was to say that the difference can sometimes be very small and therefore IMO you can do so many other things that matter way more than changing pickups. :)
 
Here's a quote from Cliff:


So the changes in volume and IR's is first of all very small and in the low frequencies like 50hz low. That being said I shoot my IR's quite loud with real tube amps.

On topic, I just saw this video that IMO once again supports my opinion that pickups don't really make a huge difference in tone when $15 pickups sound pretty much the same as $150 pickups.



Sure after seeing the end result it's easier to start saying that "I heard a difference" and I did as well. The point was never to say that changing pickup doesn't make a difference. The point was to say that the difference can sometimes be very small and therefore IMO you can do so many other things that matter way more than changing pickups. :)


You're right about one thing.... - that a $15 pickup can sound as good (or better) than a $150 pickup. (or worse). :)
 


Misha speaking about the Juggernauts: "I love the pickups, handwound in the U.K., by Bare Knuckle, scatter wound which I think makes a very big difference... it gives the pickups a very open sort of hi-fi top end without actually introducing any hashness into the sound. It gets more dynamic range out of it."

It's interesting to hear how you discuss the Juggernauts as a very "dynamic surgical tool" and the Ragnoraks as a "very aggressive" pickup, like a "sledgehammer" and "fun to play on" -- your passion and the way you express how important these BKP sets are to you certainly strikes a different chord than this [self-described] clickbaity thread.
 
On topic, I just saw this video that IMO once again supports my opinion that pickups don't really make a huge difference in tone when $15 pickups sound pretty much the same as $150 pickups.


What that really shows is that price is not a reliable indicator of pickup tone. Especially when comparing pickups that are voiced similarly. This is bad news for the many guitar players who gauge the quality of a guitar by its price.
 


Misha speaking about the Juggernauts: "I love the pickups, handwound in the U.K., by Bare Knuckle, scatter wound which I think makes a very big difference... it gives the pickups a very open sort of hi-fi top end without actually introducing any hashness into the sound. It gets more dynamic range out of it."

It's interesting to hear how you discuss the Juggernauts as a very "dynamic surgical tool" and the Ragnoraks as a "very aggressive" pickup, like a "sledgehammer" and "fun to play on" -- your passion and the way you express how important these BKP sets are to you certainly strikes a different chord than this [self-described] clickbaity thread.

Not completely sure what your point is? Misha is one of my bestest buddies in the whole world as he can tell you that himself...



... and he can also say many other things at gun point. This method has been very helpful in my career. I suppose BKP had a gun pointed at him in that video as well.

All joking aside. When I visited the guys in DC and got to try all the Blackmachines, Jacksons and Mark's PRSs etc. Misha said he didn't like PRS pickups. That's when I told him that I think PRS pickups sounds really good. Even Nolly jumped in to say that one of his favorite guitars is a stock PRS Modern Eagle:



How can three people have a differing opinion? :O

Once again. Everyone can and should have their own opinion on this stuff. The whole point of this thread once again.
 
What that really shows is that price is not a reliable indicator of pickup tone. Especially when comparing pickups that are voiced similarly. This is bad news for the many guitar players who gauge the quality of a guitar by its price.
That's what it is. F.ex. if someone would create a competitive modeler to the Axe-Fx III that would be more expensive than the Axe-Fx III... many people would automatically assume it's somehow better right?

That's just how the world is. Sometimes a Domino's pizza can taste better than a fine Italian restaurant's pizza. I bet people won't say that out loud even if they think it's the truth.

PS. I'm building my own guitar at the moment!! Excited!!! Pickup recommendations are more than welcome. :D
 
What that really shows is that price is not a reliable indicator of pickup tone. Especially when comparing pickups that are voiced similarly. This is bad news for the many guitar players who gauge the quality of a guitar by its price.

...which raises a different discussion. Lower output , better magnet pickups (My opinion) generally fetch more money , despite the same material costs , and only come stock - in expensive guitars. AFAIK.
My luthier friend can produce a Gibson/PRS type guitar , handmade , with superior materials and craftsmanship , for far less money than either. Like a couple hundred in materials for a guitar that will sell for anywhere between $4000-$12000.
AND , if you want a Gibson to have the same quality as a PRS , you need to at least spend the same amount of money as the PRS. Guys are comparing the new Aura to a Gibson studio , off the wall at guitar center , instead of say.... a reissue. ;) But that's a whole other debate.
Pickups matter , but they don't need to be ( and shouldn't be ) expensive. I've been pushed into expensive lines , just because of availability of particular windings , magnets , and resistance I was after. I'm not a fan of ANY pickup manufacturer.
 
Yeah that's why I'm building my own guitar as well. The materials for a good guitar can be around 200-500€ obviously depending on what features you want it to have. If you want pickups worth over 300€ then obviously that makes a difference but you most likely know my opinion on that already. :) The same quality CNC machines can be found in US guitar factories and the Korean and Indonesian factories and they do 75% of the job.. how is a US built guitar 10 times more expensive?
 
Cost of operations is much higher here in the US. Higher taxes, much higher wages, more regulations, etc. While CNC helps speed and consistency for raw bodies and necks, there's still a huge amount of manual labor involved in assembly, fret work, finish prep, painting, buffing, setup, etc. 75% is wishful thinking.
 
Cost of operations is much higher here in the US. Higher taxes, much higher wages, more regulations, etc. While CNC helps speed and consistency for raw bodies and necks, there's still a huge amount of manual labor involved in assembly, fret work, finish prep, painting, buffing, setup, etc. 75% is wishful thinking.
Yup tell me about it. We have even higher taxes than US where I'm from. :) Also the Finnish minimum wage is almost double when compared to f.ex. the US.
 
Here's a quote from Cliff:


So the changes in volume and IR's is first of all very small and in the low frequencies like 50hz low. That being said I shoot my IR's quite loud with real tube amps.

On topic, I just saw this video that IMO once again supports my opinion that pickups don't really make a huge difference in tone when $15 pickups sound pretty much the same as $150 pickups.



Sure after seeing the end result it's easier to start saying that "I heard a difference" and I did as well. The point was never to say that changing pickup doesn't make a difference. The point was to say that the difference can sometimes be very small and therefore IMO you can do so many other things that matter way more than changing pickups. :)


GFS's DIRT CHEAP ($35.00) GoldFoil single coils sound SUPER!

P.S. I am not affiliated in any way.
 
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It's good seeing many people in the industry discussing this same subject at the moment. F.ex. Fluff is making the same exact point:



Much like him, I'm not saying that aftermarket pickups suck, just that they feel a bit irrelevant. Once again you'll most likely think that I'm marketing IR's but why is it so hard for some guitar players to spend $30 on a Cab Pack while they'll spend $300 on premium pickups that will not drastically change your tone. Once again, a conversation starter. :)
 
Okay.. Slash plays (for example) Gibson Les Paul guitars, and Gibson Guitars have Gibson Les Paul Pickups in them. ...and for many years Slash is Happy..

..Seymour Duncan says “Hey, Slash! Let us make a pickup set for you!! ...we will pay you a royalty on each set sold (or whatever).. and Slash says “Okay!” (‘cause he’s not daft at all), and designs a set of pickups with Seymour Duncan that make him happy.

COINCIDENTALLY .. :0) ... he designs a set of pickups which sound like his tried and true Gibby Pickups.

So.. basically we are comparing apples with apples. No-Not just “apples with apples” but comparing Granny Smith Apples with Granny Smith Apples.

My thinking is this.. and just for example. I have a Ibanez Saber Prestige model (insert your choice of letters and numbers here), and when I got it, I liked the sound of it with stock pickups. I did! ...But, at the time I had installed a Crunch Lab in another guitar and REALLY liked that – took an overly-thin and bright sounding guitar, gave it more growl but with a more mellow EQ. So, just for giggles, I installed a Crunch Lab in that Saber... and it sounded like ass. So ripped that Crunch Lab out of that Saber and re-installed the stock pickup. And now it sounds just lovely!

There is a HUGE difference between sound being generated by pickups. So comparing two near-identical sounding pickups, in the same guitar body, isn’t really a fair comparison to make any type of judgment regarding the issue.

Now I don’t want to start a cat-fight here, again – just my theories based on my experiences - but Wood tonality affects string resonance, how that interacts with a pickup is almost unique to the guitar because no-two pieces of wood are the same - the strings resonate differently for it, which explains why no-two identical guitars will sound exactly alike – because no two-pieces of wood are identical, and it explains why that slim mahogany body Prestige Saber made that Crunch-Lab sound like ass, compared to that same pickup being installed in a brighter sounding, denser, and more hefty all Maple guitar body.

Yes 'The difference can be “measurably minute”' with an oscilloscope, but we AMPLIFY those differences to hear them. It’s those Amplified minute differences which is all it can take to make drastically different sounds from pickup/wood combinations.

Consider this.. You have yourself a beautiful Gibson Les Paul guitar. ....when you got it, you opened the case, the sun shone down upon you, the angels sang in chorus.. touched by the God of your choosing, you cried. One day! ..you pick that guitar up! ..and ...you drop it.

The neck breaks.

After you are done crying – hysterically (and understandably so), you get the guitar repaired.

...Dollars to donuts that guitar will sound better for it..

...just from repairing the neck.

...It’s how woods and wood densities – which are unique from bridge to nut, robs resonance from the strings (to one degree or another) ..The repair creates a harder bridge between sections of woods - it transmits resonance at a different rate. In mahogany you can assume that a repaired neck will EQ brighter sounding to a degree and provide very-slightly better sustain. In an all mahogany darker-sounding body/neck configuration, that isn't going to hurt one bit.

But in measurable terms - at the source - the differences are minute. But for that minute measurable difference at the guitar, the amplified and interpreted overall output generally equals a better sounding guitar.

Somebody said the amount of money you spend on a pickup doesn't guarantee a better sounding instrument. Also absolutely true in my experience. They can sound better or worse. Depending on the body you sling them into, and the sounds you want to get out of them.

I look at pickups like microphones, and guitars - the bodies and neck configurations they are installed into, as uniquely decorated rooms.

Mahogany – more plush furnishing, Maple less furnishing, one provides a darker sound, the other, brighter (for example – and “generally speaking” this tends to lean true).

Now.. Place that mic (pickup) in the middle of any of those rooms, blast any ABBA song of your choosing and record it from that mic. The recorded sound will be different – every time – due to the uniqueness of the room (wood).

In one room you may need a brighter sounding microphone to record a great ambient rendition of Gimmie-Gimmie-Gimme” ..wheras in another room you may need a darker mic to record the same quality sound.

So.. there’s that.

Using IR’s to EQ a guitar sound – in my opinion - is not the same premise as analyzing pickup/wood combinations. Because it’s like comparing Apples to 1964 Buicks. They are different things on two entirely different positions of a signal chain..

Input - Tiny differences providing more or less output to nuance transferred to, and then carried by, an instrument cable, to a signal processor’s input, isn't the same as digitally analyzing an input, digitally re-interpreting and then outputting a modified signal.

Everything before a sound processor – especially if you are using non-active pickups, everything is tonally unique - everything in THAT equation adds or takes something from the show. There is nothing cookie-cutter about it. The woods, the glues, the pickups, their magnetic pulls, the routings, the guitar cable and its length, the pots and capacitors. The solder points, the junctions, any connections in that signal path. Those differences will all be summed then Amplified, and those aspects will remove from tone to one degree or another before even reaching that signal processing stage.

Signal processing and amplification is “the rest of it”. They are completely different aspects of completely different things.

Yes, okay...Depending on what you are playing – you can EQ all the sound to your choosing, and IRs will help you achieve that sound. But all that processing is doing is re-interpreting the original input.

But that input – before processing - you cannot change outside of the wood/pickup/lead/etc., connections...and/or the breaking of, and repairing of, your neck or the body of your guitar.

I have been building and rebuilding guitars since I was a kid. True, Certain types of music, you are not going to hear massive differences between instruments.. Playing through an amp - live - similar sounding guitar/pickups will sound pretty-much identical to an audience member. But recording seems to be where the rubber hits the road. For the life of me, I can’t the EQ the uniqueness of a “guitar” out of the equation one way or the other.

And I wouldn't really want to.

...The guitar’s unique sound just is what it is. You can swap the mics out in it (pickups) and that will help or hurt to one degree or another. But it Will make a difference when you process and then amplify the sound it puts out..

These are just my opinions and mental musings you understand.. pulled from my own personal experiences. Your opinions may be different, and I can respect that.

And .... Yeah .. ... to another degree all ^^ ..that, is overly pedantic BS that doesn’t apply to even half the music played these days – music where first stage tonality isn't predictably expected to shine through – overly processed signals – I can’t figure you would really tell too-much of a difference.

But clean, and them slightly furry sounds.. The difference between pickups and the bodies they are installed in – to me - and in my experience - seem HUGE.
 
Pickups are not just taking a signal and sending it to your amp, they also act like a pre-EQ! They send out a signal that is like a low pass with a resonant peak at the cutoff frequency. The pickup design changes the frequency and shape of the resonant peak. That resonant peak is one of the most important factors in the way a tone feels and sounds.
Aftermarket pickups are still VERY relevant because a person may like a particular guitar because of the way it looks and plays but not like the tone. There isn't really much you can do with a 12k humbucker to make it sound like a 7k humbucker because the 12k humbucker will have removed all the high end. Also, with covered humbuckers the cover has a big effect on tone! Going from a brass cover to a nickle silver cover makes a big difference in the resonant peak of the pickup. This isn't a "golden ear" thing either, it can be easily measured and seen on a spectral graph.
Now, the difference between a Bare Knuckle PAF with an alnico magnet wound to 8k and a no name Chines PAF with the same material and number of winds is probably about the same as two different Bare Knuckle pickups but going from a ceramic Fender Squire single coil to an alnico 5 single coil with a different number of winds is going to totally transform the way the guitar feels!
Also, in the video he vastly over simplified the design of a pickup, pickups are definitely not just wire wrapped around magnets. The material and shape of the base plate can have a huge effect on the shape of the magnetic field which in turn effects the frequencies that are comb filtered by the pickup.
I'm all for calling the industry out on their ridiculous buzz words and false advertising but to say that aftermarket pickups are irrelevant is like saying drive pedals are irrelevant or saying that pre-EQ is irrelevant. I can easily get a "good" tone out of a stock Fender Squire but that doesnt make high end PRS guitars irrelevant.
I can get a great worship guitar tone out of a Schecter Hellraiser but using my Tele is just so much more enjoyable. I would see the point in saying that spending $300 on a set of custom pickups might be a bit of a waste compered to buying a similar set of Duncans but to say that swapping pickups is a waste of time or that aftermarket pickups are irrelevant is just a bit of a stretch.
 
It's good seeing many people in the industry discussing this same subject at the moment. F.ex. Fluff is making the same exact point:



Much like him, I'm not saying that aftermarket pickups suck, just that they feel a bit irrelevant. Once again you'll most likely think that I'm marketing IR's but why is it so hard for some guitar players to spend $30 on a Cab Pack while they'll spend $300 on premium pickups that will not drastically change your tone. Once again, a conversation starter. :)

That video follows a standard YouTube format: make a radical statement to bait viewers, then stir the pot to generate comments and buzz around the video. When he says that guitar pickups are a 70-year-old design based on magnets and coils of wire, with no way to make them meaningfully different, it’s like saying that beef stew Is a 1000-year-old recipe with the same ingredients, and there’s no way for one beef stew to taste meaningfully better than another.

Saying that pickups are irrelevant because we have IRs is saying “Who needs pre-EQ when we have post-EQ?” You know it ain’t so. ;)
 
Do pickups matter? I have a 1989 Les Paul Studio with original Bill Lawrence circuit board pickups. Tried lots of amps, lots of IR's, and not much love for the tone no matter what I tried. Changed them out for Brandonwound T-Tops. I love how it sounds no matter what amp or IR I use.

Changing out PAF brand X for PAF brand Y won't yield as much of a difference as changing out IR's, and yes, IR's are more cost effective. But you aren't going to get a 15k Ceramic pickup to sound like a 7.5K short rough cast Alnico V. Just like you aren't going to get a Humbucker to sound like a single coil. The differences between my Fralin Twangmaster vs T-Top vs Alnico II Pro's vs Super Distortion is more than just marketing hype.
 
That video follows a standard YouTube format: make a radical statement to bait viewers, then stir the pot to generate comments and buzz around the video. When he says that guitar pickups are a 70-year-old design based on magnets and coils of wire, with no way to make them meaningfully different, it’s like saying that beef stew Is a 1000-year-old recipe with the same ingredients, and there’s no way for one beef stew to taste meaningfully better than another.

Saying that pickups are irrelevant because we have IRs is saying “Who needs pre-EQ when we have post-EQ?” You know it ain’t so. ;)
Do u recommend anything I should put on my EMG 81 & EMG808 before I put this theory to the test? I'm pretty hungry but am all out of salt.
 
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