Neodymium pickups - Q tuner 2.0 - What does the metal do for your metal? ***bonus question: what's the most obscure pickups youve tried***

W

White Light of Death

Power User
I like to play hard rock and heavy metal, and recently, I asked you fine gents about Ceramic and Alnico pickups, and your preferences

it was a very good thread with many people offering their views and also their outside the box mods to the pups, e.g. changing the magnets etc...

One thing that I wanted to know, and I wasn't able to garner anything about it in that thread, was about neodymium - specifically q tuner 2.-0

I never tried it, and always wanted to. Now some have said Lace is shrill, and it sounds like the "shrill" compliment is also attributed to q-tuner2

What does neodymium sound like? what does it do for your tone? can anyone compare the Lace Alumitones to Q tuner 2.0?


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Bonus question- aside from Q tuner 2, what are some other obscure or FRFR pickups you tried and like or hated?
 
Been using them for years! VERY transparent, hi-fi sound, not for everyone though.....you'll have to do some eq-ing
Quiet with gobs of gain, but sometimes there is a hi pitched hiss I can't seem to get rid of. Still, they are the only pickup you can turn everything to 10 and still be pretty quiet!

They're great for bass, lots of bassists use 'em
 
jon said:
Been using them for years! VERY transparent, hi-fi sound, not for everyone though.....you'll have to do some eq-ing
Quiet with gobs of gain, but sometimes there is a hi pitched hiss I can't seem to get rid of. Still, they are the only pickup you can turn everything to 10 and still be pretty quiet!

They're great for bass, lots of bassists use 'em
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No way Jon......what genre are you using it in? What amps/cabs/rigs do you like to use for rhythms that are overdriven?

you look like you are metal like myself, so can you put it in a context ? (Like EMG 81/85 through a Mesa stack is my “brown sound” and from there everything I do with my Axe is basically a copy of a mesa....and i have also started to like[ Cirtrus/Orange and USA/JP C+?]’

I dont mean to put you outta your way, but if you can record like a 10 second clip of some cleans and some overdriven rhtyhym, or if you have a song as well, id like to hear it, if its not trouble

thanks for the input man

BTW what are your three favorite pickup set, especialyl bridges?
 
I'll see if I can record something after I get home from work tomorrow.....feels weird saying that when everyone else is home now LOLL!!

I play just about anything, have no particular genre, I've played in countless bands over the years in my heyday in anything from jazz to classical to different world groove bands, to country, metal and more, so I have LOTS of guitars and basses and have experimented with lots of new technology too, like these pickups and the optical ones too

These pickups are great when it comes to adding gobs of gain but it's hard to put it in a context as they have their own sound....it's very clear....too clear almost that it sounds odd to hear, so I've never recorded much with them, had trouble finding a context for using them!

I love single coils, but the hum always pissed me off, so that's how I ended up experimenting with these, other noiseless, the optical, and different noise reduction methods. ISP decimator is the bomb btw for hi gain! And I've tried every gate out there! The new axe gating is very exciting! I can leave the decimator home!

Some of my favorite single coil 3 sets are some of the scn noiseless, the dimarzio cruiser/chopper combos, the YJMs and the vintage noiseless set on the roadhouse strats....not sure what those are exactly.....
 
Maybe not the most obscure but the most un-pickup-y pickups I’ve tried would have to be Lace Alumitones. They were ... characterless, I guess would be the best way to describe them.
icy
clinical maybe
sterile
 
USMC_Trev said:
Maybe not the most obscure but the most un-pickup-y pickups I’ve tried would have to be Lace Alumitones. They were ... characterless, I guess would be the best way to describe them.
icy
clinical maybe
sterile
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Yeah I ALMOST got those....but I got exactly those feelings you described from listening to all the clips I could find.....decided against it, and I didn't regret it lol
 
I remember seeing Q Tuners way back when I first started playing. Still have yet to actually hear one.

Alumitones are the worst... Never had a pickup in and out of my guitar so quickly.

Zexcoils. Best humbucking single coils in existence. Go buy a set. 😉
 

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Roland said:
At last month‘s UK Guitar Show I played these https://www.oilcitypickups.co.uk/new-neodymium-range

remember that? Guitar shows where you turned up and met people face to face?
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Yes, those were the days...

I like that they were honest and smart enough to say they think they are the “next-gen” of passive , because they know fluence have taken the active market , and also because fishman actually HAS changed The pickup game and it’s been the biggest leap forward yet, might not be for you or the sound might not be what you’re looking for (not sure how or why with all the dozens and dozens of tones and models but w/e, I don’t work for fishman so to each his own) but Lace Bars are the most innovative passives , IMO. Not the “best” or anything silly like that claim, but they definitely are unique

What makes the oil city pickups unique, I don’t see anything about the construction and my browser isn’t loading the page correctly

@jon very cool re: your eclectic range man. If you can do that clip today awesome, and if you have a list of your axes and specs if modded i would be interested to see what you are into, as I can often appreciate your posts and input . Thx dude and god bless your ability to work now

And for anyone else who is into active pickup please sound off
 
Hey WLOD, sorry bout not getting back to you quicker, but here's a quick demo showing the noise difference I was talking about..... I used the axe 2 to show how noisy it was - the axe 3 was just TOO quiet man!! hahaha

I used preset 63 with the drive on 10 to show how noisy a typical humbucker is (single coils MUCH worse) and I used a washburn with humbuckers and a Carvin with q tuners - the 'single coil' version.

You'll hear in clip 1 that there's TERRIBLE noise just before and after playing, and the guitar was feeding back here easily, though I didn't record the feedback, but with that level of gain and noise it's obvious haha

The clip after that you hear a MUCH lower noise floor with the q tuner, almost silent....now keep in mind this is a totally UNUSEABLE setting! Everything is on 10 and sounds terrible, PLUS has all that noise and feedback! You could NEVER use this live because of all the feedback and noise....but with the q tuner it's actually useable!

I also do just a chord stab with the washburn and then the q tuner to see how clear it sounds, but it honestly doesn't sound clearer to me, just too much gain! At a useable setting it seems more clear though


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Hey Jon,

thanks so much for doing the clip. I appreciate the time, even if it was just a noodling, as most people usually forget to do a clip ! I agree, while the clarity is apparent, its like, to what degree and how useful actually is it? And using an extreme example works well enough

Do you “like” them without overdrive/gain?
 
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