Guitar Pick ups in English

[sdbrit68]

Okay, I mean I get the difference in single coil vs humbucker vs p90 basics.

Been doing a ton of reading and I still dont get it, what makes one guitar pick up different from another.

If you have two humbuckers, say a seymour duncan, and a GFS..............both use Alinco magnets, and 5000 winds (or whatever it is). Yet one is considered high end and the other cheapie. A pick up is basically an electromagnet, and when strings vibrate they interfere with the field right ?

So what is it that makes one all creamy and we go nut job over it, and the other is a did you seriously buy that ?

In normal people English please

 

[CaptainMoto]

 

[sdbrit68]

touche, you got me on that one

 

[CaptainMoto]

touche, you got me on that one

Well................
Actually, I think it goes back to my theory that "Everything Effects Everything".
All things being equal will result in the same tone but, all things are never equal.
- consistency of the materials
- weight of the magnet
- pole material
- quality of the winding wire
- winding technique
- quality of the connecting wire
- solder
- wax dipping
- gender of the builder....ha ha through that one in
- and who knows what else........climate in the production facility?

I think you know I have tendency to shoot for higher end, quality gear vs looking for bargains.
Not to say "bargain" equipment can't be high quality, sometimes that's true.
Also, it's not a surprise that the price of high end gear carries a premium to pay for marketing and more profit.
My general thought is that I've got a better chance of being satisfied if I shop for quality first and price second.

 

[Al Holloway]

In general CaptainMoto has got it spot on (especially with his two posts). In the second he covers the constuction of the pickups and in the first the ear. This is a big part of the differences. I may be perfectly happy with a pickup but soemebody who can hear better highs than me may detect an anoying frequency I can't hear. So that could be the difference between "one all creamy and we go nut job over it, and the other is a did you seriously buy that ?". Also /*contentious*/ if there was such a thing as tone wood the guitar you put it in could make a massive difference. A bright set of pickups in a bright guitar could be nah. The same pickups in a dark guitar could make all the difference to it and make it hell yea.
Oh and one more for CaptainMoto's list number of windings. Today this should be pretty consistent to each type of pickup. But for hand wound pups back in the day they could differ dramatically and this is why two suposedly identicle vintage guitars can sound so different.

cheers

Al.

 

[Rancid Rumpboogie]

I have bought probably 200 different humbuckers over the years, actually probably more like 300. I have learned that specs mean absolutely nothing. You cannot tell diddly squat about what a pickup will sound like by reading its DC resistance, number of winds, type of wire, type of bobbins, cover material or any of that. You can't tell diddly squat from the price either. I have $45.00 GFS pickups that sound much better than some $150.00 pickups I have tried. It is 99.99% your own ears. It is all about knowing exactly what sound you are looking for. If you don't know that, you are in for a long and expensive crap-shoot because you just can't believe the published hype about a pickup. Unfortunately, the only way to KNOW that is either buy and try 100 or so pickups ... or drag your favorite amp around to music stores and play 100 or so guitars with different pickups through it. Unfortunately, many "boutique" highly-touted pickups like Duncan Pearly Gates are nearly impossible to find in a guitar hanging on a music store wall. So you pays your money and you takes your chances ... until you really get to know pickups in general (their different sounds) and have learned how to listen to Youtube demos and actually be able to tell the pickup's characteristics from them (many say that is impossible, but it isn't ... it just takes going through that drill 2 or 3 hundred times ). When listening to a Youtube demo of a pickup, soon as I hear distortion I'm outta there ... I want to hear the pickup, not their damned distortion pedal or dirty amp. A given pickup will sound different through different amps and with different players with different amp settings ... but you can still spot the pickup's characteristics.

Will I pay $350.00 for a set of pickups? Yes, IF they are what I am looking for. But I KNOW what I am looking for and I KNOW how to judge a pickup from Youtube videos. It has cost me a literal fortune to get there though. Captainmoto is not a pickup-swapper ... and I am his exact opposite . He "generally" prefers pretty high-end guitars and sticks to how they sound stock, and is a very strong advocate of trying a bunch of a certain type and buying the one that sounds best. I, on the other hand, am an advocate of buying an inexpensive guitar that I know from reviews is very playable, on-line, sight-unseen, for $400.00 or less, and then upgrading it to sound exactly the way I want it to.

My last project was to put togther a guitar optimized for classic rock, not blues. I chose a GFS XAVIOR XV-500 guitar. Then slapped a Bigsby B5 on it. Then swapped out its pickups for a set of Jim Wagner American Steele pickups. The pickups cost more than the guitar ... so what. And played around with different wiring (Standard vs 50's) and different caps until it rolled my socks up and down (technical term). It can do blues very well, but it absolutely excels at classic rock.

http://www.jimwagnerpickups.com/clips.html#goto-anchor-1489709666896

 

[straightblues]

I have a close personal friend who happens to be a well known pickup winder. I have watched him wind pickup for the past 15 years and I have also wound more than 50 myself. Together we have done a ton of experimentation (I do the research and he winds). I have worked with him to recreate many different types of pickups including strat, tele, mustang, jazzmaster, jaguar, humubucker, firebird, mini humbuckers, rickenbacker, and a variety of gold foil type stuff. We have done a lot of magnet swapping, wire swapping, wax potting recipies and amounts, etc.

I agree with others, this is a case of everything effects everything. One of the main factors is the coil shape and coil tension. Pickups with the exact same turn count can look and sound very different. A pickup that is wound evenly across the bobbin (most machine wound pickups and pickups wound by new winders) versus having an uneven coil with more winds on the top of the pickups nearer the strings, will sound very different.

Machine wound pickups tend to sound pretty consistent. Hand wound pickups tend not to, unless you have a highly skilled winder (In my humble being consitent from one pickup to the next is the key to being a top winder.) Pickups I have wound myself sound noticably worse than my friends offerings even though I am trying to follow his formula.

Bottom line, winding a pickup that makes sound is fairly easy. Winding a great sounding pickup and being able to recreate it is super hard.

As far as choosing a pickup, I would not overly focus and get caught up in specs. Specs are not the whole story. Do a lot of listening on YouTube and find what you like. Then buy them and figure out what you like and don't like about them. Make notes. Do the YouTube video match up with what you are hearing come out of your amp? If not, what is different. Use that information to buy your next set.

If you have any specific question, let me know.

 

[blackcoffeeblues]

But you didn't explain where Eustachian tube went----it goes to your BILLFOLD. (gotcha)

 

[snarf]

Are you sure you didn't mean to post this instead?

I kid. Really I do.

I've got nothing productive to add to the conversation except to say that sometimes I can hear the difference and sometimes I can't. When I did my Gretsch project a couple of years ago, I bought a pair of FrankenTone Frankentrons to have a throw away pair of pups in case I screwed something up while I was modding and testing. I dropped them in and could've been quite happy with them. But I already had a pair of actual Gretsch Filtertrons on the way that were going to go in the guitar. The difference in the two pups was almost like night and day. The Frankentrons I was happy with because they sounded good. The Filtertrons I was thrilled with because they sounded super. No idea what's going on inside the two different pups to make them sound different.

 

[CaptainMoto]

Unfortunately, my hearing is gone in the higher frequencies.
Impossible for me to evaluate anything regarding full frequency tone.

 

[sdbrit68]

I started getting curious the other day when stewmac sent me an add for a pickup winding machine............so I started researching differences.

What I found was mostly pick up materials and talk about what the difference to the sound based on the materials, but nothing about why the exact same materia;s in one pick up gave it a $200 value but someone like GFS sold it for $30

 

[straightblues]

GFS makes their pickups in China I believe. Labor is cheap and they use the cheapest materials. $200 pickups are made in the US with the finest materials and a skilled winder hand guiding the wire.

Does that make one better than the other? No not necessarily. I love the GFS Surf 90 pickup for the neck pickup and they cost almost nothing. In the 1960's Dearmonds pickups and many of the highly prized Japanese gold foil pickups used cheap refigerator magnets. Danelectro pickups were made from left over surplus lipstick tubes stuffed with wire and a magnet. But on average, most people would probably enjoy a $200 pickup more.

The ultimate test is your own ears. Our ears got trained on the records that we have listened to over the years. Most of us are trying to recreate those tones.

 

[straightblues]

One other thing, pickup winders use a bunch of mumbo jumbo to describe why thier pickups sound special. Beer companies do the same. It is 90 percent BS to make you think it is special. Have said that, there is art in both pickup winding and beer making.

 

[sdbrit68]

One other thing, pickup winders use a bunch of mumbo jumbo to describe why thier pickups sound special. Beer companies do the same. It is 90 percent BS to make you think it is special. Have said that, there is art in both pickup winding and beer making.

aint that the truth

 

[Elio]

Well................
Actually, I think it goes back to my theory that "Everything Effects Everything".
All things being equal will result in the same tone but, all things are never equal.
- consistency of the materials
- weight of the magnet
- pole material
- quality of the winding wire
- winding technique
- quality of the connecting wire
- solder
- wax dipping
- gender of the builder....ha ha through that one in
- and who knows what else........climate in the production facility?

I think you know I have tendency to shoot for higher end, quality gear vs looking for bargains.
Not to say "bargain" equipment can't be high quality, sometimes that's true.
Also, it's not a surprise that the price of high end gear carries a premium to pay for marketing and more profit.
My general thought is that I've got a better chance of being satisfied if I shop for quality first and price second.

...and the height of the pickup!

 

[Crossroads]

...and the height of the pickup!

I have played guitars with the same pickups at sea level, and at 2000 feet. How high they are don't seem to make no big difference to me.

However, how high the guy is who is playing them seems to make a huge difference.

 

[blackcoffeeblues]

I have played guitars with the same pickups at sea level, and at 2000 feet. How high they are don't seem to make no big difference to me.

However, how high the guy is who is playing them seems to make a huge difference.

That's a good one.

 

[sdbrit68]

I have played guitars with the same pickups at sea level, and at 2000 feet. How high they are don't seem to make no big difference to me.

However, how high the guy is who is playing them seems to make a huge difference.

maybe thats my problem................................for clarification, I mean I never am, I only have 3 beers a year

 

[Al Holloway]

And another thing. The strings and the pick attack of the player will make a big difference to what he hears. A player with a heavy touch and 13's will make the same pickups sound different to a player with a light touch and 8's.

cheers

Al.

 

[Elio]

I have played guitars with the same pickups at sea level, and at 2000 feet. How high they are don't seem to make no big difference to me.

However, how high the guy is who is playing them seems to make a huge difference.

Touche'!