Cheap pickups -- just as good?

[SilverSurferJS20]

 

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niceguy wrote:

 

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belovedmonster wrote:

 

 

I am inherently a cynic when it comes to most of the snake oil stuff about guitar tone, but while I'll begrudingly accept that the piece of mahogany used in a $300 guitar is perhaps not as tone worthy as one found in a $3000 guitar, I don't get the whole thing about cheaper pickups being less tone worthy than the big brands.

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Yeah see, this is where my experience has taught me the total opposite.

 

I firmly believe that wood has a much smaller effect on tone than pickups.  I'd rather have a low-quality wood guitar with great pickups than vice-versa.

 

 

 

The electrical component of the signal chain (i.e. pickups and amp) is pretty much the bulk of the resulting tone, IMHO.

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Cheap pickups are not as good

Lower grade wood guitars not as good

is a custom shop worth the extra money...that's for you to decide

I've have squiers/epis to custom shops.

For me, the custom shops sound better, feel better and the pickups are better. the pickups are less muddy and shrill.

I will agree if you have a lower grade wood guitar, better pickups will definately be an improvement

but you also gotta play them through a great amp. I have a bassman 59 reissue

cheaper amp maybe why some people are saying they don't hear a difference.

play a gibson les paul with humbucker 1 and 2 thru a high quality amp then play the epi les paul w/epi pickups and you will hear a difference

on the wood issue, if you play a custom shop thru a great amp without distortion you will hear why it's better to have great wood. better resonance.

mim fender vs custom shop fender both fitted with custom shop pickups you'll hear the difference thru a great amp especially if you hear them both clean. you'll hear the depth and tone of the custom shop.

[genesis3]

what cracks me up is people unknowingly interjecting nothing more than their own preferences for sound and then trying to apply that to whether this pickup is better than that pickup. I almost go as far as saying anything short of a pickup being microphonic, it probably has a redeeming quality for something ...if its dark and weak and you say it sucks because your playing metal and rock on it , it could be it has a nice warmth for jazz or a distinctive lead tone. Back to user preference. Splitting hairs over one after market pickup being better than another after market pickup is especially goofy and subjective

[docjeffrey]

I still think that mass produced cheap boutique pickups like GFS can be killer if you know your guitar and are after a specific tonal shift. Duncan's are fantastic as well. I have a set of Alnico II Duncan Custom Shop 50th Anniv. that are the best PAF replicas I've ever heard.

 

I have to take issue with the statement that "Lollars suck for the price." They cost the same or less than other hand wound pickups. But the three sets I own are incredibly open and tactile with an extremely detailed top end and tremendous punch in the mids and bass. I'm blown away by whatever fairy dust Jason adds to his products. Tele pickups do not get any better than his Vintage T's. The same can be said for TV Jones, my other favorite brand.

 

The cool thing is that with the range of aftermarket pickups, from low priced but excellent GFS to pricy Fralins and Rio Grandes, we, the guitar playing community, are ALL winners!

[honeyiscool]

 

What I don't get is people who try to associate price and quality in a vacuum without considering what you want to sound like. Instruments are just tools, after all. If you really like a DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge, using a Gibson Classic 57 isn't going to make your tone sound better, so who gives a {censored} that the Gibson is many times more expensive? Some people need to spend good money to get a certain sound they want.

 

It wasn't possible for me to get the acoustic sound that I wanted in a $400 guitar, so I had to spend a good chunk of money on a Taylor. Meanwhile, I could give a {censored} about a $2500 Les Paul Standard because that doesn't reflect a sound, feel, and look that I want. So if I have a $800 Tribute model instead, might it be because it offers certain features that I like, regardless of price?

 

People here just act like price tag is the only thing that matters and say weirdly odd things like "DiMarzio pickups suck" when they offer like 50 different models and one of them probably would work well for you.

[GilmourD]

It really depends on what you want.

 

For my Orange Strat project I ordered two DiMarzio Area '67s for the middle and neck. I'm pairing them with a GFS VEH. Not because of money issues but because I know it will give me the sound I want out of this particular guitar.

 

And those who love only Duncan, DiMarzio, or whatever... I love them, too, but not ALL models. For instance, I can't stand the JB. By some people's logic that's enough to hate ALL Duncan's, but not mine.

[6down1togo]

This is just a stupid premise. Define cheap for me and then define just as good. To a guy used to buying Lollars, a Dimarzio is a cheap pickup. To a guy playing with lots of distortion, maybe a low priced pickup sounds just as good (to his ears) to an expensive pickup because it has ceramic magnets and a high output signal.

If you are asking does a GFS Vintage 59 have the same tone characterisics and string to string definition as an SD 59 or Gibson Classic 57, no way, but they sound good enough to put in a cheap import guitar to upgrade its tone.

[honeyiscool]

 

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GilmourD wrote:

 

And those who love only Duncan, DiMarzio, or whatever... I love them, too, but not ALL models. For instance, I can't stand the JB. By some people's logic that's enough to hate ALL Duncan's, but not mine.

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Yeah, what's with that, man. Being a DiMarzio fanboy is great. But are you going to tell me that everything they make is gold and everything someone else makes is {censored}? Basically, like this... if you have been floating with a DiMarzio PAF Pro in a guitar where it sounds perfect and someone installed a Super Distortion while you were sleeping, you would hate what you woke up to... whereas if you woke up to a Duncan Alnico Pro, you might not even notice the difference right away. So how can you really have brand loyalty when all these people make so many different kinds of pickups and there is so much similarity across brands?

There are certain exceptions, of course. Nobody does what Kinman does quite like Kinman does, and nobody does Lace like Lace does, Bill Lawrence, etc. But for the most part, most people are working with the same 1950s technology when it comes to pickups. So whether you like a pickup or not will largely depend on the specs you're working with, wire gauge, wire type, magnet type and strength, number of windings, etc. Who winds it is distinctly secondary. The fact that the specs are correct is what will make you like or dislike a pickup, and certainly anybody above a certain price range will make a more than functional pickup.

As for hand winders, sure, they wind a good pickup. But I kinda think the reason why people choose handwounds is not because scatterwound sounds that much better, but because being in touch with the guy who winds your pickups is a great way to make sure that your specs are spot on.