Cheap Pickups for a Mid/High End Level Guitar... Is It Worth It?

[diceman1000]

 

Well, I'm not sure how you got that out of a comment that only mentioned brands I owned and didn't mention any of the brands you feel I made a dig at. I thought the clip lacked the sparkle and twang that I have heard out of Telecasters that I have owned. It just sounded kind of blah. Like if you would have told me it was any low end guitar with generic pickups I would have believed you. If you like them that's great. I tend to like a different type of sound then most here. I mean, you dissed an original 60 Les Paul Standard in favor of a Chinese model so it's pretty obvious we're looking for different tones. This is why I told the OP to look for high quality clean and dirty clips when making his choice. Buying pickups blind is hard. Many people who make them (big and small) offer really nice sounding clips that you can compare and decide on what you like. Seeing as how recording at home is so cheap I would expect most of them to do so. YMMV.

 

 

didn't diss the Gibby as a whole, just said i liked the looks of the Vintage better. and, i believe i went on to say that they were NOT even comperable guitars... i am not even a big enough fool to suggest that an import Vintage is in the same realm as an original LP.

 

and fair enough on my Tele clips, different strokes i guess. this is the third set of pickups i've had in this guitar and the best by far. like i said though, different strokes...

[Canadian Jeff]

Sorry dude, but the quality of the recordings on those videos wasn't even remotely definitive. That's one of those videos where the fact that he can play pretty well does much more for the quality of the sound than the pickups.

 

My opinion: DiMarzio Super Distortion (neck)/DiMarzio Air Norton.

 

I think you could throw anything from that section of DiMarzio's catalogue into a guitar and have good results - Super Distortion, Tone Zone, PAF Pro, etc. The Air Norton is a tragically underrated neck pickup though. I haven't ever heard a guitar nail a decent pickup tone as well as my cheapie Ibanez RG with an Air Norton in the neck.

[Floyd Rosenbomb]

I'd do this one,

 

with cream knobs and pickups, the more spendy kind.

 

Cheep pickups have always sounded cheap to me.

[billybilly]

It is my opinion that dragonfire's are flavour of the month (the new GFS) and will not be as good as Duncan and Dimarzio and for sure not as good as BG and Rose.

 

I would never skimp on pickups, not only by price, but by reputation. It is the single most important part of the sound of your guitar.

[diocide]

I'm surprised they haven been mentioned, but you can have American made, quality pickups at a very reasonable price. Talk to bill or Becky or one of their daughters over at Wilde pickups (Bill Lawrence). Fifty bucks goes a long at there and the quality is second to none.

[thecornman]

If you want to give the Dragonfire pickups a try I say go for it! You really don't have much to lose! You can get a set for the price of a few drinks at the bar! If you don't like them after trying switch them out for something better! I have a set on order to give a shot! No big deal to me if they don't end up being great it takes no time at all to take them out of throw something else in!

[BG76]

The thing that people don't ever seem to realize is that buying a set of pickups for low money isn't always a great deal. In my experience I end up swapping them out for something I should have bought in the first place and I see people trying set after set of cheapies.

 

If you enjoy changing pickups that's cool, but just because something is inexpensive doesn't always mean that it's the best deal.

[thecornman]

 

The thing that people don't ever seem to realize is that buying a set of pickups for low money isn't always a great deal. In my experience I end up swapping them out for something I should have bought in the first place and I see people trying set after set of cheapies. If you enjoy changing pickups that's cool, but just because something is inexpensive doesn't always mean that it's the best deal.

 

 

This is true! Just like just because something is more expensive doesn't always mean it is is going to be so much better for each and every player out there! Really the only way to know if something is right for you is trail and error!

[diceman1000]

Agree 1000%, the ONLY sure fire way is to just try them.

[Doctor Morbius]

I realize that everyone has a different opinion on the subject, but my opinion is that life is too short for bad tone. I've tried several budget pickups in my tone quest and have ended up replacing all of them with something in the $150 ballpark or higher. There may not be much difference when playing two different sets of pickups on a low cost amp with distortion, but when playing them clean through a vintage Fender Twin Reverb the difference can be vast.

 

Also, over time I've come to the realization that at various points in time, certain brands and styles fall in and out of vogue on this forum. What's hot one month is in next month's spam thread.

[BG76]

 

I realize that everyone has a different opinion on the subject, but my opinion is that life is too short for bad tone. I've tried several budget pickups in my tone quest and have ended up replacing all of them with something in the $150 ballpark or higher. There may not be much difference when playing two different sets of pickups on a low cost amp with distortion, but when playing them clean through a vintage Fender Twin Reverb the difference can be vast. Also, over time I've come to the realization that at various points in time, certain brands and styles fall in and out of vogue on this forum. What's hot one month is in next month's spam thread.

 

 

Pretty much have to agree with that. I'm sure some low cost pickups sound really good but at the end of the day when I go with some of the higher priced stuff it seems that they tend to be less on marketing hype/forum buzz and more on delivering tone.

 

My time is worth more then the money I "save" going through a few sets of cheapies looking for a good set - and when I've done that I end up buying the Lollars, Fenders, etc... I should have bought in the first place.

 

Like Morbius says, if you're using a lot of distortion or a {censored}ty amp the differences are going to be less apparent but if you mostly play clean and use a really nice amp you'll most likely hear the difference.

[fretmonster]

Really? Wound wire around a bobbin? The technology is so good today there is almost no such thing as bad pickups any more, only different. Expensive pickups aren't going to make your guitar any more resonant, believe me I've been there. The guitar build is the important thing IMO. I've got some guitars with American made pickups and some wound somewhere in the Far East, even had some boutiques (Vintage Vibes) and there's not a nickels worth of difference between any of em in my mind. It all comes down to personal preferrence about the tonal characteristics you're looking for. Why waste time here, shoot Fretts a PM, he's a straight shooter and he also has a pretty darn good frame of referrence IMO.

[honeyiscool]

It's a little odd, people here assuming that Dragonfires are {censored}ty pickups. They're definitely not. The videos Frets has posted prove the fact that they can sound good, and I definitely love my Dragonfires and gladly will put them in my guitars. In my band rehearsals, my rhythm guitarist has always said that my Jagmaster with Dragonfire is his favorite sounding guitar, and I've played guitars with Fender, Lace, Seymour Duncan, and DiMarzio pickups during rehearsals, and he was purely judging my tone based on what he heard, not what he assumed must sound good or bad.

 

I've taken apart many pickups and it's not exactly like Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio pickups are made of gold wire. They're pretty much the same as any other pickup, just more expensive because of whatever reason. Dragonfire Screamers may or may not be for you, but that has nothing to do with their quality and everything to do with how you want your guitar to respond in terms of dynamics and EQ. But that's the same with DiMarzio or Seymour Duncan or BG or Rose pickups. It's always odd to me when people make broad generalizations about a brand being good or bad when you can find two pickups from the same manufacturer that have nothing to do with each other. I mean, you might try a BG Dark and find it to be worst pickup you've ever tried, and you might find an underwound Lollar PAF you hate because that's not the right kind of pickup for you. If Dragonfire Screamers don't work for you, that's great. But that's because the sound isn't to your liking. It's not because it's cheap and low quality, as if such a thing in an aftermarket pickup even exists today.

 

I'll say this. I think the Screamers are incredibly versatile, sound great in all three modes (parallel, series, split), distort beautifully, and have surprisingly good chime for high-output pickups. I don't like the bridge as much as a Seymour Duncan Custom but it's one of my favorite neck pickups I've tried.

[honeyiscool]

 

It is my opinion that dragonfire's are flavour of the month (the new GFS) and will not be as good as Duncan and Dimarzio and for sure not as good as BG and Rose.

See, this statement makes no sense. Dragonfire is not as good as which Duncan and which Dimarzio and which BG and which Rose? Do you even know roughly what the Screamers sound like?

 

If you compare a guitar with Screamers and a guitar with a JB/Jazz and didn't tell people which was which, I would guess that at least half the people would pick the Screamers over the JB/Jazz because I just think it's a more obviously (and perhaps generically) good and full sound. Does that mean Screamers > Duncan? No! Why? Because Duncans don't even sound like each other. I dislike many humbuckers from many well-known manufacturers. I happen to love the Screamers, though, and the fact that they're $30 PER SET makes them a no-brainer to put as a cheap upgrade to a guitar.

 

If you want vintage PAF, you'll hate the Screamers. But you'll also hate the DiMarzio X2N in that case, for instance. That's not an indictment against DiMarzio, it's only an affirmation of the fact that you need to know what kind of output level and EQ curve you want out of a pickup, so obviously find the right one for you. The fact that Dragonfire only has like three humbuckers (Screamers, Vintage, and Active) means they cater to a small percentage of people and there won't be a Dragonfire for everyone like there is a Duncan for everyone, but unless you have tried them, you don't know if you like them or not.

 

And the flipside is that if you like a high output ceramic humbucker, you'd probably prefer the Screamers over Classic 57s. And there's nothing wrong with that. You know what you want.

 

I'll say this, though. I thought I liked the DiMarzio Super Distortion. But really, I've come to the conclusion that the Screamer bridge sounds closer to what I wish the Super Distortion could and should actually sound like. There are just fewer ants crawling in the tone of a Screamer bridge than in an SD bridge.

[Canadian Jeff]

Pretty much have to agree with that. I'm sure some low cost pickups sound really good but at the end of the day when I go with some of the higher priced stuff it seems that they tend to be less on marketing hype/forum buzz and more on delivering tone.

Uh, there was nothing difficult about doing that back in the 50's either. The difference between high-end and low-end pickups is in the quality of the materials used (for the most part).

[thecornman]

I am not sure why The Dragonfire pickups are being called the flavour of the month? I have seen maybe three people say they liked them! I will judge them for myself when I get mine! I spend more sitting in a bar for an hour then what the set cost me so for me that doesn't seem to be a big loss! As for my time being wasted I enjoy working on my guitars so to me its not a waste of time! Looking at the amount of posts some people have on here I am thinking they have a lot more time then they make out to have! Also for the record I don't play through {censored}ty amps with loads of distortion and have still found some not so expensive pickups that give me sounds that I am very happy with! But i don't make a living out of making music so what the hell do I know?

[elsupermanny14]

OP, how long did it take you to source those parts? Original Fender body and neck with a Floyd Rose routing do not pop up too often in the world of used guitar parts.

[billybilly]

 

The videos Frets has posted prove the fact that they can sound good. I've taken apart many pickups and it's not exactly like Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio pickups are made of gold wire. They're pretty much the same as any other pickup, just more expensive because of whatever reason.

 

 

Pickups cannot be judged via video...C'mon!

 

All metal is not equal in quality. You can buy cheap metal for a reason. Example, many stainless steels will rust quickly, particularly cheap Chinese ones.

[honeyiscool]

I've never heard a good explanation for why good quality material should result in good tone.

 

Here's the thing. In an unbiased setting, nothing should ever win 100% of the time. It's statistically impossible. It's amazing to me that there are people out there that prefer Burger King over In-N-Out, but they exist, and I know a guy like that sleeping in this house right now. In the real world, if two things are somewhat palatable but distinct, some will prefer one and some will prefer the other.

 

So stay with me here. Let's take something like sustain blocks. People swap sustain blocks all the time on message forums, from zinc to steel, steel to brass, whatever. And most people comment on the tone having changed, and most people respond positively. But what do a fraction of the people do? Switch back to zinc just because they liked the cheap pot metal better. See, when they switched from zinc to brass, it didn't make the tone better. It merely changed the tone to what most people would consider better, but some people prefer the pot metal tone because that's the Strat they grew up with. And see, that's the thing, people will sometimes prefer the "inferior" product because actually, zinc doesn't produce {censored} tone. In fact, it's an essential part of many beloved Strats that people have come to love.

 

So now back to pickups. Is there a difference between cheap copper and the purest copper in the world? You betcha there is. But does it provide better tone? I don't know. Given how many combinations of this-and-that companies like DiMarzio engage in every day, what's clear is there isn't one way to make pickups, and there isn't a pickup that addresses everyone's needs.

 

I'm just saying, you can wind the most expensive PAF in the world, using NASA quality copper, stainless steel slugs and screws forged in the fires of Mt. Doom, AlNiCo bars charged naturally over centuries over the magnetic north pole and cut to perfect dimensions, and wound by Mr. Seth Lover himself and is there a guarantee that Joe Normal over here prefers it over his EMG 81/85? Not really. And does that mean Joe Normal has no taste? Not really.

 

I've looked at websites like Curtis Novak and Lindy Fralin and they often post pictures of repairs they've done and the idea that old pickups were made to quailty and that they contain good materials therefore they last forever is entirely false, of course. You see pickups sustaining immense corrosion, damage, barely existing anymore, and many coming from the "good old days" like the days from which "they just don't build them like that anymore."

 

So the point is, I've taken these pickups apart and I don't see much wrong with them, and I find them to be well made, and then once it gets past that, PAF style humbuckers are so simple that even I know how to make one. It's not that hard. Load a bobbin with slugs, load another one with screws, wind both, make sure they're reversed at the join, wire some leads, put a magnet on it, screw down a metal plate, encase in wax, then wrap in tape. I really don't think the important difference between different PAFs is quality of construction or material. I think the more important issue is whether you like the sound it makes, and that has everything to do with what they were originally designed for, how many winds, how strong of a magnet, etc. I think quality of materials matters so little in that regard.

 

And this is assuming that there's something fundamentally different about the screws, slugs, magnets, and wire between a Dragonfire and a Seymour Duncan, which we can't verify anyway.

[kit_strong]

So now back to pickups. Is there a difference between cheap copper and the purest copper in the world? You betcha there is. But does it provide better tone? I don't know. Given how many combinations of this-and-that companies like DiMarzio engage in every day, what's clear is there isn't one way to make pickups, and there isn't a pickup that addresses everyone's needs.

 

Copper bah. Real players know that if it's not wrapped with silver wire and cryogenically treated then it's just crap tone

[BG76]

 

I've never heard a good explanation for why good quality material should result in good tone. Here's the thing. In an unbiased setting, nothing should ever win 100% of the time. It's statistically impossible. It's amazing to me that there are people out there that prefer Burger King over In-N-Out, but they exist, and I know a guy like that sleeping in this house right now.

 

 

It's not statistically impossible. Put a Porsche 911 in a 1/4 mile race with a Smart car and I guarantee you the Porsche will win every time.

 

I have owned a lot of guitars over time and I find that the guitars that I end up keeping or that sound really good tend to be the ones that cost/are worth more. With pickups, same thing.

 

Like you said, at the end of the day there are people that like Burger King. I have been to In and Out and didn't see what all the fuss is about, but I don't eat a lot of fast food unless it's the only available option. I do know a regular hamburger from BK has a lot less sodium then a regular hamburger from In and Out (490 to 650) so I can easily understand why someone like myself who doesn't like salt may prefer BK (where I have probably not eaten in 10 years).

 

There are a lot of stupid people out there who are fat and out of shape and love to eat garbage, be it In and Out or Burger King. There are people who are too dumb to put good food into their bodies because they're idiots. Sure, it's cheaper to eat garbage then it is to eat fresh, lean cuts of meat and local produce but a lot of idiots would still pick the garbage if given the opportunity because they're pigs and pigs like crap.

 

At the end of the day people like different things. I have heard a lot of sound clips of pickups (expensive and cheap) demonstrated by people who can't tune their guitars or play in time so I don't put a lot of stock in forum reviews. I honestly only purchase pickups if I buy a guitar and it has something wrong or if I build a guitar but when I have gone with "flavor of the months" I have always ended up spending more on something else.

 

At the end of the day do whatever you want. It's nice that we have the options that we do but despite it being 'statistically impossible' I have never bought the brand x pickup and liked it as well as the Lollar - despite what the forum reviews and flashy marketing sites say, and I have yet to see the stock Smart car smoke my 911.

[frankthomson]

'country-of-origin' has NOTHING to do w/ a quality axe.

gold is gold.

if u like the git, put in nice pups.

[kit_strong]

When it comes to guitars and the idea that more money means more quality, I think that's just bogus. The Trev Wilkinson interview in the latest issue of Premier Guitar goes into this some.

Here's a little snippet

 

There are manufacturers who have very, very high dollar instruments and are obviously interested in creating aspirational consumer brands. But then, as you come down the dollar chain from, let

[honeyiscool]

 

It's not statistically impossible. Put a Porsche 911 in a 1/4 mile race with a Smart car and I guarantee you the Porsche will win every time.

 

And in an mpg race, the Smart Car will win every single time. And I'll take my Ford Escape over your Porsche 911 any day (we're assuming we have to keep and drive the thing) because raw performance is one of the last things I care about in a car because the real world limits you to 65 mph and the race track doesn't attract me at all. Not everyone wants the same thing in a car. Not everyone wants the same thing in a guitar pickup.

 

Your Lollars work for you. Great. I betcha that my Duncan Custom will smoke your Lollars for certain types of music, though. You probably wouldn't be interested in those kinds of music. And that's why we end up with different pickups.

 

The most I ever paid for a set of pickups was a set of Kinmans. Liked them. I still prefer Lace, though.

[Quarter]

At the end of the day .. the day ends. Quality and type of materials do count. While I like a tasty organic free range chicken and filet mignon, I also like Whoppers and Double Doubles. My first choice and go to pickup winder is BG. If BG were a restaurant, it'd be like getting lobster thermidor at the drive trough.

 

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