Pickups?

[Mikhael]

I've been searching for the right sound from my electric guitars for quite a while, and have tried various pickups from various manufacturers. In my experience, nobody *describes* their pickups better than DiMarzio; when I read a description of one of their pickups, it turns out sounding very much like I expect. Others seems less able to do that - Seymour Duncan has never matched my expectations, for instance.

For a bridge humbucker, I've become enthralled with the DiMarzio Fred and MoJo pickups. Their dual-resonance design gives me a bit richer palette of harmonics to work with, and although they're a little stronger than a standard PAF-style, it's not by much, and they're certainly not the heavy-handed super distortion style of pickup. They have a better tone, more balanced, to me. These are Satriani's pickups, but I use a different guitar, and they sound just they way I want them to.

For the middle, I'm using their Area '61 pickups. Sounds like a very slightly overwound Strat pickup, with no hum and much less string pull.

For the neck, I'm torn between a Carvin TBH-60 (a twin-blade humbucker in a single coil size), and a standard mini-humbucker (I fell in love with these in my old LP DeLuxe). They give me a sort of P-90 vibe (without the hum, of course), and when split, they cluck pretty good with the middle pickup.

However, I've also tried some of the overseas knockoffs, and some of those turned out surprisingly well. The Guitar Fetish brand (GFS) has a humbucker called the VEH (they say it means "vintage extra hot", but it's not that overwound, and what they were really going after was Van Halen's tone). That thing actually sounds pretty darn good (it's in a Parker P-38 right now). Their stacked humbucker (going after the Area series) wasn't done so well, however; weak, and a lot of magnet pull.

So what are you using? What are you looking for but not getting?

BTW, my other favourite? The GraphTech "Ghost"; they're piezos embedded in bridge saddles, and their system sounds more like an acoustic than others I've played, AND they don't break strings...

[Chain]

Seymour Duncan used to sell 2 CDs that has a guitar fitted with their pickups playing. Same guitars and amps played clean and dirty after being fitted with their pickups. It gave you a great idea to what they sounded like.

[everythingtoexcess]

I am a pickup junkie. I have PILES of them, and they are in and out of guitars whenever I have free time. Loving the Dimarzio EJ Custom in the bridge position. Well balanced with just enough output, but not too much. Gibson 57 classics are my neck pickup of choice in anything that ISN'T made out of mahogany. I am a single-coil noob, and I fear that my favorites will make purists a little sick. Lace Sensor Silvers are THE sound for me. I also like the Sumerium Cobalt Noiseless pickups that came in the Fender American Deluxe guitars for a while.
My secret weapon is a set of Bill Lawrence pickups that I got with a PBC guitar in 1994. When I got the guitar the neck was WAY too murky and the bridge was WAAAAAYY too hot. Dave Bunker sent me TO BILL LAWRENCE'S HOUSE. I talked to him for a bit (he is unpleasant and mostly deaf). I went back the next day and he gave me a different twin blade neck pickup and said he had taken a bunch of winds off of the bridge and changed the magnet on the back to something I'd never heard of (I didn't know much about pickups at the time and didn't write anything down.) They are currently in a scrap-part guitar that has an ash body and an unfinished maple neck. I wish I could make all of my guitars sound like that. Bright and edgy with plenty of guts. It's wired so that I can get full bridge, full neck and either or both outside coils. If you have Blueprint for Chaos, it's the only guitar on Phoenix.

[GuitarGeek]

I've been curious to try some lipstick tube pickups on one of my Strats. They look cool, but I understand they have lower output than regular Strat pickups. Loved the tones that SRV got out of them on his white "Charley" Strat. And I've always kinda had a thing for the "el cheapo" guitar aesthetic. In fact, I kinda have had an idea for a guitar in my head for some years, that would be like a cross between a Strat and one of those "pawnshop" type guitars, ya know the ones that Dan Foret used to write about in the Off The Wall column in Guitar Player back in the 80's.

[Mikhael]

I've been curious to try some lipstick tube pickups on one of my Strats. They look cool, but I understand they have lower output than regular Strat pickups. Loved the tones that SRV got out of them on his white "Charley" Strat. And I've always kinda had a thing for the "el cheapo" guitar aesthetic. In fact, I kinda have had an idea for a guitar in my head for some years, that would be like a cross between a Strat and one of those "pawnshop" type guitars, ya know the ones that Dan Foret used to write about in the Off The Wall column in Guitar Player back in the 80's.

Yeah, I've got one of his faves - the Goya Rangemaster. Weird guitar, with split pickups (kind of like the P-Bass pickup) and a Veg-O-Matic switching scheme. Weak pickups, though; you have to really amplify the poop out of them compared to other pickups. Now, the Teisco Del Rey; that thing had single coil pickups at least as strong as a Super Distortion humbucker!

[Mikhael]

One thing I was curious about is the sounds that guitarists in this genre - prog & fusion - are going after. We would probably be a bit different than those playing more popular styles, and might be more esoteric in our equipment choices. I tend to try and have a variety of tones available, as every song could vary wildly in its requirements.

[No Pride]

I didn't want to talk about pickups because it's kind of like talking about cuisine. Some people are going to agree that a particular kind of dish is awesome while others are going to say, "eeeww, you like that?!"

I can't say the guitar tones I go for when playing prog/fusion are radically different than what I use for the more commercial cover music that I get paid to play. I basically prefer a neck single coil for clean rhythm/arpeggiated sounds, a bridge humbucker for power chord/riff sounds and either/or for leads; they each have their own sort of expressiveness. Varying amounts of gain for dirty rhythm and or leads, depending on what sort of texture suits the tune (or section of it) at hand. The effects are like spices, I use them judiciously when needed, but I don't like an effect to call attention to itself; the guitar and amp tone are the meat and the effects are flavor enhancers to me. And the effects I use are fairly traditional; delay, chorus, volume pedal and occasional compression. Maybe I'm just a square...

[Wisdomview]

My Les Paul Custom has 2 Gibson Classic '57s which I really, really like. My Strat has Fender Vintage Noiseless PUs which I may replace. I sort of like them, but I also feel like I could do better. I may even pickup (pun intended) something with a bit more output.
I put a Classic '57 in the neck and a Dimarzio Area T in the bridge of my Telecaster (purchased to gut). I spent a lot of time thinking about what to put in the Tele bridge. Lot's of listening to clips online, which isn't really an ideal situation, but I'm happy with my choices. I tend to like classic guitar tones in the context of modern music.

I also love fuzz pedals, phase pedals, and tape sounding delays with classic amps. My current amps are: VOX AC30 CC, Reeves Custom 12, '61 Ampeg Jet, and a Laney TT-50 (looking to sell). I've had numerous others, but the Vox and Reeves are here to stay.

[Mikhael]

I like the DiMarzio "Area" series of pickups. They did a good job on those, where they sound vintage, but with no hum.

[Wisdomview]

I like the DiMarzio "Area" series of pickups. They did a good job on those, where they sound vintage, but with no hum.

Word. It works great in my Tele's bridge position.

[Plasmatopia]

I have a MIM Strat I bought new back in '93. I was never very impressed with how it sounded, but it was always more solid and roadworthy than my old Guild S-300AD which had a lot of issues.

At some point I bought a DiMarzio HS-1 for it (I believe Yngwie Malmsteen was endorsing these at the time or something like that). I probably wasn't paying attention to detail and installed it in the bridge location. It sounded a bit more to my liking, but was still very thin. A few years later I switched it to the neck position and it worked well there (apparently that's what it was intended for).

Last summer I played a handful of gigs where I had to do some guitar and ran into trouble with pickups (the original single coils) being way too noisy. So a couple of months ago, knowing that my friends were planning a repeat of last summer, I bought two more pickups. I bought a Seymour Duncan JB Jr. (intended for neck position) and the Paul Gilbert "Injector" for the bridge. I decided to move the HS-1 to the middle position.

The results were horrible. Yes, it's true - I had no idea what I was doing (aside from knowing my way around a soldering iron), but I was surprised that just about everything sounded awful.

The Injector sounded far too thin in the bridge slot although nicely balanced levels among all strings, the HS-1 was rather "blah" in the middle slot, and the JB Jr. in the neck position lacked high end. Most reviews online said just the opposite about the JB Jr....most thought it had too much high end.

Once I figured out I could just loosen the strings and then slide the pick guard in and out fairly easily I started swapping them around until I found what I liked. The HS-1 ended up back at the neck, Injector in the middle, and JB Jr. in the bridge. An email response from Seymour Duncan tech support explained that the only difference between a JB Jr. intended for the neck position was that it had a slightly lower output than one intended for the bridge. The JB Jr. sounds perfect in the bridge - not too nasally and thin and (for the first time on this guitar) I feel like there is some meat/warmth to the bridge position.

After that it still took a little work to get the pickups all phased correctly so the 2 and 4 positions sounded right. It would hardly satisfy Strat purists, I'm sure, but I actually enjoy playing this guitar now. Next year maybe I'll even get a decent amp! :)

By the way, Seymour Duncan does have sound samples on their website that do seem to be nicely representative of what each pickup does.

[No Pride]

My Strat has Fender Vintage Noiseless PUs which I may replace. I sort of like them, but I also feel like I could do better. I may even pickup (pun intended) something with a bit more output.
I put a Classic '57 in the neck and a Dimarzio Area T in the bridge of my Telecaster (purchased to gut).
I know I said I don't like to talk about pickups, but I'll contradict myself and chime in on this.

I have a Suhr Pro Series guitar that's basically a Strat with a 'bucker in the bridge. The single coils are Suhr Mike Landau pickups (formely known as "Fletcher/Landau," but I see that's been changed recently for reasons unknown to me). I ended up adding their Silent Single Coil Backplate System, which I love! I had tried the original Fender and DiMarzio "noiseless" single coils, but felt they just didn't have that vintage Stratty TONE. The Suhrs with the SSC thing were the first attempt at that sound without the hum that was successful (to my ears at least). I know Fender and DiMarzio has improved on theirs and I haven't heard what their latest versions sound like now. I'm not looking anymore since I'm happy with my Suhr, but I'd love to hear what the other noiseless single coils that are out there sound like.

[Wisdomview]

I know I said I don't like to talk about pickups, but I'll contradict myself and chime in on this.

I have a Suhr Pro Series guitar that's basically a Strat with a 'bucker in the bridge. The single coils are Suhr Mike Landau pickups (formely known as "Fletcher/Landau," but I see that's been changed recently for reasons unknown to me). I ended up adding their Silent Single Coil Backplate System, which I love! I had tried the original Fender and DiMarzio "noiseless" single coils, but felt they just didn't have that vintage Stratty TONE. The Suhrs with the SSC thing were the first attempt at that sound without the hum that was successful (to my ears at least). I know Fender and DiMarzio has improved on theirs and I haven't heard what their latest versions sound like now. I'm not looking anymore since I'm happy with my Suhr, but I'd love to hear what the other noiseless single coils that are out there sound like.

Sweet and thanks. I'll definitely check out the Suhrs when I'm ready to change them out. Sounds like those may work since I want something vintage w/o noise and with a bit more output. The Fender Noiseless Vintage are fine, but maybe a tad dull? I was also thinking about switching out the Strat's block with a solid brass one for some more mass/tone. I'll probably do both at the same time.

[No Pride]

Sweet and thanks. I'll definitely check out the Suhrs when I'm ready to change them out.
The thing to be aware of with the Suhr silent single coil backplate system is that you have to replace the standard middle single coil with a neck one because of how the system works with the polarities. I'm glad I read up on that first or I would've been disappointed after installing the thing. And yes, I had to buy another neck pickup to replace my middle one.

The Landau pickups are real nice! Mike Landau had a bunch of vintage Strats and they chose the best sounding pickup out of all of them and emulated it. There's two versions of the Landau pickups; one has a higher output. I chose that one to even up the volume between it and my 'bucker.

BTW, you don't have to have Suhr pickups to use the SSCBS, but you do have to use two neck pickups.

[Mikhael]

Sweet and thanks. I'll definitely check out the Suhrs when I'm ready to change them out. Sounds like those may work since I want something vintage w/o noise and with a bit more output. The Fender Noiseless Vintage are fine, but maybe a tad dull? I was also thinking about switching out the Strat's block with a solid brass one for some more mass/tone. I'll probably do both at the same time.

Remember, the Suhrs are regular single coil pickups. In order to make it humbucking, you have to put that SSC Backplate on (I think it goes in place of the spring cover on the back; it's a flat-wound humbucking coil). I found the Areas to be better sounding than the Fender Noiseless, but the difference is subtle. I haven't tried that SSC Backplate, but then I also wanted less magnetic pull from the pickups, which the DiMarzio Areas provide, so they worked for me.

[Wisdomview]

Word. Thanks for the info.

Anyone know something about Mojotone PUs? I was checking out their Strat PUs a few months back and kind of dug what I heard.
http://www.mojotone.com/guitar-parts/pickups

[Thebigdipper]

Re noisy pickups:
My 89 MM Sillhouette came with (I believe) DiMarzio single coil pickups. Nice sound but terribly noisy in your standard pub venue with lots of stray electrical signals flying around. I installed a set of Kinman "Woodstock" pickups from Australia. Not quite as sweet when played solo in a quiet space, but in a band situation they sound almost identical and there is no external noise at all.

N