Cheaper after market pickup brands like.....

siraxeman

Iron Gear, Tonerider etc what are your thoughts on them (assuming you have tried them and therefore have a valid opinion) ? I ask as having tried a few Toneriders and Iron Gear I'm pretty impressed - I've tried & owned several Duncans and Dimarzio's, plus Fender, Gibson and Lace pups, tried a band mates SG sporting a set of Bare Knuckles also...and the lower priced brand named above never seem to be less favourably comparible in my own experiences.

My impression is that the lower priced pups from the above names is they are just as good in their own right. I know that this is clearly a subjective thing - there's no accounting for tastes n all that but what do you get for the extra money the bigger brands like to charge...asking as my impression is nothing actually ?? I'm certainly not knocking the higher priced brands, only noting that i can't see them as really better...What says you? Is there much more to a pup than magnets and wire and stuff? Or are they basic simple crude things that have little magic to them to warrant some of the prices charged ?

Richardj

They are all very good for the price, I think as good as any other mass produced pickups.

The real differences start when you can specify little differences or custom options with a custom maker.

There is also the perception that Far East made bad, US etc. made good. Anyone who has a Japanese or Korean made guitar knows that this simply isn't true anymore. Same applies with off the shelf pickups.

underdog

Speaking as someone who wouldn't know what to ask for in a custom wound pickup I find iron gear stuff really good.

I have some in my duosonic and also p90s in my SG.

Sassafras

With the cheap ones, you don't get the 'secret sauce', the mojo or the nice packaging.

Jack_

They're nothing compared to my Gandhi houndwounds.

siraxeman

Ah.....now this explains the price differential. Mojo and/secret sauce I'm told is expensive. Even as much as snake oil is. Hmmm....

stimpsonslostson

I may be wrong, but...
With something like BareKnuckles/Seymour Duncan et al- the pickups are "hand made" in the UK or US, production costs are higher due to the wages needed to pay the staff and costs of shipping etc. THIS is where the extra money goes. 
A mass produced pickup made in China might use the same bobbins, wire and magnets- they MAY even be more consistent too as they're probably not "hand wound", but they may lack the attention to detail you get with a bespoke product.

Perhaps a good analogy is people saying that a CV strat/tele "is just as good as the US one I tried but for 1/4 of the price".

The only time I can honestly say I could do a "proper" comparison was when I had two identical SG Jrs in my flat, one had its stock Wilkinson P90 the other had a MasterWound OilCity Jin-go. The Wilkinson sounded good, but the Jin-Go just had an extra level of clarity/quality to the sound it made (like going up from 192->320 on an MP3 recording I guess).  

Koa

I found the original pickup in a Harley Benton '50's p bass to be comparable to a Fender Japan 51 p bass pickup....and very close to an original '69 Tele bass pickup. So good in fact that I reinstalled the original.....

andyp

I'm interested in these brands too.

I am contemplating upgrading the pickups in my Epi LP Standard, are the likes of Iron Gear a step up from the stock Epiphone ones? (I think mine are "Pro Buckers" - it's a 2014 model).

I put Seymour D's in my project Telecaster and I keep wondering if I'd have got a very similar result by spending half the money on Iron Gears or Tone Riders. Same for my SG, I am toying with replacing the 490/498 Humbuckers with some aftermarket P90s, but am back at the same query, value option or high-end option? Given it would be an experiment I'm not wanting to lay out £150+ in case I don't like the result, but would cheaper ones be just as good?

Andy

paulnb57

I've used Iron Gear Pig Iron and Overwound Pig Iron Single coils in Strats and Iron Gear Blues Engine humbuckers in an Epi 335 and have been happy with them all, exceptional value...

Richardj

Are all Seymour Duncan and Dimarzio pickups handwound given the quantities they are producing.  I would have thought they have to be CNC to maintain consistency over the many thousands that they have made.

Not entirely sure workers in the Far East have any less attention to detail either.

I just see them all as mass market makers with different countries of origin.  If you want special then custom is the way to go.

antifash

Recommend these : http://ironstone-guitar-pickups.co.uk/

timmysoft

I had some Rockfield SWC pickups, they were bloody incredible.

DrBob

antifash said:

Recommend these : http://ironstone-guitar-pickups.co.uk/

Would second that. I've used the Silver Strat set in a couple of builds/upgrades and at the price they're brilliant ! 

Rabs

I REALLY like Vanson pickups..  Used them on several builds and have always been impressed with them...

They seem to be away at the moment so searching for them on ebay wont work at the mo (they are away till the 8th and when I look on their for sale list it gives me no results)..

But I have a couple saved in my watch list

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131628673459?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

If you like P90s these are amazing

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111612636919?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

And a set with no covers if that's your thing

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121193774334?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

AustrianJohn

I have Iron Gear pickups in several builds - I'm mightely impressed with all of them. I have Bare Knuckles in three builds - two are awesmome and one is a bit meh, not sure why - good guitar and good pickups. Another guitar has Oil City humbuckers which are (IMO) better than Gibsons (490/498). While my current build will have two Iron Gear humbuckers and an Oil City P90.

Bottom line is that they are all good. But because of their low price, Iron Gear possibly delivers the best value.

imalrightjack

I had some Tonerider Alnico IIs and they were great in a cheap Epi.  Huge improvement. 

Big fan of Oil City from the two sets I've bought. 

Jez6345789

I think the reality here is it is quiet possible to make good pickups cheaply dress them up with some branding and save money over run of the mill Dimarzio, Duncans etc. most  of their output these days is pretty generic US factories v Asian factories. 

But the Asian guys in general are winding to a formula that has been well tried and tested so easy to copy. 

So for me if done right Tonerider is what should of be on your cheap squire or no name strat or tele copy and you hear an improvement because you are paying a lot more than those companies spent on generic oem pickups built to get a whole guitar to a low price point in the market. 

What you don' t get in most cases is what you get from OCP or other boutique winders which is ears and knowledge.

Without wishing to sound racist what appreciation does your average asian factory worker have of western guitar sounds. So when BKP makes a set of Strat pickups called Irish Tour we immediately know in our heads where he is pitching the tonality, he is winding a coil to sound as close as he can get to that particular tone and bite. 

Then you get the guys building the PAFs who are basing coil patterns on known errors of old Leesona machines gibson used in the 50's coils with uneven winds not a machine that copies so called scatter patterns and throws the odd random turn in every 20 winds. 

At this level you are paying a guy to experiment listen and know what a Duane Allman sounded like to measure exact bobbin thickness and spaceing not just shove 100 injection moulded bobbins on the machine and hit the red button. 

The guy who grew up listening to Angular Banjoes and Chinese opera really is not going to get it. 

That in my mind is the main difference

sawyer

Irongear for me. Two bitsa strats with blues engine pafs in em. Sound as good as my Gibson's to my ears

JayGee

For mainstream stuff (the usual cool/hot/warm  PAF/Strat/Tele/P90) where you know exactly what you want and what to expect I think they're just as good as the mainstream, mass-market stuff from the likes of Seymour Duncan et-al.

If you want something different (say Fender wide-range equivalent, Firebird, a Tele replacement which sounds like a P90, a Gold Foil, etc, etc, etc), very specific variations on the "industry standard) themes, or want to benefit from experience and detailed knowledge of what the effect of a particular magnet/winding/geometry variation is, how a pickup interacts with the rest of a guitar, how the the sound interacts with a particular playing style then that's where the likes of Marc at Mojo, Hayden at Bulldog, Ash at Oil City etc come in, and that's where the (actually quite modest considering the service and the experience/knowledge/craft to deliver it) upcharge starts to look like a good investment.

siraxeman

Jez6345789 said:

What you don' t get in most cases is what you get from OCP or other boutique winders which is ears and knowledge.

Without wishing to sound racist what appreciation does your average asian factory worker have of western guitar?

The guy who grew up listening to Angular Banjoes and Chinese opera really is not going to get it. 

That in my mind is the main difference

I'm not sure that you're right on that...you might be but I think perhaps some of these companies are owned by westerners who know their onions and commission the manufacture of their designs simply to make more for less. The pups of these companies are made to a certain design to achieve a particular sound just like the big wigs do.