Pickup newbies -> what questions do you have?

Alegree

I appear to have neglected the power of Youtube after having seen fantastic results from my Chameleon's recent feature in Dave Barlow's channel.

Now time to dive in head first - I want to start with a very general pickup Q&A to address a lot of the uncertainty, myths, confusion and give some advice about how to go about choosing if you need to replace your pickups, and how to choose what will be suitable.

People who have little to no experience, or perhaps none at all - What confuses you about pickups? What would you like to know? What would help you make an informed decision on a pickup purchase?
And if anyone who is experienced in pickups would tell me what they wished they had known to save them headache or money at the start, that'd also be great.

skunkwerx

I initially became confused by the spacing. Understanding that F spaced pickups were for floyd equipped guitars only.

The only time I’ve changed pups was on a hardtail Ltd, which required F spaced so the poles lined up with the strings.
I didnt know until I had installed a standard spaced humbucker...  

Tone71

Pots confuse me, as far as I can tell 500 are louder than 250?

All I know is that I have a 500 bridge pick up (lil59) and a 250 neck pick up in a Tele (stock), one is quiet and one roars!

So now Im thinking of fitting a neck humbucker and change the pots to 500, why? I've no idea!!!

JezWynd

I'd like to understand how the various Alnico numbers relate to the sound they produce. +1 on @Tone71's query re pots.

Nitefly

You could start with "Why do people do it?".  Seriously.

I've been playing for over 50 years, and I've never changed a pickup in any guitar I've ever owned.  What is it that makes someone think "I like this guitar, but it needs different pickups"?  What do you hear that I don't? 

I'd be interested in any explanations 

flying_pie

Nitefly said:

You could start with "Why do people do it?".  Seriously.

I've been playing for over 50 years, and I've never changed a pickup in any guitar I've ever owned.  What is it that makes someone think "I like this guitar, but it needs different pickups"?  What do you hear that I don't? 

I'd be interested in any explanations 

I once won a guitar in a competition. I loved the way it played and the neck pickup. The bridge pickup was nice for classic rock but I wanted a more aggressive pickup for heavier stuff so I swapped it.

I also had a Telecaster that played really well but again had a slightly bland and inarticulate bridge pickup. A swap to a thicker, more aggressive pickup sorted it for me. 

Winny_Pooh

What's the most vintage accurate PAF? 

Tone71

flying_pie said:

Nitefly said:

You could start with "Why do people do it?".  Seriously.

I've been playing for over 50 years, and I've never changed a pickup in any guitar I've ever owned.  What is it that makes someone think "I like this guitar, but it needs different pickups"?  What do you hear that I don't? 

I'd be interested in any explanations 

I once won a guitar in a competition. I loved the way it played and the neck pickup. The bridge pickup was nice for classic rock but I wanted a more aggressive pickup for heavier stuff so I swapped it.

I also had a Telecaster that played really well but again had a slightly bland and inarticulate bridge pickup. A swap to a thicker, more aggressive pickup sorted it for me. 

a) It makes me play with the guitar rather than play the guitar

b) I want it to look like a 70's monster Keef Tele !!

Moltisanti

does DC resistance really mean anything ?

mr-mac

Winny_Pooh said:

What's the most vintage accurate PAF? 

This is probably the closest thing to a real one you'll find down to some quite fine detail http://sdpickups.com/

however a lot of companies make great sounding ones including the makers on here. 

This artical with info from SD also shows you the timeline of changes in the Gibson pickups so can potentially get something that is as good as a paf but not such a crazy price tag.  Defo worth a wee read to understand some of the ins and outs of paf pickups without some of the BS https://guitarconnoisseurmagazine.com/paf-archaeology-digging-up-the-history-of-classic-humbucker-tone/

WezV

Nitefly said:

You could start with "Why do people do it?".  Seriously.

I've been playing for over 50 years, and I've never changed a pickup in any guitar I've ever owned.  What is it that makes someone think "I like this guitar, but it needs different pickups"?  What do you hear that I don't? 

I'd be interested in any explanations 

A pickup maker may not feel the need to answer that.

There are a few “quests” that have driven the market.  

It starts with the quest for more gain, hotter Pickups driving amps harder.  Thos one is less relevant these days but really kicked off the market. there was also a quest for less noise and a quest for vintage replicas to fit to those newer guitars.  All significant contributors to the field.

there were a few quests for more hi-fi sounds, or more adjustability, or more switching options.

everything you hear through the amp is generated by the pickup and the strings.  I believe wood has an affect, but I only by explaining how it affects the way the pickup senses the string.  Those 2 factors are easy to change and have an undeniably significant impact

HAL9000

Nitefly said:

You could start with "Why do people do it?".  Seriously.

I've been playing for over 50 years, and I've never changed a pickup in any guitar I've ever owned.  What is it that makes someone think "I like this guitar, but it needs different pickups"?  What do you hear that I don't? 

I'd be interested in any explanations 

I changed the pickups in my MIM Strat because the bridge unit sounded ‘thin’ when compared to the neck and middle. Rather than just changing the bridge pickup, I decided to go the whole hog and bought a set which included a hotter bridge unit with a baseplate. I didn’t actually dislike the original pickups, but replacing them has definitely improved the guitar and made it sound more alive.

Alegree

WezV said:

Nitefly said:

You could start with "Why do people do it?".  Seriously.

I've been playing for over 50 years, and I've never changed a pickup in any guitar I've ever owned.  What is it that makes someone think "I like this guitar, but it needs different pickups"?  What do you hear that I don't? 

I'd be interested in any explanations 

A pickup maker may not feel the need to answer that.

I absolutely do feel the need to answer that. It's going to be a video geared towards people who haven't changed pickups before, so the context of why someone would bother in the first place is vital.

Thanks for the suggestions so far people, the list is growing nicely. I'm aiming for 15+ minutes.

p90fool

To help out a bit on the "Why?" question - apart from the broad choices of pickup types themselves a lot of the fine tuning I do with gigging guitars is to have the pickups both sound their best at the same amp setting. 

On a studio guitar it doesn't matter, but live I want a clear, detailed neck pickup tone with good low-string definition, then to be able to flick to the bridge pickup without taking people's heads off with top end. 

So the "Why?"in my case is because I've yet to come across a standard guitar which works as well as Broadcaster bridge/Strat neck or P90 bridge/Goldfoil neck does for me. 

WezV

Alegree said:

WezV said:

Nitefly said:

You could start with "Why do people do it?".  Seriously.

I've been playing for over 50 years, and I've never changed a pickup in any guitar I've ever owned.  What is it that makes someone think "I like this guitar, but it needs different pickups"?  What do you hear that I don't? 

I'd be interested in any explanations 

A pickup maker may not feel the need to answer that.

I absolutely do feel the need to answer that. It's going to be a video geared towards people who haven't changed pickups before, so the context of why someone would bother in the first place is vital.

Thanks for the suggestions so far people, the list is growing nicely. I'm aiming for 15+ minutes.

I should have added “impartially”

Jack_

Why can I never pickup at bars?

Snags

For me it's "How do I translate the technical info on construction and output into what it will actually sound like?"

 It's all very well telling me it's over-wound (under-wound? Wombling free?) or 12k or 20k or whatever, but what does that mean to the clean tone (bright, muddy, fat, shrill, creamy) and to how it will break up with different levels of drive and gain.

I appreciate a lot of the overall sound is down to the interplay of the whole system (strings, wood, pickups, amp, speaker, player) but there's a ball park.

stickyfiddle

Something on the effect of covers (and different types of covers) on types of pickups - Tele neck, PAFs, dogear P90s etc

( And @snags massive gets an excellent lol for wombling... )

LuttiS

As a pickup newbie...  I'd be interested in direct comparisons to actually hear the difference rather than constant descriptions of "this pup sounds like melted butter compared to this one which is like a jet fighter that is out of fuel" or words to that effect...

So same guitar, settings etc, and cut to and from different pickups (so some cunning editing involved).

That and what it all means

hotpickups

Trouble is for me with YouTube vids. When it comes to minute differences between pickup manufacturers your average computer speakers won't help or an average pair of headphones either. I've watched many but have come to the conclusion that one just has to try them albeit a possible expensive conclusion. 

Personslky id love to see what goes into making them though etc 

sev112

A user friendly video on how to replace a pickup which actually shows what you solder to what, and how - all the vids I see seem to presume a whole lot of electronics pre knowledge which I haven’t got. For example the last one I tried to watch said something like “if you are worried, just put your multimeter on it” - on what? And what do you do when you’ve done that?  
But show me how easy it can be to replace, as it appears it might be, and I’m likely to start spending £££s on new pickups