The joy of cheap stock pickups

DarnWeight

So, in the middle of some minor Tele surgery (replacing pots/3-way, fixing grounding/shielding) I found myself considering swapping out the stock neck pickup for something nicer.  This is a mid-'90s Japanese Tele (the '50s reissue one) where I'd long, long ago replaced the bridge pickup with a Duncan Broadcaster.  It's a really low wind (about 4.8K), brass cover with a ceramic bar magnet on the base.  Cheap as they come.  Repairs completed, I thought I'd put everything back as it was and give it a final listen.  And...it's perfect.  The middle position is everything you could want from a Tele, and the solo'ed neck pickup is soft, subdued and chimey.  On paper, it should be a dog, but in this context it just delivers.  I metaphorically slapped myself in the chops and vowed to fiddle only where absolutely necessary in the future.

I've tinkered aplenty on other guitars, and know that some things definitely warrant an upgrade, but has anyone else discovered any "magic" stock pickups?

munckee

I had a squier standard strat which I modded everything on and bought a loaded scratchplate for.  When I put it back together it sounded better than the original but not as stratty as I would like.  I kept the new wiring and pots but put the old squier alnico pickups in and it sounded great.

phil_b

use your ears to judge a guitar not thr price tag

HAL9000

phil_b said:

use your ears to judge a guitar not thr price tag

^ This. I've modded a few guitars and sometimes I've improved things, and sometimes I've just wasted my money. What seems a good idea on paper doesn't always work so well in reality.

Henrytwang

I’ve found that some of those cheap ceramic magnet Telecaster style neck pickups can sound quite good. I don’t really know why because I’ve yet to find a bridge position one that doesn’t sound awful 

skullfunkerry

I haven't quite done that but I was thinking about upgrading the Duncan Designed pickups in my Soloist, and found a video on YouTube with a guy comparing them to the Nazgul & Sentient set: end concolusion was that they sounded virtually identical when listening to just the guitar, and were utterly indistinguishable in a mix... so I've left them alone

grungebob

I have a musicman sub 1 guitar that was their in house budget attempt guitars in around 2006-08. 

The woods and construction was all USA but the hardware and pickups are imports. 

It only has the bridge humbucker but it’s a fantastic beast and I won’t ever change it. 

p90fool

Sometimes two "wrongs" can make a right, in that I suspect the bright ceramic magnet may be counteracting the dulling effect of the brass cover, putting the tone somewhere back in the ballpark of a more vintage correct pickup. 

DarnWeight

p90fool said:

Sometimes two "wrongs" can make a right, in that I suspect the bright ceramic magnet may be counteracting the dulling effect of the brass cover, putting the tone somewhere back in the ballpark of a more vintage correct pickup. 

Yeah, I was thinking it might be a bit of a Goldilocks effect.  Low wind, hot magnet and brass cover all combining to pitch it right where it needs to be.  I do have it wired so that the tone control is bypassed when the neck pickup is soloed, so no doubt that will also be helping a little.

axisus

I still think that there's an element of emperors new clothes about pickups. 



I should elaborate ..... when I buy a new pickup I parade around the house naked with it and the family pretends that nothing is going on.

thegummy

On the PRS SE Custom 24, the stock G&B HFS sounds amazing.

Quite a few times when I've got a new guitar I've already had boutique pickups waiting to put in for various different reasons so never even really bothered with the stock pickups.

I'd imagine there are a lot of underrated stock pickups in general with people buying guitars and happily splashing out on high end pickups to put in it but then don't see any reason to put in the time and effort that would be involved in genuinely comparing them to stock so just install the high end ones and get on with it, never knowing how good the stock pickups may have been.

grungebob

thegummy said:

On the PRS SE Custom 24, the stock G&B HFS sounds amazing.

I had an SE Dave Navarro that I replaced the stock pickups for the USA equivalents , the tuners and the nut. 

The thing that made the biggest difference was swapping out the SE nut for the USA one. That was night and day difference and only cost £20.  

The pickups alone hardly made any difference. 

Henrytwang

A couple of years ago I bought a 1998 Korean built Epiphone Dot on eBay. Being a 20 year old guitar I gave it a fret dress but much to my amazement the pickups sound great. 

Funkfingers

thegummy said:

On the PRS SE Custom 24, the stock G&B HFS sounds amazing.

The stock HFS/VB 'S' pair from my SE CU24 sound amazing ... in a Squier VM Jaguar HH. 

The stock #7 'S' pair from my S2 Singlecut sound right ... in a Chokai SG.

p90fool said:

Sometimes two "wrongs" can make a right

This.

Pickups do not exist in isolation. They transduce the mechanical/acoustic sound of their host instrument, through whatever amplification and effects the owner has. All of these elements contribute to the final sound. To say nothing of how the instrument is then played.

YellowLedBetterMan

Genuinely some of the nicest humbuckers I've heard are the ones in a Squier Bullet Mustang. Especially with just a touch of overdrive.

I feel like in some cheap guitars they're let down by the pots and capacitor rather than the pickups.

TTBZ

I'm getting to the point where I can't be arsed with expensive pickup swaps either. I've tried shit loads in my SG and the 490R/498T are still some of the best I've tried. When I swapped out the Bare Knuckle Mules to put the stock Epiphone ones back into my LP before I sold it, I remember thinking that there wasn't a huge difference - maybe a bit muddier and duller. That wasn't even the Probuckers either which I think are great pickups, I doubt I would mess with a new Epiphone much if I bought one now. At the end of the day it's just magnets, metal and wire, if you get the recipe right I don't see why it has to cost loads.

The only exception being the Bare Knuckle Mississippi Queen which is my favourite neck pickup for my SG - need to try the bridge one as I think I will love it in this guitar.

rossi

A lot of people change strings and pickups at the same time hence vast improvement .

YellowLedBetterMan said:

Genuinely some of the nicest humbuckers I've heard are the ones in a Squier Bullet Mustang. Especially with just a touch of overdrive.

I feel like in some cheap guitars they're let down by the pots and capacitor rather than the pickups.

I think they were the J5 Squier pickups which were great in my Joe Trohmann and my Bullet mustang .You think they will be screaming hot but tone down nicely .might be wrong ,working on memory .

simonhpieman

TTBZ said:

I'm getting to the point where I can't be arsed with expensive pickup swaps either. I've tried shit loads in my SG and the 490R/498T are still some of the best I've tried. When I swapped out the Bare Knuckle Mules to put the stock Epiphone ones back into my LP before I sold it, I remember thinking that there wasn't a huge difference - maybe a bit muddier and duller. That wasn't even the Probuckers either which I think are great pickups, I doubt I would mess with a new Epiphone much if I bought one now. At the end of the day it's just magnets, metal and wire, if you get the recipe right I don't see why it has to cost loads.

The only exception being the Bare Knuckle Mississippi Queen which is my favourite neck pickup for my SG - need to try the bridge one as I think I will love it in this guitar.

The Probuckers are great. Like, REALLY great. Shame the particular 335 I had them in felt like junk, cos the probuckers and also the coil-tapped sounds were superb!

I do find people funny sometimes. It might be just because I'm crap at soldering but I've never been into swapping pickups or parts on guitars and always try to make the best of whatever pickups are in there. There's always a sweet spot to be found somewhere. Whereas it feels like the majority of folks be like: "I can't wait til I get my new really expensive guitar so I can change the pickups, change the guard, replace the wiring, buy a £150 replacement bridge, change the tremolo for a pricey boutique alternative and have it refinished in a colour I actually like."

I start to wonder if people shouldn't just look a teensy bit harder for a guitar if they're just going to tear them apart upon arrival.

Adey

I've got an old Washburn WP50, a Les Paul copy from late 80s. The pickups for these often get rated as "a bit rubbish" and people want to "upgrade" them. The wiring coming out of the back of them looks like the thinnest cheapest single core non-shielded cables that you could buy, but... they sound great in my opinion. The neck pup is really mellow and a twiddle on the tone / volume knobs help shape the tone amazingly.

It's currently my favourite guitar.

thegummy

simonhpieman said:

TTBZ said:

I'm getting to the point where I can't be arsed with expensive pickup swaps either. I've tried shit loads in my SG and the 490R/498T are still some of the best I've tried. When I swapped out the Bare Knuckle Mules to put the stock Epiphone ones back into my LP before I sold it, I remember thinking that there wasn't a huge difference - maybe a bit muddier and duller. That wasn't even the Probuckers either which I think are great pickups, I doubt I would mess with a new Epiphone much if I bought one now. At the end of the day it's just magnets, metal and wire, if you get the recipe right I don't see why it has to cost loads.

The only exception being the Bare Knuckle Mississippi Queen which is my favourite neck pickup for my SG - need to try the bridge one as I think I will love it in this guitar.

The Probuckers are great. Like, REALLY great. Shame the particular 335 I had them in felt like junk, cos the probuckers and also the coil-tapped sounds were superb!

I do find people funny sometimes. It might be just because I'm crap at soldering but I've never been into swapping pickups or parts on guitars and always try to make the best of whatever pickups are in there. There's always a sweet spot to be found somewhere. Whereas it feels like the majority of folks be like: "I can't wait til I get my new really expensive guitar so I can change the pickups, change the guard, replace the wiring, buy a £150 replacement bridge, change the tremolo for a pricey boutique alternative and have it refinished in a colour I actually like."

I start to wonder if people shouldn't just look a teensy bit harder for a guitar if they're just going to tear them apart upon arrival.

The guitar market isn't so massively varied that someone's exact perfect guitar will be out there if they look for it long and hard enough. So it completely make sense to buy the closest they can find and make the necessary changes. I think there will be plenty of people aren't bothered by having to solder so won't have any particular reason to avoid modifying it.

Obviously your example is extreme, especially the refinish, I doubt many people will buy with all those mods in mind.

It's just a case of people wanting their guitar exactly how they like it and having the money, time and skills so they don't have to settle for compromise.

Some might be lucky and their perfect guitar might be available stock. Some might even have to go to the extreme in your example if that's the only way to get what they want.

DannyP

DarnWeight said:

  This is a mid-'90s Japanese Tele 

I have an early 90s Japanese Fender Strat that had pickups with the ceramic bar magnets on the base.

I swapped them for Fralins and the guitar came alive.

When I sold the old ones on eBay as Japanese Fender Strat pickups, the bloke sent them back accusing me of fraud because they were so crap!