low output pickups vs high output?

Pete24v

ESBlonde said:

@Pete24v I spent the daylight hours with a funk band in the rehearsal studio yesterday with a Tele a strat and a 335. Both lady singers agreed the 335 with Classic 57s gave the best funk sound! I think they all do thier own thing very nicely but there is no problem getting a nice clean sound from lowish gain Humbuckers.

Maybe the amp was a bit on the thin side and the 335 helped it along a bit??! ;-) 

Nick

As I've got older my tastes have shifted to lower output pickups.

It's quite sad in its own way...

siraxeman

I still like the old JB bucker (which is considered high'ish output)....still a firm favourite of mine even tho tons of newer pups have come out since. It splits nice in a Strat, and has a nice creamy tone that is classic. I don't like high output ceramic ones in the bridge like the Evolution - too thin for my tastes. Sure sounds great with lots of gain but crappy n thin with clean - crunch sounds.

For clean sounds I usually always seem to notice what sounds great clean will be nice dirty...but maybe not always as defined or focused....but hot dirty pups are harder to sound great clean. IF you got a high pass filter on your guitar to retain the highs when you roll back the volume that helps a lot...most guitars don't though.

Single coils - I like to be a bit hotter at least in a Strats bridge position - I HATE that skinny thin claws down a blackboard sound of some Strat bridge pups. Just installed a set of Lace Sensor Red/Silver/Blue in one of my Strats and I really like them. More guts but still sound stratty. The Red in the bridge definitely loses some of that stratty twang but not to the point where you think its a humbucker - still sounds like a Strat just a bit creamier/warmer and angrier.

mid output ones (like the Fred/Paf Pro) sound good and are probably as much of the 'best of both worlds' you can get....middle for diddle n all that.

Skipped

I want a clean sound so lowish output Humbuckers is where I look first.

But....the Bare Knuckle Crawler Bridge Pickup (15k) does have a rather stunning clean sound with the volume between 8 and 9.
If you see someone online say that that this pickup "cleans up well" then frankly that is insulting to BKP.
It is much better than that.

I am not clear what conclusions to draw, or even why I started this post.
But I will say that if your experience of higher output pickups is based on your experiences of earlier designs (maybe from Gibson).....keep an open mind.

 

slacker

I had the high gain ceramics (I think the bridge was 16k) swapped for some Lollar PAFs. The guitar sounds way better clean and still reacts with my overdrives/amps. 

@axisus I think you might be local to me. So you are welcome to try it in Luton as long as you are not a serial killer. PM me if you are not mental. 

p90fool

Skipped said:

I want a clean sound so lowish output Humbuckers is where I look first.

But....the Bare Knuckle Crawler Bridge Pickup (15k) does have a rather stunning clean sound with the volume between 8 and 9.
If you see someone online say that that this pickup "cleans up well" then frankly that is insulting to BKP.
It is much better than that.

I am not clear what conclusions to draw, or even why I started this post.
But I will say that if your experience of higher output pickups is based on your experiences of earlier designs (maybe from Gibson).....keep an open mind.

 

I'm a big fan of the 498t, especially now I've converted mine to an A3 magnet. 

Mine's about 13.5k and works for pretty well everything, in fact I don't really play any level of gain above a mild crunch at all. 

I guess I'm the only person I know who uses high output pickups and high gain amps for pop/country covers, but I use my guitar controls a lot and I like having power in reserve under my fingertips. 

Dave_Mc

It depends, really. It sounds different, and you might prefer one or the other. It even depends on the specific pickup, you might like one low output pickup but not another, etc. etc.

I don't think there's one answer. I know I like both, depending on what I'm after, and also in-between.

dogload

I've got a couple of low output Bullock Jazzmaster pickups that I got for one of my JMascis JMs. They sound great for recording - loads of detail -  but they don't work for playing live as well as my other JMJM which has the stock P90 at the neck and an over-wound Mojo at the bridge.

axisus

slacker said:

I had the high gain ceramics (I think the bridge was 16k) swapped for some Lollar PAFs. The guitar sounds way better clean and still reacts with my overdrives/amps. 

@axisus I think you might be local to me. So you are welcome to try it in Luton as long as you are not a serial killer. PM me if you are not mental. 

Hah! Yeah, I live in Luton as well. No worries about trying, I think I'll just dive in and buy something for my current guitar build. I have plenty of higher output HBs around if I don't like it.

sawyer

I've  not a clue what the science is but I find high output are just too much. Just do high output and nowt else.PAF style seem to have what I consider to have some 'headroom?' Probably  got the definition of that wrong,but that's how I see it. Horses for courses though:)

Haych

Personally I prefer vintage output to mid output pickups, but then I'm sure my playing style is more blues to blues rock than balls to the wall hard rock or metal.  I think the hottest pickup I've played in recent years is either the Dimarzio Andy Timmons sig pup, which is a devastatingly good pickup, or the Seymour Duncan Blues Saraceno Trembucker, which is again a really good pickup.

A buddy of mine is gain crazy and must have the highest gain amps and most powerful pickups available.  I don't knock it but it's really not my thing.  Even he admits it's all about gain and nothing at all to do with tone.

Not really into ceramic magnets either, although that said one of my fav live album sounds is a ceramic overwound single coil into a cranked but still clean Boogie MKII, so maybe I'm just an alnico snob.

merlin

I have two guitars that offer me everything I need/want/like.

One is an LPJ single cut with one P90, the other is a Trussart Steeldeville with TV Jones Ultratrons, which aren't high output by any means. The P90 has more, quite a bit more. 

That's as much output as I can cope with. Both guitars retain a huge amount of character and sound great on the edge of break up and a bit beyond. High output pickups sound bland to me, and I like a crunchy rather than a flat out driven sound. 

Dave_Mc

I'm not sure it's all about gain and not all about tone- maybe that's true with some of the really extreme models, but I'd say that when you're playing at really high gain levels, what counts as a good tone is different, and what you want is different. What sounds nice and complex and flattering at low gain can sound like a muddy mess at high gain. What sounds great at high gain can sound flat and boring at low gain. You need to use what works best for what you want. I don't think it's fair to say a certain high output pickup is bad because it sounds bad clean (or clean-ish), when that's not really what it's designed for.

EDIT: To clarify- that's not to say that all high output pickups are good, of course. There's certainly a bunch I'm not that keen on.

slacker

axisus said:

slacker said:

I had the high gain ceramics (I think the bridge was 16k) swapped for some Lollar PAFs. The guitar sounds way better clean and still reacts with my overdrives/amps. 

@axisus I think you might be local to me. So you are welcome to try it in Luton as long as you are not a serial killer. PM me if you are not mental. 

Hah! Yeah, I live in Luton as well. No worries about trying, I think I'll just dive in and buy something for my current guitar build. I have plenty of higher output HBs around if I don't like it.

axisus said:

slacker said:

I had the high gain ceramics (I think the bridge was 16k) swapped for some Lollar PAFs. The guitar sounds way better clean and still reacts with my overdrives/amps. 

@axisus I think you might be local to me. So you are welcome to try it in Luton as long as you are not a serial killer. PM me if you are not mental. 

Hah! Yeah, I live in Luton as well. No worries about trying, I think I'll just dive in and buy something for my current guitar build. I have plenty of higher output HBs around if I don't like it.

no worries. Lower gain pickups will probably give you more top end.

mudslide73

I like both - BK's VH2 is only about 9K but sounds huge. Their Crawler is 15k but sounds like a vintage humbucker. I'm a big fan of the SD Custom Custom too.

PolarityMan

I dont know that much about it tbh but isnt the downside of low output a poorer SNR?

Van_Hayden

Entirely depends on the player, string choice, amp choice, pick attack.....it's all important!

One guy I supply pickups too gets an incredibly high gain thick lead tone with a pair of Black Labels running cool tapped into a mark IV mesa. The low output keeps the articulation. 

Experimentation  is key, there is no right or wrong. 

axisus

PolarityMan said:

I dont know that much about it tbh but isnt the downside of low output a poorer SNR?

??? wots SNR???

Cirrus

Saturday night rist - the worst Deftones album.

Dave_Mc

^ I'd lol that, but how can you tell?

axisus said:

PolarityMan said:

I dont know that much about it tbh but isnt the downside of low output a poorer SNR?

??? wots SNR???

signal noise ratio? that'd be my guess.