Low output pickups and high gain amps.

cragginshred said:
I generally pass on Kyle's videos due to the same chugga stuff and he plays and he does not dial in very good tone to my ears
Having said that It makes sense on the surface that in general high out put pups were made to push lower OP amps -all through the 80's
Anyone remember the Duncan Invaders with the huge lugs? I had those in a Ibanez destroyer with a Floyd upgrade in 1983!

Pretty sure I was the first guitarist in Fresno with a Floyd in 83! Anyhow my experience is

Yes - lower out put pups have a little more string clarity, however they squeal if not dipped in wax and can sound thin and lack the balls to handle proper gain.
Granted lately I use a lot less gain than I used too, but more than others. My crunch is a hard rock early 80's ton with a little more balls

The Suhr Aldrich is technically a high gain pup, however it works for me across the board. As I type they are being installed in a Jackson PC-1. I have them in the LP's and they work incredibly well with great string definition and plenty of girth to the tone. Never shrill and plenty of mids!

Here is the Alrich in the R9 using the plexi side of my Friedman 50w JEL. The start I pick a little harder each time to show how digging in gives a little more aggressive tone. Granted this is pretty low gain to some. *Amp is pushed with SD-1 vol on 10 and gain knob on 2.5 ish

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Now THAT is some bitchin' Les Paul crunch. Well done, sir. I always enjoy your demos. That tone is right in the ballpark that I shoot for when playing hard rock. I've got the Aldrich, too. It's in my '87 Kramer. The Aldrich kills in superstrats with maple bodies like my Kramer has. It's not tinny in a maple body, just very clear. The Aldrich rips in Alder bodies, too. Haven't tried it in basswood because I hate basswood.
 
I don't own any low output humbuckers right now, but I agree that the right ones can kill in high gain setups.
The Duncan 78 and Screamin' Demon slay with high gain in my experience.

Speaking of low gain, the low output DiMarzio and Duncan noise cancelling single coils sized noise cancelling pickups I've tried are killers with high gain. DiMarzio HS-2, HS-3, Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues (the original ones, DP403) are rip city. The Duncans I've tried, the Vintage Rails neck/middle and the YJM bridge are just nuts. YJM's going into PV 5150 II and EVH 5150III...fuggedabout it! I haven't head the YJM going into the OG PV 5150.)

Off topic, I have the DiMarzio FRED which is a medium output pickup (10.38K) and good grief that pickup is amazing in every situation I've tried it in.
 
I've been into the PAF style output pickups for a long while but recently came to appreciate medium output humbuckers for the splitting abilities. I like that they really sound like strat pickups when they split whereas a lower output pickup will sound weak.
 
He seems to acknowledge the most obvious problem which is that he dialed in the amps for the PAFs. So I think we'd have a the opposite result if he did it the other way around. That said I think there is some truth to the idea that it's difficult to dial "clarity" into a high output pickup. But it's also difficult to get that thick grind with a low output pickup. My takeaway is that this is a sweetwater and gibson informercial, which is fine, and he's amusing, but this is not really a serious comparison to demonstrate the hypothesis IMO.
 
all my guitars have hot pickups (apart from one with p90's) and all my amps are high gain ... all my pickups are screwed down WAY LOWER that they should be .. I think that balances things out enough
 
acceptance said:
My takeaway is that this is a sweetwater and gibson informercial, which is fine, and he's amusing, but this is not really a serious comparison to demonstrate the hypothesis IMO.
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I hadn't thought of it that way, but kinda, haha.

But his comparison samples... all sounded OK to me, LOL. It's not like I thought, "man, that Painkiller sounded like pure mud", personally. Or "man, that 5150 totally doesn't like that JB".

It is what it is. It's not like there aren't many killer Metal tones recorded with X2N's, Duncan Distortions, or whatever high output pickups into high gain amps. I mean, it's cool that some people like PAF-types and play Metal with them. But it's not like it's the only way to achieve clarity with a high gain amp. You know, the gain knob doesn't always have to have the gain on 10, be it with PAFs or Invaders, LOL.
 
gimme all the heat ,lol. Meat is for the man, bone is for the dog. :LOL:

I'm a junkie for hot pickups, but I also like having guitars with lower output as well. Variety is the spice of life.
 
This is very suspect logic. “I like it, so…”

Dial the amp differently perhaps?

Dimebag Darrell and Chuck Schuldiner must be laughing about this shit, somewhere
 
I've tried this and still prefer higher output pickups. I find that with lower output/vintage voice pick ups, when I increase the gain they kind of mush out and get insanely bright. That being said, I haven't tried every low or vintage output pick up out there, so there may be some that work. Still, for me it is effort vs reward. It is easy to get the tones I want with higher output pups so I stick with them.
 
jeff5 said:
I've tried this and still prefer higher output pickups. I find that with lower output/vintage voice pick ups, when I increase the gain they kind of mush out and get insanely bright. That being said, I haven't tried every low or vintage output pick up out there, so there may be some that work. Still, for me it is effort vs reward. It is easy to get the tones I want with higher output pups so I stick with them.
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Amps also have a sweet spot. I’d rather push an amp at that point and not have to dial in the amp to compensate for weak pickups which may sound worse or feel worse. Every piece should do its part collectively.
 
thegame said:
So he’s got that damn Tube Screamer type pedal on the whole time ? Which undoubtedly helps the PAFs get into metal territory and potentially over compresses and muddies up the hotter pickups in the test sample.
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no boost on the mark V, sweaty
 
MadAsAHatter said:
I was watching one of @Bad.Seed recent videos where he's talking about low and high output pickups through high gain amps.



He had 2 main premises.

1. High output pickups are not needed to drive a high gain amp.
No argument from me here, I fully agree with this. Modern high gain amps have more than enough preamp saturation that you don't need the extra ass from high output pickups to push it. I would want to add to Kyle's premise here that hitting the front end of an amp harder doesn't always have the same effect depending on the source. For instance, using high output pickups is a different experience than using a boost. Both will push the front end of the amp more, but pickups typically don't tighten the low end the same way a boost pedal does. Since we're talking about pushing the front end this is a worthwhile distinction to make.

2. In general lower output PAF style pickups have more clarity and articulation than high output pickups through a high gain amp.
I can't deny that a good set of low output PAF style pickups sound great in numerous applications, even high gain. I do think that basing clarity and articulation solely on the output of a pickup is too simplistic. I know Kyle put in the caveat that this statement is a generalization and there are exceptions to the rule, but there's too many exceptions to even say there's a rule to begin with.

There's too much that goes into pickup design to put everything on output alone. I'm no pickup designer, but I do know that magnets, wire gauge, number of windings, winding pattern, slugs or screws, cover or no cover, etc. All play a role. To me that says there really are no hard rules when it comes to how pickups sound. The closest thing I think you could call a rule would be is if the design, materials, and construction stay the same then two of the same model pickup should sound relatively similar. Or maybe if you take a particular pickup and change one element; say the magnet, it will change the sound in this way. But that doesn't necessarily mean that same magnet will change tone the same way in all pickups. And that's just thinking of the pickup alone. Let's not forget that guitar wiring and pot choices will have an impact on tone and clarity as well.

Just to throw in my own real world example: A while back I did some magnet swap experiments on JB pickup. I went through most of what was available from A2 to A9 to ceramic magnets. Each magnet made a noticeable difference in overall tone, clarity and articulation. Some were more clear and or articulate than others. For instance the oriented vs unoriented A5 magnet. The output was almost exactly the same. OA5 had a decent EQ curve, but sounded comparatively like mud where the UA5 had the same EQ curve, but was much more clear. Another comparison is A5 vs A6. Both had similar outputs , but the A6 was mud-butt city compared to the A5. Last comparison I'll note is A8, A9 & ceramic. All had a bit more output than the stock A5 and to my ears had better tone and more clarity. The A8 had a great articulation and sweet singing quality to it the way you think of a PAF style pickup. The A9 took that and added a modern sounding touch. Like the A8 & A9 the ceramic was clearer than the A5, but less "musical" than the A8 & A9. My favorite magnets in the JB were an A8 and A9.

Anyway, I'm not trying to rip on Kyle here. He put up a great video as always and brings up a very interesting topic. His video also works as a general pickup comparison for the ones he featured. I just think there's more to it than output alone that warrants more in depth discussion. What do you all think? I'd love to hear from one of our resident pickup gurus. I'm sure @scottosan has some good insight on this topic.
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Hey man, one thing I am not seeing in your synopsis of my video is that I made a couple things very clear
1 - This is purely my opinon
2 - This is a huge generality based on my experience, and of course there will be plenty of exceptions to the rule.

Appreciate the kind words, and I don't disagree with anything you are saying in your original post, but I do think leaving those things out leaves out a lot of context of what I was talking about.
 
Glad to see one of my videos creating so much conversation here! Actually pretty cool.

As mentioned in my post above, a lot of people seem to be missing important context or maybe skipping over the part of the video where I say that this is purely my opinion, and this is not a "rule". Not every high output pickup will be more compressed, not every paf pickup will be more clear, etc.

That said, some of you guys seem to think I am shitting on high output pickups. That is not the case at all. I have and love many high output pickups. Im also not telling anyone what to do, simply providing something to think about for those who have not previously considered it. As always, I don't care if people agree with mhy opinion or not. If everyone felt the same, we'd all be playing the exact same shit and this hobby would be boring as hell (tone chasing, not guitar in general)

To the couple of people who said this was a "Gibson/Sweetwater infomercial" - I asked Sweetwater to send me the pickups because I like Gibson PAFs abd I wanted to check them out. Once I installed them, I really liked them. I told Sweetwater my video idea, as it was an idea that I've been kicking around for a while, and they liked it and wanted to sponsor it. Simple as that. The video was eventually going to get made with or without sponsorship from anyone, and Sweetwater NEVER tells me what to do or say with my videos, which is why I work with them so often. It's rare to find a corporate sponsor that doesn't try to control the message, which is what makes them great to work with.

I will admit the amp tones in this video are not my favorite - I used the Mesa 212 instead of my trusty 412 in this video so I could fit all the amps in the shot. Upon listening to the recorded tones, it was clear that the 16 ohm speakers in the 212 were quite a bit brighter than the old and broken in speakers in the 412, BUT - I never post process my stuff, so I wasn't about to go in and start playing with the eq in psot to make things sound more pleasant. As I always say, No post processing, for better or for worse, and I stand by it.

But yeah, the title alone seems to have hit a lot of people in the feels for this video. Unfortunately, there IS a game you have to play on youtube, and if I had just titled the video "I like PAF pickups on high gain amps" nobody would click on it. Everyone wants to blame the youtube algorithm, but in reality, it's the viewer who clicks on videos that determines the algorithm. So as much as people love to complain about youtube thumbnails and titles, they are literally the ones pushing the current trends by clicking on the videos.

Anyways, here's wonderwall.
 
I actually thought the JB & Painkiller sounded the best in that particular video.

The only PAF'ish pickups I have on hand are BKP Mules, Fralin Pure PAF's, & Suhr Thornbuckers. They're similar on paper but sound nothing alike, the Suhrs are my overall favorite with high gain.
 
Bad.Seed said:
Hey man, one thing I am not seeing in your synopsis of my video is that I made a couple things very clear
1 - This is purely my opinon
2 - This is a huge generality based on my experience, and of course there will be plenty of exceptions to the rule.

Appreciate the kind words, and I don't disagree with anything you are saying in your original post, but I do think leaving those things out leaves out a lot of context of what I was talking about.
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I caught where you made it clear it was your opinion, based on experience & there are exceptions to the "rule". I didn't mean to leave out any context. I guess I assumed everyone would at least skim the video and pick up on that.

I did mention where you said there are exceptions to the rule and expanded on it that there's so many exceptions you couldn't really call it a rule to begin with. Thinking about all those exceptions is what made me create the thread in the first place. Gear nerd stuff like pickup design and how certain aspects of it can influence overall tone gets my brain working.

I wish I still had the book on pickup design and winding, but it got destroyed it in a flood a while back. I'd reference it if I could remember the actual title. It had a bunch of info on things like scatter winding vs uniform winding, wire gauges & coatings, metal alloy for slugs & screws, and how you could use all those aspects to shape the overall tone.

It had a good section about pickup output as well. One of the parts that stuck out to me was how there was a misconception that DC resistance (what we call pickup output) isn't the whole story and doesn't translate as 1:1 to actual output. The DC resistance is mainly determined by the wire material and length; i.e. Gauge, material, coating, and number of wraps. But other parts of construction such as magnet type/strength also influence output that isn't picked up just my measuring resistance. To determine true output it really needs to be measured on a scope while playing.

From my understanding when looking at resistance alone, higher resistance typically translates to darker tone. To my ears a darker tone sounds less clear and articulate. So saying higher resistance instead of higher output sounding less clear/articulate (or darker) would hold up better as a generalization.

On the amp side of things, the more signal you feed an amp generally the more compressed it gets. When talking signal alone, that typically lessens the clarity. High gain amps are already amplifying and compressing the signal a good bit. Hit it with more signal and you get more compression. Push too much signal into it and that compressions starts turning into mush.

I believe this was more the point you were making in your video... Hit the front end of a high gain amp with a high output pickup and you can turn the nice sounding compression into mud. Not that your assessment is wrong, just incomplete or maybe just looking at it from a different angle. As mentioned above DC resistance; which we over simplify as output, is only one aspect of a pickup's output. That's where I was going with my original post. I think what you've experienced is a product of a pickup having both high resistance and high output; like the Duncan Distortions. Or in the case of the Sugarbuckers low resistance and low output.

If I ever figure out the title of that book I'll post it. When looking for it, I did come across this Seymour Duncan article on resistance vs output that sums up what I'm talking about here. I think it's worth the few minute read. You probably have some good contacts... Maybe you can talk someone into giving you a behind the scenes look and talk about pickup output and high gain amps. I think that'd make a cool video; FWIW I'd watch it.

Anyway, I'll stop here before I start rambling too much and write an incoherent novel LOL. And here's the link to that SD article.

Seymour Duncan blog: Resistance vs Output
 
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