pickups for a guitar with dead sounding wood?

[JamesPeters]

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:|::QBB:Any guitar with EMGs will do teh beez!11!!

lawl.

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i`ll meet you halfway on this subject ok fair enough there are darker and brighter woods. ash vs. mahogany etc. the pickup thing is a waste of time unless you are going from low gain to super high gain etc. but it is the main link between the guitar and the amp . low pickups/ highgain amp= highgain pickups 4 hole marshall same with speakers.the only guitar ive ever used that i can totally say the body material made a huge difference is my trussart steel paul. it is hollow body steel and can be heard above the television unplugged. it is a loud guitar but tone wise it also has tom holmes pickups in it. it is also warmer than any les paul. go figure.

"Loud" resonance isn't what I look for in a guitar. I look for specific timbre and a pleasing resonance.

There is no meeting me halfway on this. I'm right, period. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's the way it is. I almost wish it weren't, really. I'd prefer to just pick any guitar and plop in "the perfect" pickup and be done with it. I however know better, and once you know, there's no going back.

 

[Gainfreak]

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i`ll meet you halfway on this subject ok fair enough there are darker and brighter woods. ash vs. mahogany etc. the pickup thing is a waste of time unless you are going from low gain to super high gain etc. but it is the main link between the guitar and the amp . low pickups/ highgain amp= highgain pickups 4 hole marshall same with speakers.the only guitar ive ever used that i can totally say the body material made a huge difference is my trussart steel paul. it is hollow body steel and can be heard above the television unplugged. it is a loud guitar but tone wise it also has tom holmes pickups in it. it is also warmer than any les paul. go figure.

Basically what I have found out in my travels is that a poor sounding guitar can only be made to sound a bit better by a pickup swap. I had a POS $2000 ESp guitar that sounded like shit from day one. I bought it thinking that all I had to do is swap out the pickups. Boy was I fucking wrong. I tried every pickup I could get my hands on and it didn't make a difference one way of another. If the guitar has beat sounding wood, then there is nothing pickup wise that you can do to make it sound like a GREAT sounding piece of wood.
On another note.... Not to sound like an ass but the EMG 81's usually take the wood out of the equasion. That would be my pickup of choice to put into a guitar that has no tone but only if I really liked the way the guitars neck felt and didn't want to off the guitar. The second part of the equasion would to be to play an amp that is so saturated that it makes anything sound good

 

[Anonymous]

in your mind you are right. you just have a different opinion as i. put emg`s in a guitar? that is the worst thing you can do if you want to really hear what the guitar sounds like. later

 

[kannibul]

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I'm dead serious Shawn. If the guitar's acoustic properties are "dead", it will sound "dead" through an amp too. Anyone with significant experience with multiple guitars over the years will agree with me 100% on this. It's not because you're trying to make it sound louder than a TV when it's unplugged, it's because it generates sound and that's what is amplified. That should be self-evident.

I've also owned more guitars than I can even remember (more than 50), and have swapped pickups in almost every one. That doesn't count all the guitars I've tried and compared either. If you want to ignore me that's fine, but I'm talking sense.

It should also make sense that I'm right, because otherwise why would there be guitars made of different woods with different features etc., if the only difference in the sound would be the electronics.

I can agree with this to some extent...more like the way I see it is that a resonant guitar will sound different than a non-resonant one - not really better or worse, since it depends a LOT on what a person is playing.

 

[JamesPeters]

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in your mind you are right.

No; I'm just right and you are wrong, the end. n00b.

 

[Gainfreak]

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in your mind you are right. you just have a different opinion as i. put emg`s in a guitar? that is the worst thing you can do if you want to really hear what the guitar sounds like. later

Im sorry to say that he is right 100% end of story. I have 25 + years of playing/ having guitars built for me and I can say out of total EXPERINACE that you can't make a poor sounding guitar sing like one that already has good wood. Listen to what people are saying. I bought a fucking $2000 guitar only to have a Tex Mex strat kick its ass tonewise. Even after yanking the tex mex pickups from that strat and installing it into the $2000 custom shop the strat still sounded better with another pickup. getting burned like this was an eye opener for sure but don;t take my word on it... Experiance it for yourself because I couldn't possibly know WTF I'm talking about.
I say this out or respect for people and trying to pass along stuff that has happened to me so that people don't go through this. My own guy who builds my guitars would tell you this same thing. He has been building guitars for over 30 years.

 

[The Big Snit]

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in your mind you are right. you just have a different opinion as i. put emg`s in a guitar? that is the worst thing you can do if you want to really hear what the guitar sounds like. later

Well if your guitar sounds bad, you don't want to hear it as much...right?

 

[JamesPeters]

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The second part of the equasion would to be to play an amp that is so saturated that it makes anything sound good

I think some people's experiences which might contradict mine, would have them using amps that don't allow a guitar's timbre to be properly heard. And it's not always about high gain vs. clean or whatever; some high gain amps are far better at letting a guitar's timbre be heard. It's something I'm obsessive about.

 

[ratter]

EMG's sound fine in Steinbergers made of spaceage graphite resin whozawhatzit. So if you're intent on keeping the guitar I'd start there. It doesn't have to sound like a traditionally 'good' guitar in order to be fun and/or useful.

But if you're looking to polish a turd, don't bother, just dump it. MF and JP are 100% right about this.

 

[bill]

Better to burn it so no one else will be saddled with it in the future. Burning is always nice.

 

[killertone]

Buy the LiveWire Metal off of JP and that guitar will rooool!

Actually, it probably will if you like metal.

 

[JamesPeters]

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Buy the LiveWire Metal off of JP and that guitar will rooool!

Actually, it probably will if you like metal.

Well if ANY pickup can do anything for a dead sounding guitar, I guess the Livewire Metal pickup is the one. It may not make it sound any nicer though, still...

 

[Anonymous]

this thread blows me away. the guy has still not stated what the guitar is and why is this not in the guitar forum since you guys must think the electric guitar has more to do with good tone than the amp?

 

[Anonymous]

hell it could be his amp

 

[kannibul]

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this thread blows me away. the guy has still not stated what the guitar is and why is this not in the guitar forum since you guys must think the electric guitar has more to do with good tone than the amp?

If this thread blows you away, you don't have much experience on the Internets.

 

[Anonymous]

that must be it. i have only got exp. playing clubs from austin to jacksonville. mmmmmmmmmmmm wierd

 

[Digital Jams]

To this day I can't believe that people thing that the name on the headstock / fashion statement makes each and every one sound the same

 

[Anonymous]

ok one last time my slow little friends. all i am/was saying is that the amp is more IMPORTANT than the guitar being played. this is why i have refrained from the internet. you cannot fully know where someone is coming from solely on the type written word. the internet is bullshit.

 

[cobrahead1030]

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Basically what I have found out in my travels is that a poor sounding guitar can only be made to sound a bit better by a pickup swap. I had a POS $2000 ESp guitar that sounded like shit from day one. I bought it thinking that all I had to do is swap out the pickups. Boy was I fucking wrong. I tried every pickup I could get my hands on and it didn't make a difference one way of another. If the guitar has beat sounding wood, then there is nothing pickup wise that you can do to make it sound like a GREAT sounding piece of wood.
On another note.... Not to sound like an ass but the EMG 81's usually take the wood out of the equasion. That would be my pickup of choice to put into a guitar that has no tone but only if I really liked the way the guitars neck felt and didn't want to off the guitar. The second part of the equasion would to be to play an amp that is so saturated that it makes anything sound good

just curious, how was the setup on the guitar?

that's a tonal aspect i think is often overlooked in guitars, and anyone whose played a few with a REALLY good setup knows what i mean...of course it's not make a turd sound great either

like you said, it's nothing but pure random luck if the pieces of wood in a guitar 'click' together and make it sound good...i've got a cheapo LTD eclipse that's one of the best sounding guitars i've ever played, i've tried atleast 30 identical models that were nice but nowhere close

 

[cobrahead1030]

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ok one last time my slow little friends. all i am/was saying is that the amp is more IMPORTANT than the guitar being played. this is why i have refrained from the internet. you cannot fully know where someone is coming from solely on the type written word. the internet is bullshit.

you have to look at the equation both together and seperately...it's important to have a good sounding amp, there's no question about that; but that amp needs a good sounding guitar to sound it's best

i can plug guitar A into my cobra and get an instant woody, then plug guitar B in and it sounds thin/weak...so is it the guitar or the amp?

i take the same two guitars and play them thru my boogie mark III now; A one again sounds great, and B one sounds good but nothing special

guitar B just happens to sound kinda dead unplugged, while guitar A has a little more life/resonance to it...they have the same pickups, and construction on paper is pretty much identical

i can't count how many mahogany bodied guitars i've had with duncan JB's in the bridge, and i have nice amps to play them thru...some sound great, and others don't