Can someone mansplain SD parallel axis?

[Yul Brynner]

What does a parallel axis distortion do that the regular distortion doesn't?

 

[ArtDecade]

Mansplaining is short for Man Explaining.

 

[TedEH]

I was going to make a joke about it meaning that your two distortions will never run into each other-

If these are what I think they are - I had a set of these (or something that looked like them and fit the description). I don't know the regular distortion, but these.... how can I describe them? Imagine that you have a METAL guitar and you want to be THE MOST METAL and the way to be THE MOST METAL is to have THE HIGHEST OUTPUT and MOST AGGRESSIVE pickups EVAR.

They sounded awful. I swapped em for something else immediately.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

What does a parallel axis distortion do that the regular distortion doesn't?

They do completely different things tbh. They sound completely different ime. PATD is a lot fatter and thicker sounding, the upper mids aren't as spiky, high end isn't as pronounced. The regular distortion is tighter and faster responding on the low end.
If you like nasty doom/sludge tones, go with a PATD.
If you want thrash/black metal/death metal/djenty tones, go distortion.

 

[narad]

They can't sound that bad if Brandon Ellis uses them and sounds awesome. His current set is something custom but he's been using them for forever.

edit: ah, sorry, didn't catch the "distortion" from the OP. That's a different model.

 

[TedEH]

To be fair, I have no idea if my appraisal is even of the right pickups - they just looked the same. Had those weird double-poles.

You know how some people describe EMGs like having a boost on all the time that you can't turn off? These kinda sounded like that, but in a bad way. It was like having the pickups too close to the strings, and no matter how far away they get, the output still stays way too hot.

I expect that they'd be to someone's taste, but definitely not mine.

 

[Yul Brynner]

They can't sound that bad if Brandon Ellis uses them and sounds awesome. His current set is something custom but he's been using them for forever.

edit: ah, sorry, didn't catch the "distortion" from the OP. That's a different model.

I was just using the distortion as an example as it seems they have parallel axis versions of a lot of their pickups. I was wondering what parallel axising one of their pickups does to change it from the original configuration.

Brandon Ellis says he uses an original parallel axis trembucker. I guess it's its own model not based on an existing model?

 

[narad]

I was just using the distortion as an example as it seems they have parallel axis versions of a lot of their pickups. I was wondering what parallel axising one of their pickups does to change it from the original configuration.

Brandon Ellis says he uses an original parallel axis trembucker. I guess it's its own model not based on an existing model?

Honestly this is even more confusing because you can trem-buck a pickup (when they change the spacing for floyds). So if you can "parallel axis" (verb) a pickup, things are starting to get really meaningless with the PA trembucker. It's a good pickup though, not my favorite but has its place.

 

[TedEH]

I officially take back everything I said in this thread - I actually still have the guitar with the double-pole pickups in them, I never replaced them, and they sound just fine. I completely brain-farted and confused them for a different set.

 

[Yul Brynner]

I officially take back everything I said in this thread - I actually still have the guitar with the double-pole pickups in them, I never replaced them, and they sound just fine. I completely brain-farted and confused them for a different set.

Are they Seymour Duncan parallel axis?

 

[TedEH]

It's what it looks like to me. I assume I'd have to rip em out and see if they're labelled or something, if they make several of these.

 

[TedEH]

The distortion and original use what looks like the same photo on their website, so that tells me nothing.

 

[Grindspine]

The PATB Distortion was a higher-output, more aggressive, ceramic magnet-based version of the Parallel Axis Trembucker. Seymour Duncan also made the Blues Saraceno Parallel Axis Trembucker and later, the Crazy 8 as a Seymour Duncan Forums designed Custom Shop release.

The Crazy 8 is based on Alnico 8 magnets and medium-high wind.
The PATB Distortion is Ceramic based.
The (original) PATB and Blues Saraceno model are Alnico V based.

The Bobbins are wider and more squared than typical humbuckers. They Parallel Axis pole pieces are spaced to catch either side of the magnet field movement, without putting the pole directly under the string. If memory serves, it was an attempt to get great capture of the magnetic field movement while reducing magnetic drag on the string.

^ All of the above is just from memory, so I am probably missing some details.

 

[Grindspine]

Parallel Axis Trembucker: Pushing The Boundaries

Even though the Parallel Axis trembucker has a totally unique look, the tone works so amazingly well that I couldn’t imagine not using it.

www.seymourduncan.com

 

[TedEH]

So I found my old NGD thread - and I can't remember how I found this, but I claimed at the time that the bridge is the distortion, and the neck is the original. So apparently I have them both.....? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[ExMachina]

Straight from the horses mouth. "The highs are softer yet more vocal and pronounced. The mids are less congested and seem to cut through more, and the lows are tight but not boomy."

So there are less highs, but also more highs since they're pronounced, there are less mids, but also more mids for the cut, and the lows are cut and also cut.

I think SD might have discovered chat gpt a few decades early.

 

[Yul Brynner]

Straight from the horses mouth. "The highs are softer yet more vocal and pronounced. The mids are less congested and seem to cut through more, and the lows are tight but not boomy."

So there are less highs, but also more highs since they're pronounced, there are less mids, but also more mids for the cut, and the lows are cut and also cut.

I think SD might have discovered chat gpt a few decades early.

Ok you've convinced me. I think I'll try it out.

 

[TedEH]

My take from playing around with it right now -
I'd describe them as a bit bright sounding but otherwise balanced and inoffensive. Cleans have some jangle to them even with the old strings I haven't touched in like a year. Low end is present but not hyped. I wouldn't call them "mids forward" - there's enough there to sound proper and full, but they aren't in-your-face. "Inoffensive" is the best word I can come up with for the mids.

If you made one of those graphs of lo/mid/hi like some pickup websites would do, I'd call it something like bass-4 mid-4 high-6 (out of 10).

 

[Grindspine]

Oh yeah, here is a link to the Crazy 8 PATB as well. It is available as bridge and neck. https://customshop.seymourduncan.com/crazy-8/

 

[Marked Man]

They do completely different things tbh. They sound completely different ime. PATD is a lot fatter and thicker sounding, the upper mids aren't as spiky, high end isn't as pronounced. The regular distortion is tighter and faster responding on the low end.
If you like nasty doom/sludge tones, go with a PATD.
If you want thrash/black metal/death metal/djenty tones, go distortion.

Nailed it.

I also describe the PATD as a bit wooly under heavy gain, which does NOT apply to the Distortion. The PA is not for guitars that lack clarity or brightness.