Does anyone have any experience with schecter pickups? The 7 string I'm looking at uses those and I'm wondering how they sound

[PietrOo]

Hey everyone, I was looking into buying a used schecter Tao, but I took a look at the electronics and saw it has its own pickups.

In my previous experience with an Ibanez I had to switch out the stock pickups because they sounded like dogshit to me (I slapped titans on it because I'm a Periphery andy).

I'm just wondering if I'll have to invest in new pickups if I get this guitar cause it's already kind of expensive out of the box.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Hey everyone, I was looking into buying a used schecter Tao, but I took a look at the electronics and saw it has its own pickups.

In my previous experience with an Ibanez I had to switch out the stock pickups because they sounded like dogshit to me (I slapped titans on it because I'm a Periphery andy).

I'm just wondering if I'll have to invest in new pickups if I get this guitar cause it's already kind of expensive out of the box.

If they're labeled Diamond pickups, they're cheapo pickups made by the same OEM as other cheapo pickups.

But these aren't. They're USA made in Schecter's own custom shop. As for impressions, idk lol. I've only seen one person talk about them but they're apparently leaning more towards BKP's offerings.

 

[Mike]

Idk about the ones that come in diamond series or Tao specifically, but the Super Rock J Schecter pickups that come in their Japan series guitars are absolutely incredible. I have 3 guitars with them that I have zero interest in swapping and I swap a lot of pickups.

As far as I can gather, super rock's are either wound in the US shop or Japan. The Tao pickup set being wound in the US leads me to believe they're at least somewhat better and more tailored to the guitar than the basic, "we gotta put something in there" pickups other models are loaded with.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Idk about the ones that come in diamond series or Tao specifically, but the Super Rock J Schecter pickups that come in their Japan series guitars are absolutely incredible. I have 3 guitars with them that I have zero interest in swapping and I swap a lot of pickups.

As far as I can gather, super rock's are either wound in the US shop or Japan. The Tao pickup set being wound in the US leads me to believe they're at least somewhat better and more tailored to the guitar than the basic, "we gotta put something in there" pickups other models are loaded with.

It gets SORTA confusing becuse the Super Rock II pickups are made in Korea/China/Indoesia/one of those 3. On the other hand It's easy to tell the differences since the USA Super Rocks are bare bobbins, Super Rock IIs say "SCHECTER" on the south bobbin, and Super Rock J pickups are oval-shaped bobbins with white tape around the coils.

But yeah the Tao pickups are interesting because while previous Schecters seem to have more emphasis on the lows and mids, the Tao pickups seem more djenty with a lot of high mids and treble? So given you wanna go for that modern djenty djent djent sound, I think you're good to go.

 

[arasys]

I have Brimstone set in my USA PT 7, it has huge amounts of gain but never gets muddy with ceramic & barium magnet. When split, you can definitely get strat tones out of it with tone, and volume knobs rolled back. When I first got the guitar last year, my initial impression was "whoa this is waaay too much gain", but over time I got use to it and appreciate how versatile it is. I think Brimstones can easily cover quite a bit of range. I find them somewhat similar to Dimarzio D-Activators.


If I remember correctly Pasadenas are like PAF with extra gain, and Sunset Strip is based on Seymour Duncan JB.

 

[The Monster With .]

I have the brimstone set as well. I've tried them in a few guitars and they've never worked for me, but they don't sound like muddy crap stock Ibanez pickups.

I bet the pickups in that guitar will sound great. If you don't like them, I'll trade you some Brimstone.

 

[Zado]

Great pickups, I far prefer them to most BKP and Duncans I've tried. I'm not into 0-0-0-0-0-0 tho

 

[Hoss632]

If it's the current Schecter Tao which is John Browne's signature model they are Schecter USA pick ups which are on par with any aftermarket stuff. That set are based off the Bare Knuckle's john used on his Mayones signature, which was a ceramic nailbomb bridge and cold sweat in the neck if I recall correctly. He tweaked the voicing more to his current tastes.

 

[thraxil]

On a modern higher end Schecter, they should be great. Low end Schecters from the early '00s, they were terrible (the "diamond series" stuff as mentioned previously), muddy, and not worth keeping.

 

[Zado]

That set are based off the Bare Knuckle's john used on his Mayones signature, which was a ceramic nailbomb bridge and cold sweat in the neck if I recall correctly

Really?

 

[Hoss632]

Really?

John himself said in a thread on this forum that they were modeled after Bare knuckles he played. I figured since it was the nailbomb/coldsweat combo that he had in his old mayones sig that it possibly was something based on those.

 

[Zado]

John himself said in a thread on this forum that they were modeled after Bare knuckles he played. I figured since it was the nailbomb/coldsweat combo that he had in his old mayones sig that it possibly was something based on those.

Very interesting then. Wish his Schecter set was avaiable used

 

[A.JohnHayes]

John himself said in a thread on this forum that they were modeled after Bare knuckles he played. I figured since it was the nailbomb/coldsweat combo that he had in his old mayones sig that it possibly was something based on those.

If I recall correctly, they accidentally used an Alnico V Nailbomb, and so John’s Schecter bridge is also Alnico V. He said he likes it despite usually preferring ceramics.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

John himself said in a thread on this forum that they were modeled after Bare knuckles he played. I figured since it was the nailbomb/coldsweat combo that he had in his old mayones sig that it possibly was something based on those.

Where? All I saw is that he said they were better than the BKPs he uses.

 

[yan12]

Schecter USA pickups are fantastic, and I put them in all my guitars. I think they are sleepers for many folks.

They do a great job of matching the pickups to the guitar at the factory, but in general us guitarists like to tinker so who knows what your ears will hear.

My ugliest guitar is named "Tuco #6". I put some Schecter apocalypse snakeskin (real snakeskin) pickups in it, and it is absolutely one of my best sounding guitars. Apocalypse pickups in a basswood prestige small dot...the guitar rips.

Tuco #6 came to life with those pickups, and it has been rebuilt several times. Don't be afraid to change pickup height too before you make decisions.

 

[Hoss632]

Where? All I saw is that he said they were better than the BKPs he uses.

Slight mix up. It wasn't on here that he said it. It was in a gear run down interview he did with pmtvuk. I left a link. It's the very last section of the video where he talks about it.

 

[Necky379]

If I remember correctly Pasadenas are like PAF with extra gain, and Sunset Strip is based on Seymour Duncan JB.

Pasadena is their Eddie PAF, Sunset Strip is their Custom, Pasadena Plus is their JB.

I had the Apocalypse 7 in my ESP for awhile and have one of their Monstertone singles in my RG middle position. Schecter USA pickups are awesome. I ended up pulling the Apocalypse because it sounded too modern and didn’t have enough low mid grunt but I really did like it. Great clarity, hot output and bright. Monstertone does Knopfler stuff but I find it keeps up well with the higher/mid output humbuckers in that guitar so my pickups are pretty balanced going from bridge to middle to neck.

 

[Zado]

Pasadena is their Eddie PAF, Sunset Strip is their Custom, Pasadena Plus is their JB.

This pretty much sums up. Route 57 is their vintage PAF, Apocalypse is their...not sure, spec wise similar to a Juggernaut, sound wise sorta Super Distortion with more sizzle and high mids, and the Sonic Seducer is their most swapped out humbucker ever.

 

[Emperor Guillotine]

I’m just going to quote myself from a post that I made back at the beginning of this year on a related Schecter thread.

The Schecter USA pickups are actual boutique pickups. They are a whole different beast compared to the cheap, generic, "Schecter branded" in-house pickups that are made in China or Korea and then simply loaded into the lower-tier, lower-cost import models.

The Schecter USA Custom Shop makes pickups that are truly incredibly and on-par with (if not better than) the pickups of other boutique pickup designers. A bonus caveat for us here in the USA is that the pickups are offered at a lower price to us since Schecter is a massive, domestic brand to us; and thus, Schecter can afford to lower profit margins a bit when it comes to selling the pickups individually.

One of the best aspects that Schecter took a gamble on in the past few years was offering their Schecter USA pickups as a stock pickup in some of the selected, new, production-line imports. (They manufacture the pickups in the USA shop and then send them overseas where the pickups are installed during assembly.)

The Schecter USA pickups get severely overlooked because we view Schecter first and foremost as a guitar company, not as a pickup company. What they sell/push is import guitars, but they happen to offer pickups on the side.

The fact that Schecter USA pickups get so often overlooked because of this is honestly a shame. Almost all of the Schecter USA pickups (all the ones that you see with the big, 1/4", flat slugs, aka pole pieces) are based on the designs of Tom Anderson who worked at Schecter as their pickup designer in the 1980s. That man designed some of the greatest pickups ever put into the pickup market back then. Some examples being the original Super Rock and the original Monstertones, both of which have quite a history as far as pickups go.

Anderson later evolved his designs for Schecter into his own self-branded pickups, such as his highly reputed H-Series pickups, that are obviously now offered in his own company's guitars or a la carte. But the Anderson designs that Schecter held on to after Anderson's departure have gradually evolved over time with additional R&D into several models that the Schecter USA shop offers such as the: current Super Rock iteration (always a classic), the San Andreas, the Pasadena, the Supercharger, etc.

Nowadays, with Schecter offering their high-caliber USA pickups as a stock option in some selected import models (of course, at a very minimal premium added to the MSRP price), it's really making some of the newer Schecter models absolutely killer bang-for-the-buck, ready to rip right out of the box. The new Reaper models that dropped last year come stock with Schecter USA San Andreas pickups. Aaron Marshall was rocking a San Andreas set in his personal Schecter builds before his signature models were released. The AM-6 and AM-7 come loaded with brand new, custom-voiced pickups that Schecter calls the Schecter USA Solstice and Schecter USA Equinox. The new John Browne signature Tao models that we're discussing in this thread come loaded with brand new, custom-voiced pickups exclusive to his models called the Schecter USA Colossus and Schecter USA Chaosbreaker. The old Schecter Traditional model has recently been revamped and comes loaded with a pair of Schecter USA Z-Plus pickups.

You get the point here...

TL;DR - The Schecter USA pickups are absolutely killer pickups, especially the ones that are evolutions of Anderson's pickup designs from back in the day.

 

[yan12]

I actually just played a CS pt-7 with sonic seducers...very clean sounding.

I hear they have been swapped out quite a bit, but if I end up with this guitar I will keep them and post back.
Hard to tell if I like them until I play them through my rig for a bit.