Pickups are more than the sum of their parts.
They affect feel and sound.
They can be amp and guitar dependent.
I'm a dimarzio humbucker fan. I can always find what I need from them.
How I choose my pickups (and I usually nail it first or 2nd time):
1 I play the guitar unplugged tobsee what it's missing. Mids? Lacking bass? Very thin? Too middy? Etc.
2. How is the attack envelope? Is it stiff and immediate responding? Or kinda tame and elesticy?
3. I choose the power range I want
4. I look for pickups that either balance or accentuate what I want from the guitar. Feel and how harmonically "alive" a pickup is, is super important.
5 I install and adjust them. If this goes well, I tweak amp or pedal eq to suit.
The one thing you can't adjust is how the pickup feels.
A good example is duncan full shreds. I got them for my rg921, a balanced but bright guitar with a faster attack unplugged. I hated them. The FS set accentuated those traits.
However, in my thicker sounding rg520qs with its mellower attack, they were absolutely amazing. Here, I added some bass at the amp to give the bridge a bit more bottom end thickness. This was my favorite application of them.
I just started using a 10 band eq in my gx100 patches. It's great to have versatility.
So, I guess I can say the guitar/pickup combo sets the base eq range or pattern for your rig, your eq tweaks that base curve, the adjustments set relative volumes and feel.
How well a pickup picks up harmonics is the only thing you really have no control over. They either have that or they don't.
They affect feel and sound.
They can be amp and guitar dependent.
I'm a dimarzio humbucker fan. I can always find what I need from them.
How I choose my pickups (and I usually nail it first or 2nd time):
1 I play the guitar unplugged tobsee what it's missing. Mids? Lacking bass? Very thin? Too middy? Etc.
2. How is the attack envelope? Is it stiff and immediate responding? Or kinda tame and elesticy?
3. I choose the power range I want
4. I look for pickups that either balance or accentuate what I want from the guitar. Feel and how harmonically "alive" a pickup is, is super important.
5 I install and adjust them. If this goes well, I tweak amp or pedal eq to suit.
The one thing you can't adjust is how the pickup feels.
A good example is duncan full shreds. I got them for my rg921, a balanced but bright guitar with a faster attack unplugged. I hated them. The FS set accentuated those traits.
However, in my thicker sounding rg520qs with its mellower attack, they were absolutely amazing. Here, I added some bass at the amp to give the bridge a bit more bottom end thickness. This was my favorite application of them.
I just started using a 10 band eq in my gx100 patches. It's great to have versatility.
So, I guess I can say the guitar/pickup combo sets the base eq range or pattern for your rig, your eq tweaks that base curve, the adjustments set relative volumes and feel.
How well a pickup picks up harmonics is the only thing you really have no control over. They either have that or they don't.