odibrom
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... If you only knew the power of the dark side of the force... I mean, the power of tone change a pot's value has... The difference is bigger than going from a Dimarzio Blaze to a D-Sonic 7 for example... in my experience. It really opens the spectrum of a guitar's tone, if higher value, and is WAY cheaper, but people like the marketing bullshit brands vomit to ID what a pickup sounds like. There is no magic nor fairy dust involved in pickup making, only parameters that are combined differently and they all interfere in the final result, even the pole-pieces material and shape/geometry/size interferes with the pickup's perceived tone and power.
Maybe, instead of looking for what brand makes the better pickup, one should investigate on how a pickup works, how it's build and how to tailor its tone and power.
Here are some thoughts of what I've found along the years (I'm no pickup maker).
1 - Over-wound pickups (means bigger DCR readings) tend to sound fatter, more compressed and less dynamic
2 - Wounding wire type/gauge and winding method plays a significant role in the tone: vintage (bigger gauge) wire tends to sound broader while more modern wire (thinner gauge) will tend to sound more focused. It's about the same with winding method, vintage style (scatter winding) will kind of sound broader, while modern winding may sound more focused.
3 - Magnet type and power plays a huge role in tone and overall power. More power isn't necessarily better and today's amps have a huge gain sweep to compensate lower output pickups (clearer sounding, in my opinion).
4 - Coil geometry (larger or taller) plays a considerable role in pickup's tone, larger coils will tend to sound broader while thinner might tend to sound surgical?...
5 - Paraffin bath time plays a significant role in the pickup's dynamics and tone.
6 - Baseplate material is important so it reflects more (or less) the magnetic field towards the strings, managing how a pickup reacts
7 - Pole piece material, shape and size are fine tuning tools, as is their setup (higher/lower or close/further away from the strings).
8 - Cover material interferes with the magnetic field if it is from a metal alloy. If it's plastic, it will keep the pickup's coil geometry about 1 or 2 mm further away from the strings when compared to uncovered pickups, which will then interfere with the pickup's dynamics, power and tone.
All this is valid for passive pickups... and this all goes through the filter that a pot is. The higher the pot's value, the more high end frequencies content will pass through it and into the amp, independently from the pot's position (open, closed or in between). In order to TRULY listen to a pickup, one should have a blower switch, which bypasses all electric components a guitar might have, shorting the pickup directly to the jack.
A high pass filter (in its different possibilities), acts mostly when the pot is not fully open, when rolling of a bit to get different dynamics with the amp, allowing more high end frequencies to pass through.
Active pickups will have the tome tailored with their internal/built in preamps. With these, battery voltage interferes a huge amount in the pickup's dynamics and pot's value might be not so relevant.
...............
With all these pickup changes OP have experimented with, my understanding is that the real problem is at the pot, which might be a bit too low value.
Remember that it's impossible to have exactly a 500k ohm pot, their industrial making oscillates in between 10 to 20% value margin. The difference is in the time it is taken to test the pots for their value. Cheaper pots will have larger margins while more expensive ones will have smaller ones. A 10% value margin means that a pot branded at 500k ohms might in fact measure from 450k to 550k ohms, which is a lot and justifies why some guitars sound better than other, where all the rest is exactly the same.
...............
Then there's the big sized pots against the small sized ones (diameter size and therefore the housing size). I bet few of us could ID which is which in a blind test (I probably wouldn't) where every other play variable is locked. I like to think that due to the resistance membrane travel of larger pots being bigger than on the smaller ones (bigger diameter therefore bigger perimeter/travel), the larger pots will have more definition, like going from a 4K monitor (larger pot) to a full HD monitor (smaller pot).
... Pickup Brand branded pots are re-branded from pot makers and have very thigh value margin, hence their higher price tag. Pickup brands sell pickups, not pots, so their marketing is aimed at that, at de-valuing the significant change a pot has in the pickup's overall tone, they'd sell less pickups this way... and the guitar market is a very small slice of the pot makers overall money pie. So small that they don't even bother in marketing...
...............
So, my suggestion is to:
1 - Try out different volume (and tone) pots and with different high pass filters installed.
2 - Retest (if possible) most of the previously tested out pickups
3 - Contact a pickup manufacturer near you and ask for your own custom pickup, speak from the heart about your needs and make sure he understands what your context is, like where other pickups have fell short, what your needs are and the rig you'll be using... and don't forget the pots' values...
Going custom in pickups is not that expensive if you don't go crazy with aesthetics and sizes.
Maybe, instead of looking for what brand makes the better pickup, one should investigate on how a pickup works, how it's build and how to tailor its tone and power.
Here are some thoughts of what I've found along the years (I'm no pickup maker).
1 - Over-wound pickups (means bigger DCR readings) tend to sound fatter, more compressed and less dynamic
2 - Wounding wire type/gauge and winding method plays a significant role in the tone: vintage (bigger gauge) wire tends to sound broader while more modern wire (thinner gauge) will tend to sound more focused. It's about the same with winding method, vintage style (scatter winding) will kind of sound broader, while modern winding may sound more focused.
3 - Magnet type and power plays a huge role in tone and overall power. More power isn't necessarily better and today's amps have a huge gain sweep to compensate lower output pickups (clearer sounding, in my opinion).
4 - Coil geometry (larger or taller) plays a considerable role in pickup's tone, larger coils will tend to sound broader while thinner might tend to sound surgical?...
5 - Paraffin bath time plays a significant role in the pickup's dynamics and tone.
6 - Baseplate material is important so it reflects more (or less) the magnetic field towards the strings, managing how a pickup reacts
7 - Pole piece material, shape and size are fine tuning tools, as is their setup (higher/lower or close/further away from the strings).
8 - Cover material interferes with the magnetic field if it is from a metal alloy. If it's plastic, it will keep the pickup's coil geometry about 1 or 2 mm further away from the strings when compared to uncovered pickups, which will then interfere with the pickup's dynamics, power and tone.
All this is valid for passive pickups... and this all goes through the filter that a pot is. The higher the pot's value, the more high end frequencies content will pass through it and into the amp, independently from the pot's position (open, closed or in between). In order to TRULY listen to a pickup, one should have a blower switch, which bypasses all electric components a guitar might have, shorting the pickup directly to the jack.
A high pass filter (in its different possibilities), acts mostly when the pot is not fully open, when rolling of a bit to get different dynamics with the amp, allowing more high end frequencies to pass through.
Active pickups will have the tome tailored with their internal/built in preamps. With these, battery voltage interferes a huge amount in the pickup's dynamics and pot's value might be not so relevant.
...............
With all these pickup changes OP have experimented with, my understanding is that the real problem is at the pot, which might be a bit too low value.
Remember that it's impossible to have exactly a 500k ohm pot, their industrial making oscillates in between 10 to 20% value margin. The difference is in the time it is taken to test the pots for their value. Cheaper pots will have larger margins while more expensive ones will have smaller ones. A 10% value margin means that a pot branded at 500k ohms might in fact measure from 450k to 550k ohms, which is a lot and justifies why some guitars sound better than other, where all the rest is exactly the same.
...............
Then there's the big sized pots against the small sized ones (diameter size and therefore the housing size). I bet few of us could ID which is which in a blind test (I probably wouldn't) where every other play variable is locked. I like to think that due to the resistance membrane travel of larger pots being bigger than on the smaller ones (bigger diameter therefore bigger perimeter/travel), the larger pots will have more definition, like going from a 4K monitor (larger pot) to a full HD monitor (smaller pot).
... Pickup Brand branded pots are re-branded from pot makers and have very thigh value margin, hence their higher price tag. Pickup brands sell pickups, not pots, so their marketing is aimed at that, at de-valuing the significant change a pot has in the pickup's overall tone, they'd sell less pickups this way... and the guitar market is a very small slice of the pot makers overall money pie. So small that they don't even bother in marketing...
...............
So, my suggestion is to:
1 - Try out different volume (and tone) pots and with different high pass filters installed.
2 - Retest (if possible) most of the previously tested out pickups
3 - Contact a pickup manufacturer near you and ask for your own custom pickup, speak from the heart about your needs and make sure he understands what your context is, like where other pickups have fell short, what your needs are and the rig you'll be using... and don't forget the pots' values...
Going custom in pickups is not that expensive if you don't go crazy with aesthetics and sizes.
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