Why is pickup technology so slow to evolve?
- Thread starter LexMentis
- Start date
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Somehow everyone forgot about lace alumitones, they are built significantly different compared to other passive/active pickups and they are probably closest to "ideal hifi pickup" there is but that doesn't mean it's what the guitarists really need
spudmunkey
Well-Known Member
I never actually realized that they were anything unconventional beyond the aesthetics.
TedEH
Cromulent
I don't know why but "hifi" doesn't strike me as an appealing description for a guitar sound. Then again, I suppose it would be easier to filter out what you don't want, rather than try to add something that your pickups just aren't providing.
Exactly - they give exceptional clarity and are somewhat sterile, some people dig it, some don't.
spudmunkey
Well-Known Member
If you think about it, that's exactly how passive guitar controls work anyway..just taken a step further. We refer to them incorrectly...they don't go from 0-10, they can only cut, they don't boost...so they really go from -10 to 1. It's why some people put "blower" switches on their guitars or one of the reasons they skip tone controls.
odibrom
.
I some years ago (10+ I think) I emailed them asking for what kind of wiring extravaganza one could do with those pickups, specially combining neck and bridge ones. I was told there could only be a parallel mix because of the way those pickup work. To me, so far, conventional passive pickups are where the fun is. With a 2 hum guitar I can get a huge amount of different tones to play with, not just the "Neck, mix and Bridge" combos everyone use. The way these combos interact with the amp is just magical for forgetting where one is. They change the way the amp sounds, specially on low gain settings (entering distorted tones), it's like the amps' distortion texture changes with the pickup combination.
I was super curious on those Alumitones also because of their design, but I got turned of by the limited wiring possibilities. I still love the passive humbucker's inner coils in series, it's seriously an under the radar tone that works super well for the "in between" bridge and neck full humbucker tones...
Don't forget that pickups change their tones with different volume pot values, a possible way to get that "blower switch" tone without loosing a volume and tone pots is to change them for higher value ones, I've been using 1Mega on ALL of my guitars and won't go back soon.
......
... and how about Q-Tuner pickups? These also sounded "HiFi" (as I've read, but never tried them, so I cannot attest it) but were built with their bobbins rotated 90º (with their "axis" laid down parallel to strings instead of pointing at them)... the clear ones were super cool looking.
Metaluna
SS.org Regular
What about Alumitone pickups? I got a set for a Frankenstrat I assembled and they made that axe come alive, partly by lightening up the body which had felt heavy and dead with massive copper coils I had previously installed. The Alumitones are great for gain (extremely low-noise), are voiced similar enough to a traditional pickup fine weigh next to nothing. seems nobody is using them though.
They have something similar to "coil split" and that gives you basically the same capabilities to regular passive pickups except for out of phase and parallel coils on one pickup so for most people it's plenty enough.
Also like no other pickups they are very susceptible to pickup distance to strings to the point that they might feel like completely different pickups.
odibrom
.
Yes, I know that. To be honest, although some of my guitars have a huge amount of pickup combinations (like 100+ on at least 4 guitars), I mainly use about 6 to 10 of those... but sometimes I like to surf the unexpected with the rest of them...
tedtan
Well-Known Member
What are the six to ten options you find most useful? (I can guess at six or seven, but I suspect that you probably use some out of phase sounds, too).
odibrom
.
Well, for 2 humbuckers I like (not in any switch order nor preference, just listing / counting):
1 - Bridge at full power (series wiring)
2 - Neck at full power (series wiring)
3 - Neck split (either inner or outer coil, depending on the switching available per guitar)
4 - Bridge split (generally inner coil, but sometimes outer coil)
5 - Inner coils in series - sounds like a middle humbucker and is super interesting as an alternative to the common parallel mix of both hums in series.
So, these are my 5 most used options. Most of my guitars also have piezos (either built in from factory or after market) which I often mix with many of these combos. For the guitars without piezos but with more options, depending on the sound I'm looking for, I'll also use:
6 - Neck in parallel
7 - Inner coils in parallel
All the following options are surfed by when randomly jamming at home.
8 - all coils in parallel
9 - all coils in series
10 - any possible combo of 3 coils, either in series or parallel or some in parallel and others in series, either in phase or out of phase (neck out of phase to bridge pickup, I have no guitar with the possibility of having a humbucker switching to out of phase, but I've tried that in the past and there are some very interesting sounds to explore).
11 - some out of phase combo between the neck and bridge pickup, mostly in series, but sometimes also in parallel (very weak sounding, specially in clean tones)
... and then I'll mix all of these with piezos or use piezos alone and drive the sounds from clean to crunch to really dirty via an expression pedal... it's fun, but that's why were here, right?
tedtan
Well-Known Member
Thanks for adding the additional info. I’m planning on rewiring a two humbucker PRS and that helps me think through what I’m looking for out of the new wiring configuration.
Those first seven options are what I would have guessed except for # 5. I do have a Tele with a 4-way switch giving me something very similar to your option # 5 above (neck and bridge single coils in series), but it didn’t even come to mind when thinking through the options for some reason.
For some reason, though, I thought you were using more out of phase combinations. I must be misremembering.
Those first seven options are what I would have guessed except for # 5. I do have a Tele with a 4-way switch giving me something very similar to your option # 5 above (neck and bridge single coils in series), but it didn’t even come to mind when thinking through the options for some reason.
For some reason, though, I thought you were using more out of phase combinations. I must be misremembering.
Zhysick
Well-Known Member
I am really amazed about people using more than 3 sounds on a guitar. 4 at max.
Sometimes I wish I could be patient enough to check all that and enjoy the subtleties but most of the time I feel blessed that dor me 2 positions is good enough...
Sometimes I wish I could be patient enough to check all that and enjoy the subtleties but most of the time I feel blessed that dor me 2 positions is good enough...
HeHasTheJazzHands
Well-Known Member
I still need to try a Deathbucker.
Neon_Knight_
Well-Known Member
Making it quicker/easier to swap pickups over would be a positive (but non-essential) development, but replacing physical connections (wires) with bluetooth is hardly going to improve tone.Like any good politician, I'm going to ignore your question, and give you an answer to something I want to talk about.
I think it would be cool if they invented a pickup that would be just a battery chargeable bar, like an EMG with no wires coming out or something, and you could just side it under your strings, on any guitar, and then it would send a bluetooth signal to a box that would then have a 1/4" out jack to run to your regular amp. That way you could use the same pickup on every one of your guitars. Kind of like the Virtual Jeff tremolo.
I still wouldn't buy it though, because like everyone else said, I don't care enough.
odibrom
.
Thanks for adding the additional info. I’m planning on rewiring a two humbucker PRS and that helps me think through what I’m looking for out of the new wiring configuration.
Those first seven options are what I would have guessed except for # 5. I do have a Tele with a 4-way switch giving me something very similar to your option # 5 above (neck and bridge single coils in series), but it didn’t even come to mind when thinking through the options for some reason.
For some reason, though, I thought you were using more out of phase combinations. I must be misremembering.
I usually prefer a split coil to a parallel wired humbucker. Although many will say these sound similar, they just don't. Coil split is sparky when parallel will feel compressed when these sounds are compared.
With the possibility to mess with 2, 3 and 4 coil combos on my guitars, I think that I can say that the more coils are in use (either in series or parallel or mixed) the more compressed the tone will feel, hence one reason for my preference for the inner coils in series to the conventional both pickups mixed in parallel being each in series.
I also feel that inner coils in series sounds more balanced than outer coils in series which (to me) sound scooped. Inner coils in series are imo a perfect balance between neck in series and bridge in series... way better than all the alternatives...
Oh, super important, I have my pickups installed with the coils in alternate polarity from bridge to neck, so inner and outer coils combos are hum free. Usually I'll have neck south and bridge north as inner coils but the contrary works was well.
Well, when one starts to tinker on the guitars' electronics instead of practicing... things may become a bit crazy...
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Hollowway
Extended Ranger
It's OK, my guitar has a full maple cap over an old wood mahogany body, with an ebony fretboard, and a cocobolo truss rod cover, so my tone still rulez.
TheBolivianSniper
SS.org Regular
lmao I used to be one of those guys with my mockingbirds set up with full EQ controls and splits and shit and then I started playing my stealth too much
as great as the BKP cold sweat is I just don't like neck pickups outside of having a sustainiac so when I do string changes the neck pickups in my metal x and stealth are coming out and that cavity is staying empty
