Looking for pickup advice

[Morgan138]

I know there are people on here who have tried a ton of pickups and have a sense of how different ones will interact with different guitar woods. I'm thinking of doing some work on a guitar and would love some suggestions - the search function wasn't coming up with anything besides very general advice (and won't accept "JB" as a search term), so sorry if this has been covered before. Anyhow...

Right now I'm mostly playing a Jackson V (basswood body, maple bolt-on neck, rosewood fretboard) with a JB in the bridge spot. My other guitar is an old Ovation Breadwinner (mahogany body and bolt-on neck, ebony fingerboard, totally rewired) with a Rio Grande Crunchbox in the bridge spot. Unplugged, the Breadwinner sounds even while the Jackson has more midrange - less clarity up high, kind of a clunky low-mid peak, and pinch harmonics come out more easily. On the other hand, once I plug them in (Carvin V3 through V30s) the Jackson has more focus, especially on harmonics and palm mutes; the Breadwinner just sounds kind of noisy, thin, and a bit unresponsive by comparison.

I feel like the Breadwinner could be a good metal guitar - it's really comfortable, plays much more smoothly than the V, sounds good unplugged, and has way better upper fret access, but the Rio Grande pickup seems wrong for the job. I've considered just getting another JB, but are there other ones that would complement the Breadwinner the way the JB does the Jackson? I also don't want to make them sound the same; if anything I'd rather have two good but different-sounding guitars for more variety in the studio.

Any suggestions?

 

[NickL]

Basswood is one of the most mid-rangey guitar body woods, whereas mahogany actually naturally compresses the mids a bit. But mahogany has a lot more bass response than basswood does. Usually in a mahogany guitar you would want to have a bright pickup to make up for its natural darkness, but it sounds from your description that maybe your current pickup is a little too bright? JBs usually work well in mahogany guitars, though. I wouldn't see any problem in trying one out, but if you're looking for something different maybe a duncan full-shred or one of the standard EMGs (81, 85...)

 

[gorath23]

Bare Knuckle. Possibly Nailbomb which is quite bright, sounds very thick and awesome in my Les Paul.

 

[Morgan138]

Usually in a mahogany guitar you would want to have a bright pickup to make up for its natural darkness, but it sounds from your description that maybe your current pickup is a little too bright?

I think it may be more a question of tightness than a lack of frequency response - through a clean amp the Breadwinner has clearer highs, a fuller, smoother low end, and a more natural ringing sustain; the Jackson has a dry upper midrange "clang" and lower midrange "clunk" that I really don't like clean, but sound great distorted. The Crunchbox is definitely a loud pickup (seems to be a bit hotter than the JB) but doesn't seem like it was designed for high-gain playing.

I guess I'm a little bit worried that putting a JB in the Breadwinner will cancel out the things I like about it, and possibly still not make it as good sounding as the Jackson (since it's starting out with a pretty different sound). But I'm probably being paranoid.


The Bare Knuckle and Nailbomb are made by some UK company, right? I'll look into those, although I'm guessing they won't be cheap in the States.

 

[ericwylde]

Bare Knuckle. Possibly Nailbomb which is quite bright, sounds very thick and awesome in my Les Paul.

+1

i didn't play the nailbomb, but i have a holy diver, a miracle man, a cold sweat neck and played the painkiller and the warpig

i had over 10 pickups made by gibson, duncan, emg, bill lawrence, gotoh from 3 different decades, mighty mite

nothing gets close to the BKP's organicity and clarity

a set costs about 275-280 US dollars + shipping (around $15) direct from their website
forget the ebay and US stores prices

 

[LSD-Studio]

the rio grande thin and noisy??

there are only two possibilities
1. the pup is broken
2. (and I think that's more likely) it's wired as a singlecoil

I'd check the wiring of the rio grande first, cause those pickups are really good usually

 

[Tommy Gun]

I use JB's in both my Gibson flying V's (solid Mahogany) and I love the way they sound. I've used them for years. AND I get a great clean tone from them. I think they are safe bet, and you can guarantee that the 2 guitars won't sound the same, even with JB's in both. Passive pickups will only enhance certain tones already found in the wood and build of the guitar, where as actives completely mask the guitars natural tone. My suggestion is to try the JB, especially if you are already familiar with it, from your Jackson. Putting it in a Breadwinner could open up a whole new world of tone for you. Good luck with your decision.

 

[Metaltastic]

where as actives completely mask the guitars natural tone.

You know, I would really love to find out who started this myth, cuz it is absolutely BS - I have EMG's in each of my guitars (an LTD EC-400, Mahogany w/ Mahogany neck; & Ibanez RGT42, neck-thru five-piece maple/walnut with mahogany wings), and when I had the 81 in the bridge of both (I now have an 85 in the bridge of my RG), they sounded COMPLETELY different from one another (EC was full and warm, RG was bright, almost brittle, as of course anyone would expect). A pickup is a pickup, it just converts the sound into electrical signals, and the fact that EMG's are active just means they do it with greater clarity.

 

[Tommy Gun]

You know, I would really love to find out who started this myth, cuz it is absolutely BS - I have EMG's in each of my guitars (an LTD EC-400, Mahogany w/ Mahogany neck; & Ibanez RGT42, neck-thru five-piece maple/walnut with mahogany wings), and when I had the 81 in the bridge of both (I now have an 85 in the bridge of my RG), they sounded COMPLETELY different from one another (EC was full and warm, RG was bright, almost brittle, as of course anyone would expect). A pickup is a pickup, it just converts the sound into electrical signals, and the fact that EMG's are active just means they do it with greater clarity.

If that's true, then I stand corrected. I have only experimented with active pickups and I fell for the JB early-on. So, mostly I've gone off of what other guitar players have told me. (...Mostly EMG users too.) Either way, I am by no means "against" the use of active pickups. I would definitely like to own an EMG 81/85 equipped axe at some point, if only for another tone option in the studio.

 

[NickL]

This is what I've found with actives: The type of wood is much more important than the actual build of the guitar. A mahogany ESP viper with EMGs will sound very similar to a mahogany Jackson soloist. But neither of them will sound like an alder Caparison. Catch my drift?

 

[Tommy Gun]

This is what I've found with actives: The type of wood is much more important than the actual build of the guitar. A mahogany ESP viper with EMGs will sound very similar to a mahogany Jackson soloist. But neither of them will sound like an alder Caparison. Catch my drift?

I hear ya. So, the active pickup only really captures the tone of the TYPE of wood immediately surrounding it, where as the passive generally pickup on the BIGGER picture?

 

[Metaltastic]

I'd say the opposite, though what Broodwich meant was unclear...

 

[Tommy Gun]

I think I'm finding out where the "myth" comes from. It's actually not that active pickups "mask" the tone of a guitar. People just started assuming that because an active pickup does not rely quite as much on which wood is used. A passive pickups tone varies greatly depending on what the guitar is made from. An active pickup will still vary tonally, based on the type of wood, but not quite as drastically. And, with an active pickup/preamp, you have more tonal control.

 

[NickL]

OK let me try to elaborate here. I myself own a mahogany viper and my friend owns a mahogany jackson soloist. However, I have a friend with a caparison and an ESP M-II, both made of alder. All four guitars run EMG 81s in the bridge position. (Although I wired an 85 into the bridge of the soloist, which my pal immediately switched back because he's a stubborn jackass...) Anyway, the mahogany guitars sound nearly identical to each other and the alder guitars sound identical to each other, but when a/b-ing a mahogany guitar vs an alder guitar the difference is much more noticeable. Not exactly what I'd call night and day though. So I guess what I'm saying is I've found that EMG-loaded guitars have a similar sound but to say that the components in the guitar won't change the sound at all is bullcrap. When I get my Eclipse II I'm going to look into this a bit further but the ebony fingerboard on it is going to make it a less-than-scientific comparison.

 

[Morgan138]

I ended up picking up a Full Shred fairly cheap, but so far I'm not too impressed - compared to the JB in the basswood Jackson it has more fizz and WAY less low end, but actually sounds less "crisp" in spite of the increased brightness. I'm sure some of that is due to the guitars themselves (unamplified pinch harmonics definitely pop out way more easily on the Jackson), but the lack of low end seems to be a pickup thing because the Air Norton in the Breadwinner's neck spot has plenty of bass.


LSD - I think the Rio is wired okay, and what I'm hearing as "thin-ness" and "noisiness" is just the extra high treble it has compared to the JB/basswood combination in the Jackson. Maybe the ceramic vs. alnico thing is partly to blame? I'm going to give it a second chance because I think it sounded better than the Full Shred, anyhow. I guess if I want to be really thorough I should swap pickups between the two guitars, hm.


Thanks for the input, everyone!

 

[NickL]

forgive me for asking, but have you tried fucking with the pickup height at all?

 

[Morgan138]

I haven't really messed around with the height much - for the bridge I usually set it fairly high, and then plug into a clean amp and adjust the polepieces to get the volume more or less even from string to string. What did you have in mind?

 

[NickL]

Well I probably should have mentioned that the Full-Shred is really a lead pickup, it's cut is great but it's certainly not bass city. Since you said you were looking for different studio flavors, might I suggest using the Jackson to track rhythms and the Breadwinner for leads? Otherwise maybe let's get an idea of what sort of different sound you'd want the breadwinner to have and we can help you find something else.

As for pickup height, I find 1/16" to be a good distance for non-actives but it's not set in stone. You're probably fine there.

 

[Headof75]

Another thing, are you paying any attention to the output of the pickups?

Forgive me if I'm asking a silly question, but that is quite important. And yes, pickup height is crucial, especially with passives. As a rule of thumb, you should depress the strings at the highest fret and measure the distance between pole piece and string bottom. Bottom string should be around 1/16", top 3/32". Start there and adjust in small increments to find your sound - higher pickup gets more full on but loses definition and eventually becomes a godawful mess, lower loses signal and can get too weak if you're not careful.

 

[Morgan138]

Broodwich - setting the two guitars up for lead vs. rhythm would make sense, but the thing is that the Jackson is the only one with a tremolo bridge, so I'd end up doing at a lot of leads on it no matter what. But it's also the one I'm most comfortable with live right now, so I don't want to set it up as a pure solo machine. I guess the problem is that I don't really have a definite sound in mind for the Breadwinner aside from wanting it to not sound "worse" than the Jackson.

Headof75 - I tried to balance the pickup output in a fairly un-scientific way; the EQ unit I run before my head has a clip light, so I would hit loud open chords and chug the low D on each guitar, and twiddle the input gain till the EQ was just below clipping. The Full Shred actually had to be turned down a tiny bit compared to the JB; I'm not sure how much of that is the pickup and how much is the fact that the Breadwinner has newer strings and is generally more resonant than the Jackson.

Also, by "bottom string" do you mean the highest-pitched one? Because otherwise I've been doing the opposite, and giving the lower-pitched strings more clearance than the higher ones. I've also been making my (approximate) measurements off an open string, not one fretted at the 24th. Thanks for the tip, I'll take some more measurements.


Oh, and there's another thing I forgot to mention: this hasn't been the case with pickups I've done it to in the past, but could putting a nickel cover over the Full Shred have drastically changed its tone? I think I did a fairly proper job of it (couple of drops of wax to avoid microphonics, soldered it to the pickup in two places).