I think he specifically talks about this stuff in a recording setting. I can tell a difference between pickups in the room, but once it's recorded, those differences are essentially gone.

@chriscampbell9191

3 ай бұрын

Yeah, Glenn had at least one video where he just moved the positions of mics and the tone was different even with the same exact guitar, pickup, amp, etc. So many variables in tone, with so many different ways to get 'there', wherever your 'there' is.

@georgivasilev8428

25 күн бұрын

I think he fails to emphasize that enough tho, and that can be confusing for anyone not enough in the know. For live playing (which is still a thing surprising as it may be, life doesn't just happen on screens) everything makes a difference! Glenn is so adamant about these things as if it's generally untrue that pickups make a difference, or as if the sound in the room isn't something pretty valid to care about!

@chriscampbell9191

25 күн бұрын

@@georgivasilev8428 Makes sense. Basically, the sound starts with your hands and the pickups -- they're the first 'hardware' in the chain, and because of that, they're bound to make a big difference.

I watched this 2x. It is the best verbalization of what I have been after for quite a while. This is why I have several different amps along with several speaker cabs. Different guitars into different amp/speaker combinations. I knew what I wanted and I knew what I liked and now I know why. Many thanks.

@godsinbox

4 ай бұрын

some of it is garbled nonsense but he mentions 'compression', which that other fricken idiot doesnt.

@Cougar139tweak

2 ай бұрын

I think most people that play at less than insane volume levels know, no one can decern much if their ears are bleeding.

Hey Dylan, as usual you give a really clear demo and a concise explanation about why we get the sounds we hear. I have found exactly what you demoed here in my home set up. This has helped me understand what;s going on. My clean amp is Fender Champion 50XL with a Jensen Neo 80 speaker upgrade on Deluxe Reverb mode, and the other an Eganater Tweaker (15 watt 6V6 Tube amp) on the edge of break up. Then when I want more gain I use different pedals into both amps. The Pedals for this are the Soul Food for Boost and/or Overdrive, a current MXR Distortion+ and a Tonebender Mk1 style Fuzz. (I don't dial in Metal type High Gain) My Player Tele, my Classic Vibe Jaguar and Starcaster sound completely different through each of my set ups. I use the Jag and the Tonebender through the Egnater and the Tele through the Fender. The CV Starcaster is a relatively new so it's sonically a work in progress. Cheers

good advice and great explanation on how signal chain goes . . .. and I saw GLenn's video, and you guys are both right in what perspectives / end results you are after.

very good info. got to play my TTG thinline I built last year with your tele bridge and centerpunch for the first time through a PA and yep those mids push through. Thanks so much!

Little mistake: at about 6:23 you play the Les Paul on the bridge pickup (according to the toggle switch position), the text on the screen says "neck pickup". Nevertheless, great video as always!

Great video and beautiful explanation of how hot and low output pickups drive amps. I really like lower output pickups for most guitar applications. And for bass I really like slightly lower output Jazz bass pickups but slightly higher output P-bass pickups. So quick synopsis: For 99% of situations pickups matter, but for that Swedish chainsaw sound not so much. Love your channel, and Glenn's too. You two should do a live q&a together. That would be interesting.

@multishit6664

7 ай бұрын

Even if I was playing death metal.. most pickups are going to suck in studio and live. Why? because they are noisy as hell when not playing..so an active EMG or similar pickups with a preamp and active circuit.. is normally a favorite among metal players.. so yes this glen guy is just some fat turd making divisive bullshit videos for clicks like the rest of yt. He isn't out here producing Defeated Sanity's albums no hes just a neckbeard troll.

I gotta say, between my stock ceramic pickups and the seymore duncan Black Winters I replaced them with... there was a massive shift in tone profile. Way less flabby bottom end, way more bite. Not to mention, the SDs are dead silent. Dead silent. The stock pickups were slightly microphonic and the amp had way more noise.

@greevar

4 ай бұрын

Glenn has never argued against that. Shitty pickups will sound different than properly constructed pickups. What he says is that if you replace one quality pickup with another quality pickup, the difference doesn't justify the expense. Pickups aren't hugely different between each other, when properly built. There is no point in replacing your pickups if they already sound good, as you won't benefit from spending the money. Change out your speaker instead. It's a very complex fixed EQ, and they all have their own unique response.

@Patrick-857

Ай бұрын

@greevar There's a massive difference between a Seymour Duncan Nazgul and a vintage spec PAF. Also actives are definitely very different. Nothing does tight percussive chugging quite like an EMG 81. He's full of crap.

@themeanmachine84

13 күн бұрын

@@Patrick-857 unless you can actually back this up with something more than "I think so" the argument you are making is not valid. Because it doesn't matter what you "think", what matters is what it "is". And to be honest, dude is destroying 99,9% claims like that by just providing the testing while people like you don't provide anything. This is the main difference.

@Patrick-857

13 күн бұрын

@themeanmachine84 Did you check out the channel I mentioned? Best resource for choosing pickups online. I have 20 years of experience with this stuff, and pickups matter. It's probably the best upgrade to a guitar after giving it a good setup and fret job. I've had enough experience with cheap low wind PAF style pickups often found in import Fenders and the like to know there's no way to make these things do the high gain metal thing well. You can get close, by using too much gain, amplifying a bunch of noise ect, but even with a lot of pre EQ to boost mids and tighten it up, they still sound weak and that jangle still pokes through, bit then they can't compete with single coils for cleans. I get better chugs from P90s than those Korean made PAF copies. On the other end of the scale, I swapped out some Fender Japan Dragster pickups, extremely low wind PAF style pickups, for EMGs. The difference was radical. Even at much lower gain these things have so much more punch to them. They sound smooth, pinch harmonics and single note runs just jump out, they're not mushy or muddy, and you can hear every note even with a ton of gain. There's a reason they're on so many rock and metal records. And the best part? No noise. If you try to EQ one of the pickups I mentioned to sound like that you'll fail. It's not possible. Even if you get close, EQs add noise and other undesirable effects. Glenn is supposed to be an engineer right? So why is he promoting a "fix it in the mix" attitude? Every good engineer knows to get the best sound possible at the source. This especially matters with high gain guitar. If you have a weak signal from your pickups you need more gain to compensate, which means more noise. If the EQ curve is not ideal for the tone you're trying to get before distortion, you need to use a tubescreamer or an EQ pedal before the amp, adding noise. All to get something that's not as good as what the right pickup can do on it's own with much lower gain. EQ shouldn't be used to fix issues that are better fixed by getting it right at the source. Pickups are tools, like everything else, and it matters that you use the right tool for the job. Personally I don't see why anyone playing heavy stuff would bother with anything other than an EMG 81 or maybe an 85 in the bridge for something a little more rowdy. But that's a taste thing. Lots of players prefer passives because they don't sound as smooth and precise apparently, even though that's the sound everyone is trying to get with amp sims.

@Patrick-857

13 күн бұрын

@themeanmachine84 Also I've been watching Glenn since the very beginning. He's not the most credible person. He's a nice enough guy, he does know a lot, but I remember when he was dunking on amp sims, until amp sim companies paid him money to promote them, and suddenly he was all about amp sims. He also does a lot of things that are in poor taste. Smashing up the Line 6 Spyder for example. Not cool, most beginner players can't afford a 5150. The Spyder was a wonderful beginner amp, and in the right hands can be used to get some pretty good tones. Same with what he mockingly called the "red bean". The original POD was used by some pretty reputable session players back in the day, and actually ended up being used on quite a few albums. The whole Thall genre pretty much revolves around the "Big Bottom" preset on the POD. He's totally wrong about pickups. I think they are of equal importance to the amp. Of course everyone knows speakers have the largest effect, but no speaker cabinet, no EQ, no amp, in the world can make the pickups on a Squire Bullet Strat sound right for modern metal. You can get close enough to fool people who aren't familiar with this music maybe, but it's not going to sound good. I know this, because that's where I started.

This was very educational! I think I just learned more about pickup use and selection than I ever knew before. Excellent stuff!

Maybe just change the Eq of the Amp, or buy a Eq pedal. Your Pickup lacking Mids ? Answer: Increase the Mids EQ of the Amp. Your Pickup lacking output? Answer increase pickup height or increase the gain of the Amp. Also some pickups have height adjustable pole pieces. Adjust Polepieces side to be brighter or bassier

Great well laid out video, great point at the end. The thing people miss about tone and pickup comparison is that it’s all done in solo. That’s great if you’re just playing at home by yourself but once you step into recording with other instruments, everything changes completely. Instead of sounding great by themselves, guitars must now fit into a mix and your amazing solo’ed sound is now buried and muddy underneath the assault of frequencies competing with it. I feel we should also be considering this when choosing how we shape our tones as players.

Great explanation, this is an area where I could afford to learn more about tone and what is truly affecting it. You have a new subscriber!

Always like your technical explanations. Thanks Dylan.

I see it as kind of like roasting coffee beans. Past the full-city or double crack roast when you get to vienna or french roast, the variety, region and other characteristics of the bean don't matter as much any more. They all converge on the same flavor the darker you go. Fricker's not wrong -- he's just (and he's very clear about this) speaking to a particular segment of the market. High gain sound.

@thisguy2973

10 ай бұрын

Even with high gain, the pickup tone matters. My first 7 string was a shitter Ibanez and there’s a clear difference between the pickups in it versus the pickups in my Jason Richardson 7 string.

@rustyshackleford9557

8 ай бұрын

Beautiful analogy....because folks are often ignorant and they love that triple cracked lol...burned as hell Gawwwwd awwful coffee and wouldn't know or even like a good light roasted bean if their Starbucks gift certificate depended on it. Huey Lewis said it best: " Went downtown to see my cousin, plays guitar; sounds like a chainsaw buzzin'" Sometimes bad IS bad.

@MaGariShun

7 ай бұрын

​@@thisguy2973 The choice of your OD pedal, settings and amp settings should be able to nullify most differences in actual tone or gain. Like clearly there is a difference between a 7k PAF and a 17K ceramic, especially when you plug em straight into the amp. But if you work from the other end, the tone you actually want to hear, most pickups should get you where you want to be if you know how to work your stuff. There also isn't any noticeable difference between your $15 overwound alnico 5 chinese pickup and an actual JB. Glenn's target audience is clearly not seasoned veterans who are scientifically testing their stuff. It's the poor shmucks who pick up their first $300 guitar, sound like shit (because they don't know how to set their amp), and then get recommended $250 pickups on a forum, that probably aren't all that different to what they already have. Turns out 50s era consumer technology consisting of wire wound around a magnet can be replicated pretty accurately in china nowadays. As always with any type of audio gear, people who haven't tested anything and have no idea of the physical processes talk out of their asses with authority the loudest. It's similar to the whole tube snobbery scene. Your 5150 will not sound "warmer" and "tame the fizzy high end" if you swap your stock sovteks with unobtainable NOS mullards. But obviously putting a 12AY7 in V1 is going to have a large impact. When we say "tubes don't matter", we're referring to the former, not the latter. If you are actually able to form a valid counterargument on a technical basis, you are probably not in the target audience anymore

@multishit6664

7 ай бұрын

@@MaGariShun Glen is just a fat troll who made a divisive video and now people are talking about quantum physics.

Ok, ok, nothing to say regarding your points BUT I have to say something about that amazing tone you coaxed out of the LPs neck pickup and the Princeton... Sweet lord!!!!

I like the sound of the Fiore pickups much more than the SS. They have a lot more of that scooped mid sparkly treble vintage Strat tone that I love so much from a Strat neck pickup.

Good ol' Glen is right for his audience. They are all about very high gain. High gain pushes out the uneven harmonics as loud as the even order. With low to medium gain PU's and indeed low to medium gain you get a very rich tone from even order harmonics and especially the first harmonic. The first harmonic is to our ear a near octave up effect. It is what made those old wooden 30's radio's sound so pleasing and rich. Great video Dylan. More please :-)

@DylanTalksTone

Жыл бұрын

Agreed

@davidshafer6388

Жыл бұрын

A class D solid state amp will produce odd order harmonics as the gain increases. A class A tube amplifier will produce even order harmonics. It is imprtant to know the difference because "distortion" is actually harmonics and overtones.

@richardmorris363

Жыл бұрын

If I read the previous comments correctly, even order harmonics are supposed to be more pleasing?

@mooseymoose

Жыл бұрын

@@davidshafer6388 Why do people talk about things they have really no clue about?

@yikelu

Жыл бұрын

He's not even THAT right for his audience. How many metal players do you know of that play exclusively high gain? That never go down to mid gain or clean? His latest review on the HB Headless was sonically USELESS because he only played high gain tones, which by his own admission doesn't really tell you anything. If you're only going to review high gain tones from guitars, you're basically giving a binary review on whether the EQ is sane and how good or bad the noise is. He's right that the speaker in general matters the MOST as it's the primary EQ in a chain that is after all the distortion.

Great video..also thanks for not screaming at us while explaining this

I wondered what you thought when i watched Glenn's video being a pickup builder. Thanks for the video.

@martin-1965

Жыл бұрын

Same - immediately thought of Dylan so it's great to watch this video which is a considered and intelligent response. I guess not all of us want that Norwegian church-burning guitar sound lol 😂

Neat, your test agrees with what Glenn said. Different pickups will sound different when played clean. Now try them all in a dimed Plexi...

@onlyguitar6521

6 ай бұрын

Actually Glenn is now saying that even when played clean they sound the same

@Cougar139tweak

2 ай бұрын

Yeah but, nothing really matters other than the speakers at full volume high gain....most people know that without even testing and even that is debatable (if speakers even matter)

@Patrick-857

Ай бұрын

@Cougar139tweak Your high gain tone will suck with the wrong pedal and boosting and EQing is a band aid. Glenn is supposedly an engineer, and I disagree with his position. I prefer the Joe Barassi philosophy of getting the sound as good as possible as early in the chain as possible. There's a reason 80s players began demanding custom rewinds of PAFs before aftermarket pickups really took off, and a reason why EMGs absolutely took over in the 80s and 90s. Also why all the cool kids are using Fishman Fluances now. I recently bought a beautiful HSS MIJ strat, probably the nicest guitar I've ever owned. But for one thing, the pickups. They are super low wind vintage spec pickups. Cleans are great, apart from the singles having the vintage stagger, which causes my G string to stick out like dogs balls. The problem is no amount of boost or EQ can make them do the high gain sounds I want, which seems a waste considering it's got a nice Gotoh locking trem and a humbucker in the bridge. It only does clean and edge of breakup well, and it's very bright. So I'm changing the pickups. I have owned many guitars and have a huge variety of gear, and nothing can get it to really do the the thing I want. This is coming from someone who uses oddball pickups too. They're nice pickups actually, but wrong for an 80s style shred guitar.

@gt7150

26 күн бұрын

It matters. Pickups, pickup height, rig, speakers - it matters ​@@Cougar139tweak

As a pickup user for a few decades, other aspects of the signal chain have more impact on tone. As long as the pickups have clarity and sufficient signal, unless you want something hotter or less powerful, why change pickups? I have inexpensive guitars with OEM pickups, I have expensive guitars with high end pickups, no reason to change any of the pickups. When I got my first inexpensive guitar, I planned to make it a project guitar, starting with pickups, changing the controls, adding coil split, etc.; I even purchased the replacement pickups; but after playing the guitar for a few weeks I decided there's no need. Minor adjustments in my tube amp and/or effects controls and the guitar sounded good, and as good as my high end guitars with Duncans, DiMarzios and EMGs. It's your money, buy what you want. Speakers, cabs, amps, and any effects, cables, wireless, etc. will make a bigger difference in your tone than replacing pickups that already have clarity and usable signal strength, unless you want something hotter or less powerful. Of course, spending time practicing instead of spending the time it takes to select, buy and install pickups will do even more to improve your tone. IMO

@chriscampbell9191

3 ай бұрын

Agreed. It's amazing what a different overdrive / dirtbox / EQ can do for a guitar's and pickup's sound. And most guitarists have at least one of those in their arsenal.

It’s not all about the sound what I miss in these explanations en discussions en Yell Outs is that they can feel different when playing even if that’s 5% or less that feel can make a difference for sure. Great video and Explanation and nice and relax!

I saw Glenn Fricker's video, and agree the different pickups in that context were mostly inconsequential. In the age of Modelers, digital EQ, and the surgical precision of tone shaping, Pickup designs seem less relevant in general to me.

@DylanTalksTone

Жыл бұрын

this is always an interesting perspective to me because everyone builds tone differently.

@Patrick-857

Ай бұрын

It still matters. Can't EQ in what wasn't there in the first place. Also output matters a lot. Yes you can boost low output pickups, but the results are different and you'll get more noise than with a high output pickup. But then your high output pickup will suck for clean tones and again you won't be able to fix it fully with EQ and rolling off volume. The best of both worlds is actives, but they have their own thing. Glenn is confidently incorrect about a few things. I mean really, he claims to know high gain tone. Well let me see him getting a vintage spec PAF to chug like an EMG 81 can. I'll wait....

A graphic equalizer in your signal chain can replicate almost all of the differences we are talking about. Speaker placement, types of pickups etc.

Just noticed that the other day with my new humbucker equipped Telecaster Deluxe Pro II, vs my Reverend Eastsider S. The Eastsiders Tele Style Single Coil Bridge Pickup was noticeably louder than the Telecaster Deluxe's Humbucker. I thought that there might have been a connection issue with my rig, but it was how the Telecaster Deluxe's Humbucker was compressing.

I have several guitars with different pickup configurations and I noticed if I use the same patch with those different guitars, they don't respond the same way. Some of the lower K ohm humbuckers lose their clarity at higher gain settings. They lack any note definition. That's my take on this...

That was a very informative response to Glen's video, thanks Dylan!

I have an old Jackson Kelly. It had the Jackson branded pickups in it and I was convinced it would sound even better with a Duncan JB in the bridge. The guitar sounded the same afterward. Apparently the Jackson pickup was designed to sound like a JB anyway. This was a swap I regretted since I already liked the sound of the guitar as it was. I also swapped a JB in an old ESP V and it made the guitar sound a lot better since the stock pickups were not great. I hated my EMG guitars at first until I learned how to EQ around them and now I feel like they are just as good as my go to JB/59 combo I normally used.

Mids! That’s where a guitar lives. Boost that level and you’re heard. Dylan- your Silver Sky pickups sounded great!

@JohnDoe9764

Жыл бұрын

Exactly. Good solution for a lead/solo sound is putting an eq pedal in the amps fx loop. You just have to boost the mids a little. Level can stay the same.

@JeanClaudePeeters

Жыл бұрын

@@JohnDoe9764 Exactly. But that would be very cheap and too easy...😁😁

Yes, at last someone with reason. People who believe that pickups don't matter get carried away too much with just listening to the pickups in the mix full of other instruments. When you actually play them you hear and feel the difference at the same time which makes them even more different from each other. How a pickup response feels when you play it, adds to the whole experience. Same with tonewood, when you actually play the guitar you feel the difference as well as hear it. I recently tested two strats made of different woods but same pickups, big difference in sound and response. Another trap these people fall into is that, they make blind sound tests as if they matter at all. What matters is how it feels when you play the different guitars (response + sound), not whether you'd be able to tell which guitar is which in a blind sound test. That's totally useless. As long as you can tell a difference in sound in those blind tests, that's enough to prove that they'll feel way more different when you play them. You don't need to know which one is which. That's only good as a guess game and nothing more.

@DrDanka69

Жыл бұрын

Lol tonewood

@BlakeSpohn

7 ай бұрын

with you till tonewood lol

I liked your explanations a lot and, I played many different pickups, I play high gain amps. When playing very fast riffs, you see it's the tight mid range you want. Yes they pretty much all sound the same but, when you get to play faster riffs than Fricker's video, some pickups are just not cut for the job.

I can appreciate this video response very much. My take on Glenn's essential point is not that there are not different frequency responses between pickups or pickup models, but that the frequency response of the speakers as perhaps the most significant "filter" in the audio chain, dwarfs any pickup nuance (not to mention so do effects and type of amplification). If one is behind a curtain with an LP equipped with a bridge (Gibson) '57 classic and then swaps for a Burstbucker and then a 498 for example, and all other things in the signal chain staying static, it would be almost impossible for anyone to know which pickup is being played; unless one is already familiar with any uniqueness each provides. Maybe said a better way, CHANGING aspects of the signal chain could make any of them sound like the others...hence the claim that they basically don't warrant the focus we place on them.

It is the other side of what I've been saying: clean tones reveal the differences in pickups and guitars best.

It would be cool if you guys got on a video call and talked about different guitar stuff.

The differences with high gain can be pretty slight compared clean tones but certain pickups have been designed for high gain and they definitely have a sound that’s different

@damienalvarez2957

Жыл бұрын

I feel like those pickups have rather unruly low end, which I’d argue could be simulated by turning up your bass dial on your amp.

@MaGariShun

7 ай бұрын

@@damienalvarez2957 On most amps (the mesa mark series being the only exception, really) the tone stack is after the preamp. So if you are not talking about pure power tube distortion, turning the bass down does not influence the distortion character at all (pay if you get mushy distortion from bassy pickups). You tame the bass in the boost pedal. 80% of what OD pedals do in front of high gain amps is just cutting bass to make it tighter.

i took a mim strat pickup the type that has steel slugs and two bar magnets one on each side and i pressed out the slugs and then i removed the alnico2 pole peaces out of a dead 50s era grey bottom and the pressed right in the holes witch i was surprised fit rather well..wen i put the pickup back into the guitar i was blown away how much better they sounded! its much bigger sounding and it can keep up with volume wise with the sd sh6 humbucker in the bridge...so i guess my question is what is the magic behind this and why dose it sound so much better? did i increase the output or did i change the electromagnetic field somehow? its amazing the difference it made!

hope you can do a comparison that normalize volumes before going into the amp low output PUs will be louder and noisier than high output PUs (assume that low output PUs are typically brighter) because low output PUs have more higher base frequency that will mix with harmonies from the amp

In clean tones you do get more variation between pickup to pickup if they are of the same type, single to single, p90 to p90, humbucker to humbucker but that starts to narrow down as you bring in distortion and high gain at which point you only get a noticeable difference depending on the output/hotness of that pickup which make it more or less suitable for that kind of sound. The thrash/black/death metal or djent player won't benefit as much from pickups as they do from the amplifier and speakers, which was Glenn's argument.

Thanks for explaining that, Dylan.

Hi, Would the pickup heights come into play, like lowering a bit reduce the clipping?

@216trixie

Жыл бұрын

Yes.

You are spot on with the points you bring up. Knowing how to dial in the guitar, using volume and tone properly and dialing in your amplifier is very important. With so many digital modeling amps out there today I think a lot of the nuance of pick ups is being lost in the mix.

what is your daw doing in the background? looks like it is auto compressing the waves?

Excellent video! Thank you!

great content. When I record my american special fender sss strat, I use the bridge pickup; otherwise, my guitar gets subsumed in the backing track.

Thank you. Glenn will never agree but I definitely hear differences in pickups. Even in the demo that he did. He also lumped a P90 in with the humbuckers. I had a Les Paul and a Dean LP shaped guitar with reasonable humbuckers. The Gibson sounded way richer than the Dean. The Dean played way better and looked way nicer but the pickups in that Gibson were rich and creamy.

@DrDanka69

Жыл бұрын

Lol you didn’t hear a difference you are just happy this guy made a video to counter Glenn’s because you spent money on your boomer ass Gibson guitar and have to justify that it’s a good guitar

I always preferred lower gain pickups because you can always layer more gain on top. Dylan, are you familiar with Evans noiseless pickups? Jeff Healey and SRV used them. They are my favorite noiseless pickups for Strats but hey are no longer in production. :-(

Did you flip the switch on your LP? The clip said it was in the neck position, but the switch is in the bridge position.

So, what k resistance and what output is best together before it starts to compress

At the 6:27 mark I noticed something wrong. Either your poker chip switch is installed upside down or the description was incorrect. Down position is not the neck pickup on any Les Paul I ever played.

This is the kind of information that makes better consumers out of us all. Thanks!

Hi Dylan!! There was one question. Some descriptions of stacked humbuckers state that the bottom coil is not involved into signal conditioning. Idea for research? 👁 🕵‍♂ 🧑‍🔧

Thank you for doing this.

Great video with great explanations. Use what you have and manipulate your pedals, amps settings to get the sound you like with the pickups you already have. These steps and adjustments will be different depending on the gear combinations. In my opinion thats more important for beginners to realize vs thinking its about brands or spending a bunch of money tone chasing and blaming gear or pickups. There is such thing as a shitty pickup but most cheap guitars with off brand pups usually can get the job done so focus more on your playing and dialing in the amp. As far as amps for clean tones you get what you pay for but at the same time i have never played an amp and thought wow this amp sounds terrible. For amp distortion or overdrive its the opposite. Some amps arent cut out or designed for that sound . If you play mostly clean its way easier to get a good sound without spending money or having to worry with amp types, pedals, expensive amps etc...

Great comparison Dylan!

@JazzRockswithAdam

Жыл бұрын

I play mostly clean and love lots of headroom but don’t like super weak pickups either. I do like lots of midrange to sit in the mix in a live setting. Usually a trio.

He was part right throw a boss hm2 and max out the distortion and I’ve heard others do it and the difference in minor. However clean it makes a big difference, but I know even with a boss od1 into an orange amp in amplitube and a tube screamer with 0 gain to tighten the bottom it’s not that noticeable and my gain stage was more britpop than meshuga I was trying different guitars di’d in for a track I was recording and had different guitars on different track all through the same guitar preset in amplitube I made

I ended trying it out when Glen came out with that video with gain and different distortions. My jackson pickups and emgs ended up sounding the same, except on low gains where they sounds somewhat different

This is an interesting video I know I'm a year late to the party. I was thinking of conducting my own experiment using four of my own guitars, all of which have different voicings. I haven't seen any comparison videos shooting out the voicings of pickups from manufacturers like Fishman, EMG, fender, etc. I'm running into a scenario personally with my schecter Keith Merrow 7 string mkIII. I like the guitar for higher gain tones, but I really find that it doesn't sound great in most clean or edge of breakup tones. I really have to work with the EQ and the volume level of the guitar itself to get anything acceptable.... In comparison I could plug in any other guitar I have on my rack and be far happier with those sounds. I'm wondering if there would be any benefit in changing the Fishman fluence open core classic, and installing something passive instead.

I was shaking my head up and down through this video, agreeing with everything you were saying.

I have a lot of electric guitars and i never had a problem with the sound of the pickups. I have replaced a few but it was just a gamble and probably not better or worse and i play from clean to high gain

Great post!

Love this video!!!

I can only tell what I experienced by myself and I had the impression that even with distortion there can be a huge difference. My first guitar was a B.C. Rick Warlock. A cheap Taiwan one and the pickups sound dull with not many mids. Later I changed them to EMG 81 which hit hard on the heights and distortion but I didn´t like the sound. An average Ibanez with standard sounds way better and well-rounded. Currently, I play an Ibanez Bariton that sounds quite good but I question if a Seymour Duncan Invader or Nasgul may improve it. Especially because I play tuned down to C and I guess the average Pickup isn't made for those deep frequenzes

Would be interesting to hear the higher gain pickups with the volume rolled down. I like a high output bridge pickup because then I don’t NEED an overdrive to get the level of gain I want. I can put one in line if I want to change the tone of the guitar to better match different songs. But I can always roll off some of the guitar’s output when I want to clean things up a bit, or just make a different sound. Yes, pickups make a difference, but I believe a lot of the difference can be made up for with the tone knob on the guitar, and tone controls on the amp.

@MaGariShun

7 ай бұрын

volume knobs do different things to the EQ curve depending on wiring and parts values. it's not just a "reduce output" knob.

I agree with your thoughts on clean setting of pickups. My thoughts on his gain, metal type distortion is that the tone is distorted so much that any guitar begins to sound begins to become a one note rhythm instrument, and the notes or chords being played are barely audible. This is the main reason I don’t like metal. hard rock, acid rock, the precusers to this phenomenon, are still musical and their tone is still audible. Now this is not the problem across the board. This is not the case with Bands like Metallica or AC/DC to name a couple. They use plenty of distortion but stop short of destroying their tone. These bands are among this old guys favorites.

So instead of swapping pickups, get a 10-band EQ pedal and a booster (this if needed) you have every pickup in one :) The DI signal from the pickup is just an EQ curve with a set output mainly controllable at the amp's or audio interface's input. The guitars you demoed here all have different pickup placements, outputs, base output EQ curves etc. Ofc they will sound different when played through the same amp settings... that's why EQ and signal strength matter more than swapping pickups.

Properly interesting. Thank you

I’d like to see a comparison where you somehow equalize volume. Volume difference do funky things to our ears and it would be nice to get that out of the equation.

@DylanTalksTone

Жыл бұрын

All volumes were normailzed to -2 db… like in all my videos. The difference you are hearing is frequency…. Not volume.

To be fair, most of Glenn’s audience is home players and recorders that use tons of moddlers, sims, pedals and plugins, so by that standard it doesn’t matter when no matter the hardware people are using software to imitate the sound they want regardless lol no point in changing pickups if you’re just going to dial in the same sound. For me, I still use actual amps and speakers, so I can see where it may make a difference there for some people. Like as a bass player, it’s easy for me to hear when something is warmer, more twangy, dead sounding, bright, etc in a room setting and depending on what speakers are being used to actually move air. But in software, I can make my cheapest $80 bass sound like my $1,000 bass, or at least very very close to it.

You can do pretty much all of the frequency manipulation with an eq pedal and output differences with the output and gain on something like an mxr 10- band. Not to say aftermarket pickups aren't ever worth it, but for most people, they could get the sound they want with an eq pedal and pickup height adjustment or at least get a better idea of what they want out of a pickup. (The obvious exception being certain pickups that lack clarity at every output, you're not polishing that turd with an eq)

@jamesnicholson6016

9 ай бұрын

@@bloomtikbloom9593 if you ever take look at a frequency analyzer you will see that most notes hit the full spectrum of the eq, just parts that are not overtones of the fundamental will be inherently lower as well as the beginning and end of the note. Boosting frequency 100% works, and you've clearly never used an eq, let alone a large 10 band plus. If you play a single note and move every slider on a 10 band, each band affects every note. When you play a note on the guitar you are not just hearing the fundamental. Edit: Before something stupid is said, I'm obviously not talking about the 24th fret and open low E. Your highest and lowest notes will trail before they hit the other end of the spectrum. But that's inherent to the note being played, not your pickups.

While I agree with Glen that if you're going to distort the shit out of a signal, then yeah pickups don't matter. On clean to overdriven tones it's going to make some difference depending on how the pickup is made and materials. However if you're trying to get a PAF sound for example, then most manufacturers are going to sound pretty similar (whether that be Seymour Duncan, Dimarzio, Tonerider blah blah blah). They're all going to use similar (if not the same) magnet types, wire gauge, amount of turns etc. BTW I did suggest Glen might want to contact you Dylan for a better explanation of why pickups matter than just "I don't hear a difference so don't waste your money".

A while back I commented to Glenn that some pickups had more harmonic content to them. He answered, "What's harmonic content? " That said, I like both of you, both of your channels and appreciate both of your sets of knowledge.

@richardmorris363

Жыл бұрын

Someone is going to make a Harmonic Content pedal. Chock full of … It will actually just be a clean boost. I’ve seen several demos where the unicorn pedal of the week is engaged. The volume goes up, see, it sounds better.

@hxclambfan

Жыл бұрын

He asked you what it was because allot of people just repeat what they've heard and he wants to see if people can actually explain their argument to him. Same thing when people say something sounds "compressed" he says he's asked several times and they just look at him blankly so I think he just does that to see if people actually know what they're talking about.

@216trixie

Жыл бұрын

@@hxclambfan I hear you, but no he actually didn't know what I was talking about.

@216trixie

Жыл бұрын

@@richardmorris363 musical notes are made up of harmonic content. Overtones, some emphasized more than others create what we call tone. Harmonic content is what tone consists of. Okay?

@hxclambfan

Жыл бұрын

@@216trixie oh ok lol.

he said that Pick ups don't matter as much as people think it does in the total tone/sounds coming out of the total signal chain.. in certain circumstances... like in High gain distortion tones.. you can adjust the amp for different tone/sound coming out of the amp through it's speakers. the whole rig matters more than any single part of it.. I can make my tiny Blackstar ID Core stereo 40 sound really big or small depending how I adjust the controls on the amp as well as the guitar I plug into it.. a really extremely upgraded and modded Strat with it's 3 quad rail/coil humms and 6 pots .loaded into the custom made extended brushed stainless steel pick guard with the 6 pots all are audio taper 500K ohm .One each volume and tone with coil splits and the tone bridge tone pot also a P/P to activate the bridge and neck P/Ups together at any time.. to get uncounted tone variations add it to the variety available in the amp as well I have told you of all this before but I still like to Brage of my build anyway as it was my very first and I got what I wanted.. I finally finished the "Stellarcaster" named and made it myself and it works the way i designed it to and sounds better that I thought it would. a cool looking and great sounding unique guitar to begin my guitar making journey through literally building my collection myself. more to come.. n the Tele bridge P/Up you gave me in going into a vintage style "Esquire" (Tele) I will build especially for it and using non traditional materials to make the body and a bought neck.. i don't trust my skills making a good enough neck just yet.. wish me luck.

I was thinking that when I watched his video. With heavy distortion it does sound pretty much the same. I was waiting to see if he would do it clean and or overdriven breakup.

The way I deal with this issue is matching certain guitars with certain amplifiers. I have a few great guitars that sound absolutely like garbage in a few different amps I have. But nobody will tell you this when starting out. I was a young guy and had moved from Ohio to Smyrna Georgia, and was making payments on gear trying to find the tone in my head and all these salesmen that were my buddies , just kept selling me more gear. Never telling me even when I asked about this topic.

Carvin 22 point pickups sound totally different when I put them on my les Paul at the same settings

Very nice rundown.

Once we're in the high-gain regime, things begin to sound somewhat or entirely homogenized. Subtlety and nuance are banished and distortion, volume and sustain rule. For a while now, I have preferred clean to slightly crunchy sounds best. Oh, I was once of the high-gain crowd and my amps and guitars reflected this. However, I have come to appreciate all of that that banished subtlety and nuance. I rejected many very good guitars and amps that were not high-gain enough producing and very much regret that I did so. Live and let live.

edit?? video labels bridge pickups as 'neck'. even for the schecter, which had me wondering whether it had some kinda brad paisley hidden neck pickup

Gear and how you combine it, matters. That's why i don't like humbuckers with Marshalls or lower output single coils with blackface Fenders, pickups need to be balanced with the amp to sound in the right spot, and by example, Strats with a blackface Fender have a terrible problem with sitting in the mix and also, they sound too harsh, they need a much more mid forward amp, like a tweed or a brownface, while a humbucker will end up sounding like pure mud with a very mid forward amp, i like to have some sparkle to give humbuckers some nice definition and that's why i think that a blackface Fender and a humbucker equipped guitar is the perfect marriage.

That is a very thoughtful and nuanced response video. Is that allowed?

I read many of the comments and again concluded what I have known for a long time: You either know how to play or you don't. If you don't know, even the best equipment, guitar, pickup, amplifier... will not help you make music. On the other hand, a good guitarist will take a leg off the kitchen table and make magical music on it. Almost fifty years ago, a guitarist appeared in my country, Radomir Mihajlović, with the nickname "Točak" ("The Wheel"). He released a solo album named after him, and on the album he played a cheap Stratocaster copy, Aria Diamond, and even named a song after her. If someone wants to, he can listen, he will understand what I am talking about. R.M. Wheel - Aria Diamond.

As somebody who has replaced low quality stock pickups that were microphonic, with higher quality pickups that have an amazing signal to noise ratio-- high quality pickups are better than cheap pickups. Are they hundreds of dollars better? That's up to you.

I took Glenn's video as not so much that pickups are all the same, I did notice subtle differences, but were the tones of expensive pickups worth the added several hundred dollar expense. I get that some cheap pickups are awful, and people have their preferences over pickups they've used and liked and why change if you do? But if they don't sound better (subjective) just different, then I don't see the point of paying $300 when under $100 will do. Great video, BTW!

Man I really enjoyed that Fender sound (coming from a metal guy). My 2 cents on this, pickup's matter, but not as much as the companies want you to believe.

While I understood his point about Speakers, Cabinets, and Mic placement, I didn't appreciate the way he went about it. I was legitimately expecting to listen to the differences in the pickups, and he pulled some shenanigans on us with the mics and cabinets. As a guitarist (and not a studio engineer) I like hearing the differences in pickups, even at high gain. Now, in the context of a mix, it probably doesn't matter that much, which I believe is Glenn's point, but to the player it does matter at least somewhat. Hopefully though, by the time you get to the studio to record that metal album, you've got that situation sorted and it's the least of your problems.

I use single coils to make modern metal, pick up sort of matter , but if you know enough, they dont as things be "adapted"and compensated by applying that knowledge i.e. "Single coils ? bro TRUST me you will never hit a pre amp as hard as an EMG with single coils" "I use an OD that adds up to 20 Db from unity, I can get several times louder than an EMG hitting a preamp, next broski myth please?" "but Bro Noise?" "sorry did you just say noise gate?" Honestly I find pick out put less important than the general EQ curve of the pick up itself, Tele pick ups work much better than Strat pick ups for modern metal, because the strat pick ups have much less mids, same with P90's they have far more mids than Strats so work much better for Modern High gain, which unlike many think is really mid heavy and not scooped like Metal was in the 80's

if you are using a metal zone with the dist all the way up mids all the way down it gets hard to tell one pickup from another. to me some pickups are more translucent than others. fender single coils are a good example vs a set of emg 81-85....the emg pickups have a sound of their own and it matters alot less what guitar you install them on.the single coil side the low output lends to sound cleaner and more accurately producing the sound of the vibrating string. so if you have a crap sounding guitar to start out with the emg are the way to go.

He also says that he's specifically talking about humbuckers and heavy gain. he admits there'll be a difference between a humbucker and single coil.,

Pedals and amps matter more than pickups.

@kennyjohnson336

Жыл бұрын

And speakers 😁

@ababilashari9970

Жыл бұрын

*speakers

@sjfjaisncnsa.

Жыл бұрын

agree with you , but got a world of tone from changing my bridge pickup to a nicer one

@Adcock_Guitars

Жыл бұрын

Speakers matter more

@bouzoukiman5000

Жыл бұрын

@@Adcock_Guitars not more than pedals. They're about the same price and a lot easier to add to your rig. Don't get me wrong if your speaker is real junk then yeah

the thing is NOT if there are any differences between single coil -P90 - humbucker - mini humbucker and jazz master pickups and so on. the thing is that if you got a (lets say) Strat with SSS pickups in it, no one will notice the difference in a full mix between those pickups and other after market pickups. if there are any differences they are so negligible that no one will notice them in the mix. actually, in the mix no one will notice if you played MIM fender or silver sky or MIA fender was the body made out of Ash or Poplar or Alder. so if you got 200$ and you want to spend it on your guitar tone you better invest on speaker or EQ pedal or good compressor or other guitar pedals or IR or Power Supply before you consider replacing your pickups. or save for a good mic. it is true to humbuckers as well though the over wound ones do hit the amp pre-amp harder and are (in most cases) compressed and less bright. but it is not a deal breaker and you can make over wound humbucker sound great even in cleans. they will not sound like a single coil pickups and they do not should sound like it. if you are into the single coil sound buy a guitar with true single coil (not humbucker with push pull - this doesn't work most of the time, it is just a gimmick.). if you are into P.A.F buy a guitar with P.A.F. style humbuckers and you would not need after market pickups.

Thank you. This is educating people about pickups. I actually referenced your videos when talking to people on Glenn’s comments. What is interesting is guys with the best high gain tones actually know this stuff.

@ehsanhaq155

Жыл бұрын

Thank you. Also....say what you want, but most guys I know or listen to with good high gain tones....they play one of the following: SD/Dimarzio/Fishman/EMG to name a few. So if you got the money, I always say, go for the name brand pickup. Unless your stock pickups are Kiesel Lithiums or sth 😅

To me when glen says all pickups sound the same, but dude using a heap of gain because he likes high gain is like going to a taste test. Dumping salt on all the food because you like salt. Than say all the food taste the same. If you really wanted to test, if pick ups make a difference, why would you use overdrive/distortion/ high gain. To me that is just disguising the data until they both sound the same

I don’t understand why pickups are such a huge topic today…in the old days, the artists just made music with the pickups that came in the guitars that were available to them…and we love that music…but today apparently the pickups that come stock in guitars are not good enough to make music…so you can see why I’m confused 😳

I just plug in and play i think people get to hung up on "tone" have fun and play with passion because that gets communicated to your audience more than anything it means more than your voice or guitar tone in my opinion

You do a better job at explaining why in some cases pickups can matter and why thank you.

@Asshat237

Жыл бұрын

Of course. Because Dylan actually understands the science of pickups. Glenn spends his time recording music. I wouldn't expect him to be an expert, but he talks a little too big like he knows everything. He's pretty good, though.

@damienalvarez2957

Жыл бұрын

@@Asshat237I’d argue that the guy who makes money off selling pickups has a reason to muddy the waters and convince you that you need to blow money on his pickups, while the recording engineer can actually see and hear what the pickups actually contribute.

Glenn says at the start of all of his pickup videos that he only cares about high gain tones, and that clean is completely different and larger differences do exist. He also says people can generally hear the difference between a single coil and a humbucker regardless of gain. Lastly, I'm pretty sure he gain-matches, because people usually mishear sonic differences when the 2 things are at different volumes, even if nothing else changes (no unintentional clipping of course). You briefly stated that for high gain you agree with him, but didn't include anything close to that in your examples. Most of this video has absolutely nothing to do with what Glenn was talking about in his videos about pickups. Still interesting though.

Meanwhile Glenn is working on his release of the DARK MATTER signature pickups 🤣

Just my opinion, but my answer to better tone is not the tools and gear, but is rather how you use them, i don't recommend buying pickups for a guitar that will be mixed and mastered in a song you can somewhat sometimes compensate with eq before or after the amp and whatnot

You just described how this whole music hardware industry survives. People not understanding that the signal chain is relative and malleable means they will focus on one part of it, change it based upon misinformation, and then result in needing to change the entire rest of the signal chain to compensate. Unless somebody pulls back and looks at the whole, they are forever doomed to stay on the treadmill of purchasing new shit.

Glenn says in his own way that if you look at your gear from above, as you say, the component in which will make less tonal difference (except maybe guitar material) are the pickups. My claim is that if you did tweak your amp’s settings and gain, you could have made most of them sound closely similar, even in clean and even on the edge of breakage. What I saw in this video are minor tonal shifts, mostly but not entirely by gain differences of pickups and tonal characteristics of other electric components in each guitar. Those tonal differences will probably be lost in the mix and/or in the conversion to modern digital media file. Does that justifies spending hundreds of dollars on new pickups? For me it doesn’t… if anything it’s a headache cause now i have to tweak all my amp settings to match the new pickups.