Official Luthiers Forum!

Seymour Duncans?
or EMG's? or something else.... and why?

I realise this is a subjective thing but im interested in a quick poll as I have no way of actually testing this out
because of where I live
TIA
Steve

For what?

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

OK A couple of bad pics... this was one of my first... a Starcaster type thing i built over 15 years ago birds eye maple over ash body, teak neck (a handrail from a boat) ebony FB....no money then so I put some second hand Tokai PUps in it and it squealed like a pig......So I never played it and emigrated shortly after. I went home and got it back from my brother...it plays beautifully....so i think it time for some decent electrics
its gonna be playing blues/reggae/and more more santana/steelydan/ than megadeth

Nice axe!
I like the EMG H4 pickups.
They are high output,
so when you split the coils,
you get a nice single coil tone.
Around 14k ohms, split to around 7k ohms,
which is where I believe the "sweet spot" for singles is.
You can do that with an S.D. as well.
I bought set of Strat pick-ups from EMG about 36 years ago,
when it was a garage shop,
so I feel like I helped them get going.

gibson 57's

A pair of PAF copys or some Ibanez Super 70's would give you a warm rich tone, which is what it sounds like you are looking for?

Of course you are right - you ask 6 people and you will get 6 different answers on this question.....

BTW, very nice job on that, beautiful guitar!

ok, I'll put my vote in as well...

Not a fan of EMG's. They've just never had the hb sound I've wanted, and definitely don't have a good single coil sound when split. Again *PERSONAL OPINION* I recognize others like them. Just for my money, I'd rather have something else.

For my money, I'd got with ToneRiders. A very good bang-for-the-buck 'bucker.

Here is another vote for the '57 classic from Gibson.

I just wired one up in my archtop on Saturday and it totally has the magic. In fact, I like it as much as the PAF's in my ES175. Actually more. (Blasphemy?)

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Never cared for EMG humbuckers on guitar - they sounded sterile to me.
Now - EMG Strat pickups were great for that glassy out-of-phase sound.

Loved Duncan JB's for all around good tone no matter the type of music.
For rock - PJ Marx 810's were just awesome - a fat, chewy tone.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I also hear that bareknukle pickups are wonderful!

Thanks for the ideas....
I plugged her in today and amazingly everything worked.........until I turned it up and then the squeal
So I google and find the hitherto unknown realm of wax potting(apparently the Tokai PUps were gotohs)
well one thing we do have here is surf and wax so Im going to give it a go just out of curiosity. Anyone ever try low visc CA? Nothing to lose and I daresay I will still be looking for replacements so keep the ideas coming...Ill let you know if it works.

Used to wax pot pickups all the time. It's not hard.

Use a double boiler, and pure beeswax. Soak them until bubbles stop coming out of the windings. Be careful when the stuff is hot.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

If you are going for a warmer tone - I would nix the active electronics idea, but just like anything else-this is a wee bit subjective.

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"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Exactly. That's why there is more than one builder of guitars.
Wouldn't it be a boring old world if all guitars sounded exactly alike to everyone?
Doesn't that sound like a luthier's nightmare?
So... viva la difference!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

It's a philosophy to me.

I like drive and distortion to occur down the signal chain and don't think it should be introduced at the guitar. I don't go for super high output pickups for this reason: high output pickups limit the versatiliy of the guitar and don't provide anything that you can't get through processing. I suppose it could be argued that a high drive pickup could produce a unique sound that can't be produced by a pedal but I haven't seen that bear out.

Shawn Lane used vintage output Dimarzio Air Classics on his Vigier Excalibur. Find a clip of that sound and it's pretty hard to argue against that tone. All of the wonderful bite of that sound happens downstream but the musical tone of the guitar makes it out of the guitar. That wouldn't happen with super high output pickups.

I personally like Seymour Duncan P-Rails best (SHPR-2)....a low/med output pickup. The narrow, deep rail combined with the shallow, wide P-90 give it so many coil combinations it's hard to imagine more versatility in any standard humbucker made up of two matching coils. I can set the amp to get a driven sound with one or both pickups operating in humbucker mode and then clean it up to a thin wirey tone with the flip of a switch. Basically, it ranges from a Les Paul neck tone to a Strat bridge tone...and then goes a little further in each direction.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Stuart!
I knew I would meet a fellow Hellborg, Lane & Sipe fan on the OLF - I have to agree with you Stuart... I like them slightly hot, but not overkill - my fave pup to date is still the PRS Dragon II's (In my PRS Custom 22 and the Dueling Dragons)- killer tone - but MY tone (What suits MY ears)that I have searched for over 35 years.

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

well blow me down with a feather...it worked
melted down some Mrs Palmers surfboard wax got it to 150F
Soaked them jiggled em about for 10 mins... plenty of air bubbles
reassembled, plugged in and no squealing! Not sure about Sound quality yet as I
still havent tried it through my Princeton but will try them at the weekend
I geuss I owe them that.
Thanks for replacement ideas

If it turns out that you like your pups after wax potting, then you're good to go. However, if not, I would add my .02-.03 to the mix.
Seymour Duncan sells a set called the "Hot-rodded Humbucker" set. JB in the bridge and a Jazz in the neck. Best sounding, most versatile set of pickups I've ever put in a guitar. Will do pretty much anything. Blues, Country, Jazz, Classic and Hard Rock. In fact, I've never come across a situation where I couldn't get the tone I wanted out of them, whatever style I was playing.
Another option is GFS' Vintage '59s. Really nice, warm sounding set of pickups. Also very versatile. They are my go-to set now, as they are around half the cost of the SDs, and I would be hard pressed to justify the difference in price between them.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.