how do i choose the right pickup for a guitar? there's probably a million people on the net that say this pickup is the best or that one is, but unlike a pedal or an amp, it's not really something that can be easily auditioned. how does one choose?

If you have exhausted the sonic possibilities of the pickup/s you have and don't feel that anything else in the signal chain is the weak link, go and find either a luthier worth their money, who can help you make an educated guess, or a shop that has a friendly return policy and are willing to let you try something that you can bring back if you don't like it.

For what it's worth, I've had good experiences with doing the frankenstein thing too - I was loaned a really shitty black strat copy (Karina, I think) once for use on a session, I was travelling to the session and didn't have my normal guitar (musicman sabre II), so I had to make do. It sounded and played like the sack of shit it was, so I got to fiddling. I put on the heaviest guage strings I could find at short notice, and wired the three single-coil pickups in parallel, in phase, directly to the output jack. It changed the impedance significantly, because it sounded way fuzzed out thru the amp - but on a stray thought I tried a DI box (sounded better, but still lame), and then tried plugging directly into the console. And Lo! It produced one of the fullest guitar sounds I have ever heard to date - simultaneously very "springy" and "earthy", and big like a really fucking big thing.
Mind you, I am one of these people whose first inclination is to open the box/void the warranty, and I feel no guilt encouraging others to do the same.

For me it took buying a guitar with a really awesome pickup and then buying another guitar (same model - stock) and realizing that holy crap is that other pickup good. That "really awesome pickup" is the Duncan Custom SH-5, I have it in all 3 of my guitars. It sounds quite different in each one, due to the wood and resonance, but the basic tone is there.

I believe Seymour Duncan has mp3s of their pickups on their site and a very generous return policy. You can deal direct with them from what I understand.

From the pickups I've tried: EMG 81's/85's sound harsh and metallic. Probably good for super-distorted metal, but that's not my thing. Stock Gibson PAFs sound good but weak. Carvin pickups sound awful (or maybe it's the guitar itself? who knows). Gibson 500T pickups sound pretty good, but I've never owned a guitar with one. Always wanted to try one. Those are the ones that come on some higher end Les Pauls and SGs.

tmh

what kind of guitar do you have, and how do you want it to sound?

tell me. i will tell you what pickup to buy.

yours,

tm

guitar in question is a gibson gothic explorer. came with a seymour duncan Custom 5 (SH-14) pickup installed in the bridge position. has the stock gibson pickup in the neck position (gibson 496R) and i have the stock pickup for the bridge position (gibson 500T) but it's not installed obviously what with the duncan in there and all.

here's what's going on. this guitar is specifically intended for use in a project that is very much a post-indie look back at 80's speed metal. so i need to be able to do the massive crunching thing, but i also need to be able to do the clean thing. and this guitar can actually do that okay, but here's the thing... the bridge pickup doesn't have a whole ton of low end, and as such is great for the crunch stuff, but i've found i like it best with a little bit of the neck pickup blended in to put in a little more bottom on it. not too much or it gets muddy. the bridge pickup is NOT good for doing the clean stuff, and the neck pickup is alright but maybe not as clear in the "chimey" region, if that makes any sense. it has a darker sound than i'd like (relative to the bridge pickup) which i've heard is due to the nature of the instrument. so i guess ultimately what i want is this:

a neck pickup that will do super-clear and chimey in an instrument that isn't innately very bright, and also will serve well when blended in with the duncan Custom 5 (SH-14) bridge pickup, in order to add a bit of beef to it.

mostly metal, super-high-gain kinda thing but not like nu-metal or anything. i dunno if it's because my bassmaster is so similar to a plexi, but i have a really easy time getting a more QOTSA type guitar sound. i'm very pleased with the distorted sound i'm getting, as it's rather huge. but my only gripe is that i'm not getting a good, full-yet-chimey clean sound like i'm used to easily dialing in with my ibanez st-55.

help computer.

thanks!

ok

i lied

i'm stumped

no, i dunno. what kind of pickups are these krazy pickups? humbuckers, i assume. soapbars? are they a weird size or just normal, les paul-size humbuckers?

humbuckers, just normal-size humbuckers.

tim. tiiiiiiiiiiiiim.

hey maybe yous guitar guys can help me out.

are any of you familiar with an ibanez musician guitar? and i cant find much information on them, or at least on my model, on the internets. they have really large routings for the pickups, and i'd like to change the stock pickups, because they huff pig dongs.

i also have this problem that mr helicopters has, in that i am completely ignorant to which pickups sound good, and this problem is compounded the problem of the routing size.

i'd like something pretty mean and growly but not high gain metal in the bridge and something very slint-clean-tone-esque with a good amount of bass in the neck, AND i want coil-tapping.

picky picky picky.

any suggestions? at all?

tmh

dre mentions emg pickups. they tend to be "super high gain" and are kind of the calling card for the high-gain metal sound. the hotter output equals a more compressed and therefore less dynamically lively output w/a limited freq response. but that may be the sound you want.

i don't like them, myself, but emgs might be proper if you really want that sound for your thing. and if you are using a shitload of preamp gain, they will be quieter than more traditional pickups.

as far as just normal, good-sounding humbuckers, you can get pretty much whatever you want out of van zandts or lindy fralins. i think they are swell pickups. both guys make killer single coil pickups and humbuckers.

i like a few s.duncans, but not others, and i think the van zandt/fralin lines cover pretty much any kind of normal guitar pickup pretty well.

the guitar pickup, i don't think it has really been improved upon for many, many years. people do things to make them have less noise or higher output or whatever, but the actual quality of the sound hasn't really been made any better by new pickup technology, in my estimation. like, to wiggins' question: you just want good-sounding pickups. if you can afford it, i'd get some fralins or van zandts and forget about it. either brand is available w/coiltapping. someone at fralin will probably listen to what you want and make suggestions.

a neck pickup that will do super-clear and chimey in an instrument that isn't innately very bright, and also will serve well when blended in with the duncan Custom 5 (SH-14) bridge pickup, in order to add a bit of beef to it.

You want a Seymour Duncan Stag Mag in the neck position.

Use a Push - Push pot to tap it so you don't have to drill holes in your Gibson. I had one in a Standard and it cleaned up REAL nice, almost Strat like. Keep the roar for the bridge pick-up.