I had a gibson 498T sitting in a bin for years and I put it into a duo sonic build a while back. The output is like 15k. It's a completely different character than what I'm used to. The dynamic range is interesting and it took a lot of getting used to. Like alternating between soft fingerpicking and hitting a chord; everything it "picks up" is loud, but the guitar itself feels more like a gain stage. The breakup point is more literally "at your fingertips". It picks up a ton of sounds of the guitar body as well if you like to bash or get some percussive stuff going. Or riff or play lead just with your left hand. It feeds back easily and drives an amp into breakup very early. If it's turned up to even a modest level, reigning the feedback in becomes part of playing the guitar. I think it's fun, and it gets me playing in a different way. Chords sound blown out without being mushy. Now that I'm thinking about it, the whole character is very Psychocandy.

Generally I still prefer cleaner, lower output pickups, but a guitar like that can be a useful tool. And as far as just running a guitar into an amp with no pedals, you can get some wild interplay with high output pickups.

Tom Wanderer wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 11:17 am ...I think it's fun, and it gets me playing in a different way....

This is how I feel about gear in general. I do swap pickups here and there when I'm not feeling a set in a particular guitar, but generally I appreciate variety and how a different guitar/amp can get me playing different stuff.

I have a LP Custom with the 498T and it's a great for crunchy overdriven stuff, almost too easy...that guitar may as well be a slab of granite though, I like how you describe the interactions with the body on your guitar and the feedback becoming a part of the sound. I have a Gretsch country club with Dyna sonic deamond type pickups and that thing feeds back acoustically, which can get pretty wild and is fun to incorporate into the playing experience.

I like those dearmond style pickups enough that I swapped a set of P90's for the TV-Jones T-Armonds, and got a set of their Starwood tele pickups for a cheapo washburn I have. Both are great.

As for High/Low output, I kinda don't pay attention to that much, though lately I've been playing through a marshall-ified Bandmaster Reverb, and I now understand the point of the high and low inputs on each channel, and definitely try each guitar in each channel to find the sound that feels right before settling on one.

Variety=fun

High gain/ low gain: really depends on the pickup and magnet types. I prefer a lower gain P90, but a higher gain Strat/Tele. My only real humbucker love is for higher gain pickups with decent top end (WRHB, Travis Bean, EGC, etc). I find higher gain humbuckers are great for people that are light players and/or like to use the volume knob. Can get some amazing clean tones rolling off the volume just a tad with the aforementioned pickups. You know what high gain pickup sounds unreasonably good with the volume rolled off a little? Seymour Duncan Invader. Really hot humbuckers are also PRIME candidates to try parallel wiring on as well. I greatly dislike Hotrails but they sound killer wired parallel. They still look dumb though.

Moved this from gear developments thread:

Because I needed small Xmas gift ideas for family to give me, I finally tried Stringjoy strings that have flooded all of my social media outlets. I got the 11-50 nickel set to put on my Jazzmaster and so far they fucking suck. Won't stay in tune. I've tried stretching them in a few times over the course of 4 days. Can't say they are improving. I miss being able to find the Vintage Reissue 11-50 Pure Nickel sets from Gibson. Those were quality strings, albeit way overpriced.

Back to Ernie Ball nickel plated.

I've developed a fascination with Lace Sensors. The Guitar Center/Clapton associations always made me turn up my nose. Then Bob Mould and Jonny Greenwood's guitar choices came into view. They seem to get very mixed reviews in the general pool of guitarists on the internet. I don't know if I'll risk the plunge.

Evans UV1 14" Drum Head

Bought a used INDe "oxidized bronze" snare (6.5x14) and the previous owner put one of these heads on it.

This head fucking sucks.

No grit on it, so brush work is underwhelming, really odd feeling/bounce off the head, added a not-nice sounding "SPLAT" sound to every hit, regardless of tuning, and I still saw it showing some wear after 2 practices on it.

Switched mid-practice back to a normal Ambassador, and while it showed more wear after that prac, it sounded and felt infinitely better.

The INDe snare, on the other hand, is beautiful and is having me considering selling one of my Black Beauties...

four_oclocker_2.2 wrote: Wed Jan 18, 2023 11:34 am considering selling one of my Black Beauties...

I'm listening. I've got an Acrolite I could sell to offset some of that cost (that I never use because I favor my Supraphonic by a great deal).

four_oclocker_2.2 wrote: Wed Jan 18, 2023 11:34 am Evans UV1 14" Drum Head

This head fucking sucks.

Certainly if you go in expecting it to sound and feel exactly like an Ambassador then yeah you're going to be disappointed. There is A difference. But to me it's slight. I've been an Ambassadors guy for 20+ years and this is in the ballpark so the longevity/durability is worth any sonic trade off in my book (and even then this lack or whatever is completely subjective/debatable because I personally do not feel it's lacking in this area).

For the record, I'm certainly not a finesse drummer, nor even probably half the drummer of anyone else on this forum or 1/10th the recording engineer for that matter so the amount of difference between the two heads is apparently a lot wider a gulf for some more than others.

They don't suck though. At all. They fucking rule.

While we're at it: I finally did try an Evans G12 coated on a 14x5.5 Supralite and it's perfect. If you like single plys but want a tad more twack, that's exactly what it does.

losthighway wrote: Wed Jan 18, 2023 10:17 am I've developed a fascination with Lace Sensors. The Guitar Center/Clapton associations always made me turn up my nose. Then Bob Mould and Jonny Greenwood's guitar choices came into view. They seem to get very mixed reviews in the general pool of guitarists on the internet. I don't know if I'll risk the plunge.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Please, I beg you, run in the opposite direction. They sound like nothing. My strat came with them. Once I swapped out the Lace Sensors for Fralins it became a guitar.