So the most fun aspect of playing guitar or bass at times is tinkering with the pickups. Aftermarket pickups can take an OK sounding instrument and make it sound stellar. I remember in my early days of bass playing, I had a boutique store install an EMG J set on my American Standard Jazz Bass, and every employee said that that bass was the best sounding bass in the store. The frustrating thing is the fact of having to have the pickups to put in the instrument, going through the work of installing them, and there's really no quick way to A/B the pickups. Even if you have 2 similar guitars with different pickups, the wood density and what not can make a difference. What sounds terrible in one guitar might sound spectacular to you in another guitar. Also, the pot and tone values can affect the sound as well.
On vintage guitars and basses we don't change pickups. We recommend rewinding or reconditioning pickups on vintage instruments over swapping pickups any day.
What we've decided to do is put our $.02 in as to what we have experienced with pickup mods we have done, and give some opinions of what we like and what we don't like.
Fender: What we have experienced is that Fender stock pickups are usually gonna get the job done, and represent the sound of the instrument itself, but we generally like replacing the pickups on close to every Fender we get our hot little hands on. Fender even offers guitars and basses with other guys' pickups on them.
For Strats, we find the GFS Strat replacement offerings as a great way to breath more vibrance into the guitar. There's a few offerings out there, and even on the forums out there, we see very little complaint on their singlecoils. Also, a personal favorite Strat pickup of ours is the Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound Strat pickup set with the center reversed (SSL-4, 1x Rw/Rp). This gives a good vintage Strat sound with more output. Some people like putting sigle-coil sized humbuckers into Strats, but we don't. If we want a Strat with a humbucker, we get single-single-hum (SSH) pickguards, and put in the appropriate pickups. For that humbucker-on-a-strat mod, we generally like Duncan JB's (SH-4), or some of the SSH Strats were coming stock with Duncan SH-PG1 Pearly Gates pickups, that were a nice warm humbucker that contrasted the Strat brightness well. We have had some experience with Duncan SG-8 Invader, and though a fun pickup, the high output can get old after a while. The invader is every bit what Duncan describes it to be. If interested in the SH-8, we did find that Duncan makes an overseas version called "Duncan Performer Detonator", and can be purchased on Musicians Friend's website under their Musicians Gear line (search MF's site for "musicians gear pickup" and you'll find it). I believe I've seen these at Guitar Barn too. It goes for $30.
Teles are a different beast all together. Other than the Squier Afinity models, I've never come across one that I felt needed different pickups. Fellow guitarists have rarely changed pickups in their Teles as well, but those who have seem to have gotten great results with Fender Texas Special pickups. These give a tad more vibrance to MIM Telecaters. The Tele I've been using was bought by Aaron with heavy mods done to it prior to purchase. It has a Duncan SH-2n for a neck pickup, giving it a fuller warm neck tone, and we were told the neck pickup was a Duncan JB Jr; which is a singlecoil take on the SH-4 JB. Upon further inspection, the bridge pickup is actually a Duncan STHR-1n; Hot Rails for Tele bridge pickup. Amazingly, this pickup retains some of that classic Tele sound somehow, but for the most part, is a pickup meant for highgain with a tele. This tele is also equipped with a push-pull pot for coiltapping, which gets a little closer to true Tele tone. I had tried purchasing one of the new Fender Satin Telcasters (in a beautiful orange with a rosewood fretboard), but ended up getting a Epiphone Les Paul Standard Pro Top Plus in honeyburst instead for the same price. I had no desire to change out the pickups in that Tele.
For basses, we use to outfit just about everything with EMG pickups. These are a great clean active pickup for J and P basses, but still have some good growl. In recent years, we started getting back into passive vintage sound, especially on Precision basses. The SPB-3 by Seymour Duncan under their Basslines banner is our all-time favorite for this. Great vintage tone with punch, and higher output. Also, as stated in the past, the Squier Vintage Modified series has been using Duncan Design pickups that have more character than the stock American Standard pickups. Closer to Duncan quality than Fender blandness.
The Duncan Design pickups on every Fender guitar or bass we've played has been exceptionally impressive on every guitar and bass we've tried. We have yet to pick up Duncan Design equipped guitar or bass (by any manufacturer) and feel a need to mod. We've found some Hamers with Duncan Design pickups that sounded great, and fell in love with the DD's that are stock on the Schecter PT Fastback; a DD version of the SH-2n Jazz in the neck, but with a mini-humbucker sized Filter'tron kind of pick in the bridge.
Gibson: In the Les Paul realm, there are so many options depending on what type of sound you are looking for. If looking for that vintage PAF sound of the early humbuckers, Gibson 57' Classics are a number 1 go-to pickup for us; Aaron has these in his 2 main SGs and loves them to death. I tend to be a bit more frugal, and lean towards Duncan SH-1 '59's, or Alnico II for vintage vibe, or more realistically, GFS Vintage 59's, Alnico II, or Fat Pats. Gibson pickups are priced right into the ridiculous in my opinion. You can get a set of Seymour Duncan pickups for less than the price of ONE Gibson '57 Classic (or 2 sets of GFS... that's FOUR PICKUPS). There's also Gibson's '57 Classic Plus, which I refer to as "The '57 Classic Plus 20 Bucks". This is supposed to be a hotter '57, but we really haven't tried these or come across anyone who has shelled out the $160 for them. The trick is making sure there's an alnico magnet in a vintage voiced pickup, and alnico II seems more in line with vintage sound than alnico V. Ceramic will get you more into the hotter realm, like the Gibson 496/500's.
The other style seems to lean towards a "hotter vintage" sound. There are a plethora of pickups that fall under this umbrella, but the ones we like are the Duncan JB's, matched with SH-2n (available in a Hot Rodded set at most retailers). This is a very versatile combo with coiltapping capability. GFS' VEH pickups seem to be a variation of vintage/higher output. They also have the Crunchy Fat Pats which are a ceramic magnet pickup, and vary slightly from the sound of the VEH or Duncan JB. As mentioned in the past, we do like the BurstBuckers 2 & 3 on Les Pauls, but at ~$130 per pickup (same price as a Duncan JB/Jazz SET), would probably not buy them aftermarket to put into a guitar. They have more clarity than the Gibson 490/498 pickups that are on other Gibsons. As stated in other articles, Epiphone has their ProBuckers in some guitars, and these have impressed us greatly. AB'ed against a Gibson with Burstbucker pros, the Gibson seemed muddier.
With SG's one must keep in mind that they are a bit darker in sound from a Les Paul if they have the correct wood; mahogany body and neck with a rosewood fretboard (some lower line Epiphones and other knockoffs might use alder, basswood, and other woods for the body, have a maple neck, and might be a bolt-on). With an SG, we recommend brighter pickups, or pickups that are a little hotter. The distortion pickups by Duncan like the SH-8 Invader, or SH-6 Distortion are a great balance with the straight mahogany SG. Aaron uses 2 SG guitars that have '57 Classics, but one's a Gibson SG Supreme with a maple top so it's got some Les Paul type snap to it, and the other is an Epiphone G-400 that we believe to have a maple neck (an $80 guitar with $300 worth of upgrades). The SG I've been using is a Special Faded with open coil 490's. These sound more articulate and a tad brighter than covered 490/498's on SG Studios and Customs.
If you buy an SG as a cheaper alternative to a Les Paul, you will be disappointed in most cases, even with a pickup mod. The belief is in most cases a guitarist buys a Gibson SG because it's about 1/2 the price of a Les Paul. Aaron loves the SGs he has, I find them uncomfortable to play, and not bright enough.
ES-335 and other Gibson style hollow bodies seem to be synonymous with '57 Classics. For those we stay in the realm of the PAF style pickups mentioned above. In general we don't mod 335 style guitars because it's a bitch to fish everything through the pickup holes. Fortunately, Gibson stocks most of their hollowbodies with '57 Classics, Epiphone ES335 has the Alnico Classic Pros, and Xaviere XV900's (their ES335 clone) comes stock with GFS Fat Pats. Ibanez Artcore hollows have great construction, but we shy away from them because their pickups are unimpressive, and we don't wanna mod 'em. This goes equal for the Epiphone Dot or Sheraton.
With P-90 pickups, we found that we tend to like the overseas made P-90's better than Gibson American made ones. I remember when Eastwood was making their Mosrite copies; the Sidejack, and these had P-90's that sounded phenomenal. That said, the only real preference we have for P-90's is in vintage ones over modern... but we have yet to shell out the money for vintage P-90's.
Gretsch is its own guitar with its own sound, but there are some options on how to optain that. The "Great Gretsch Sound" seems to come from the quirkiness of the guitars themselves, and the pickups. HS Filter'Trons are what are on most models, and the step-up pickup for those are the TV Jones. HS Fliter'Trons are great pickups on their own, and we couldn't really justify an "upgrade", and in all honesty, can't hear a huge difference between HS Filter'Trons, and the TV Jones Classics. Seymour Duncan has a Filter'Tron style pickup in their Custom line, but these are also the most expensive Gretsch pickup we've found. I've written other articles comparing HS Filter'Trons to "GretschBuckers"; the stock pickups on some Electromatics, and the long and skinny on it is the GretschBuckers sound like mud, and the HS Filter'Trons shimmer and have presence. There's also Dynosonic pickups on certain Gretsch models, but they seem great on their own, and we never saw a reason to even look into a mod for these.
Keep in mind, with Gretsch (like most hollowbodies), mods are a pain in the ass. When Aaron modded my 5120, I didn't get it back for over a month... and I think he lost 20 pounds over the anxiety of the project. TV Jones sells kits with tubing that are meant to help in the moding of Gretsch guitars, but Aaron used masking tape and fishing line when modding my 5120.
Super-Strats: We don't use super-strats too often really, we kind of came of age as the neon Kramers and Jacksons were dying out, so we really don't hold a lot of opinion on these. Generally, what sounds good in a Strat is gonna sound similar in these, as they tend to just have less resonance and sustain due to the fact they have less wood, and in most cases Floyd Rose trem systems. A lot of these have active electronics that we really don't delve into at all. None of us have actually owned an active guitar. I have heard some hairmetal guys get some bithin' sounds out of Duncan JB's, and seem to remember they came stock on a lot of super-strats in the day.
Basses: Most basses (outside of Fender) we buy have the pickups we want on them. Music Man has a great thing going on with their electronics, and have been doing active electronics longer than anyone else. Alembic, Sadowsky, Ken Smith, and Wal have their own electronics that are unique to their sound. Spector, Fodera, Carl Thompson, and many of the other builders offer EMG pickups, as well as some other options. Other vintage or vintage style basses like Rickenbacker, Mosrite, and Gibson have their own pickups that really don't have a lot available for upgrades. There's really no way we'd ever do a pickup mod on vintage instruments.
Admittedly, we don't have guitar companies sending us demo gear, so what we provided was tried and true experience with guitars we have played. There are a lot of great pickup builders out there who we have great respect for, but not a lot of experience with their stuff. I recommend to anyone going for true vintage Fender tone that they try Lindy Fralin... and switch to 12 gauge strings. We've heard some good things about Kent Armstrong pickups, but have not worked with them. Like anything else, there are pickups I can purchase at Wade's Guitar Shop like Seymour Duncans, but there are limitations to what guitar shops can stock. Hell, our local Guitar Barn only has about 3' of glass case with aftermarket pickups!!
Some guitars like Rickenbacker have their own thing going on, and we'd never do a pickup mod on these. You get a Ric to sound like a Ric. The basic pickups we see on Rics are the standard singlecoil, and the toasters. The singlecoil seems to have more gain than the toasters, but we'd never switch one for the other. G&L also has great pickups on their guitars that we'd never touch. A favorite is the Asat Special.
In the years we've done Guitar-DNA, one might have noticed we really say nothing about DiMarzio pickups. On a personal level, I've never really used them, but the pickups I like are the ones in certain guitars (like the Music Man Axis), and not available as aftermarket, which turned me off to the company as a whole. DiMarzio was huge in the early 90's, and we'd just kinda turn the page past them in the Musician's Friend catalogs. Seymour Duncan pickups were in some of our favorite Fenders and Hamer guitars early on,so we had more access to try them. Duncan never really has exclusivity on their pickups, so if you liked a JB on a Hamer, you could buy one for your Strat. It seemed like DiMarzio was more popular with the hair-metal guys, and the cock-rockers of the 90's who annoyed us. Neon colors didn't thrill us either. Among our peers in the area, we aren't alone in this thinking. I know one guy who actually put DiMarzios in a guitar.
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