Testing a few humbucker pickups

[deeaa]

Well, one has to do something on the days off so I made this quick test of various humbucker pickups. Hopefully you may find it interesting.
Guitars are all Flying V's mostly Deans, all set up / built to be as alike as the next one.
The amp is a 1980's JCM 800 2204 straight cord to amp from guitar, classic T-75 and 65 speakers inside. Miked a meter or so off with a large-diaphragm studio microphone.
Pickups are listed on the video, one Dean DMT and some others, mostly Alnico V pickups which I prefer. The Gibson 498t is my all time favorite, and also like a JB plenty much.
But in the end...they are all so close to each other, it really seems rather moot to start swapping pickups on these...I mean, you get a bigger change in tone just by adding a single pedal between the amp and the guitar, or by a tiny dab at a tone knob on amp or whatever.

[Tonray's Ghost]

I like the blade...to my ears has a clarity I find appealing...but your mileage may vary.....ha ha ha

[golem]

Yeah, the tones are a bit different with each humbucker, but it's not night and day and sounds good regardless of which pickup is used. I feel like one could possibly use an EQ pedal to make up the differences.

[toomanycats]

I hear slightly more bite and clarity in the ceramic magnet pups, which works well with the type of riffing you're doing in the demo.

I've always found it difficult to access a pickup through a sound demo alone. Different types of pickups feel different to me while playing, and that quality cannot be shared through an audio recording. For instance, powerful magnets grab the string more, whereas weaker magnets feel more spongy. This effects the way one plays, which results in different sounds being produced.

Often I find myself preferring a tone made by a particular pickup on an audio recording, but preferring a different pickup in terms of actual playing feel.

Another important aspect for me is how a pickup reacts when the guitars volume knob is rolled back. Regarding ceramics that sound superb under high gain, while they do retain clarity as the volume is rolled back, they also tend to become sterile and brittle as they become more clean.

[Partscaster]

SD JB sound best to me.

[deeaa]

The cell phone recording, or home playing in itself doesn't really give a good representation of the sound..but OT, last night we had band practice with this new speaker setup.

Long story short ever since I got this amp I've tried various speakers from V30 (too bright) to greenback (too middy) to original G12-65 (too warm and scooped) to a couple of Eminences.

Played a good while with a combo of Eminence Governor and Celestion 65, and liked it fine...but you could mostly hear the Eminence and it was kinda hard to find the sweet spot for volume and power amp drive.

Now I put in a t75, with the 65, which are both only 97dB sensitivity and both classic Marshall speakers and...

Yeah no need to look further. Finally they respond to amp the right way, nice power amp crunch, and much less volume so I can open up more, and the sound is also almost the same through ear plugs too doesn't change in drive feel much.

I don't know why did I stubbornly even tried to marry an effective modern speaker with an old skool amp...these absolutely work the best with the same era ineffective speakers IMO.

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[NickintheStates]

I hear slightly more bite and clarity in the ceramic magnet pups, which works well with the type of riffing you're doing in the demo.

I've always found it difficult to access a pickup through a sound demo alone. Different types of pickups feel different to me while playing, and that quality cannot be shared through an audio recording. For instance, powerful magnets grab the string more, whereas weaker magnets feel more spongy. This effects the way one plays, which results in different sounds being produced.

Often I find myself preferring a tone made by a particular pickup on an audio recording, but preferring a different pickup in terms of actual playing feel.

Another important aspect for me is how a pickup reacts when the guitars volume knob is rolled back. Regarding ceramics that sound superb under high gain, while they do retain clarity as the volume is rolled back, they also tend to become sterile and brittle as they become more clean.

This is such a timely post. I just stumbled into a Gibson Les Paul Classic with the ceramic 490R/500T combo. I've never given these a chance... but in a lot of situations they work quite well. Especially the overdriven neck while riffing. a 57 Classic in the next just has too much breadth for it.... but the ceramic works very very well.

Side question... why would Gibson make a 1960 tribute model... but put fire breather ceramic pickups in it??? Sometimes their decisions defy logic.

[deeaa]

IMO ceramics are fine for leads, but for rhythm with good note separation I like alnico better.

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[andrewsrea]

[
Side question... why would Gibson make a 1960 tribute model... but put fire breather ceramic pickups in it??? Sometimes their decisions defy logic.

Agreed. Seems like their marketing department and design department don't talk.

[andrewsrea]

@deeaa - nice video. I like the rapid-fire comparisons. All nice, but the Gibson was my personal fav.