Pickup Manufacturers DON'T want you to see this!!

[@voodoocustompickups2547]

As a pickup designer and builder I agree with alot of this. Clean tones will definitely be discernable. The only time a pickup will effect a high gain amp would be its response to pick attack. Due to the winding, wire gauge, and magnet type/size, some pickups are better for high gain chugs while others are better chords. Certain pickups help tighten up bass response also. The pickup is the beginning of your signal and is shaped from there.

[@SharpEdgeStandardOfficial]

A pickup being at the start of a signal path means very little and doesn’t add any validation to the argument. Pickups are the pyramidion or capstone of an inverted signal pyramid.

[@saulmorris9639]

in regards to not nearly as high gain (ACDC, Lynard Skynard, Chuck Berry) in your expertise would you say pickups are or are not very important

[@SharpEdgeStandardOfficial]

@bloomtikbloom9593 certain pickups have some special frequencies that others don’t?!? Lol that’s rubbish unless it’s total cheap 40 dollar Chinese BS. Do famous singers say they can hit them higher notes better depending on the microphone? Lol. Ask Whitney Houston (rip) what mic she preferred she would of ran from you. Bottom line, guitar is a mid range instrument and when guys say “oh these master exploder 5000s are for drop tune stuff and these bare numb chucks are for leads or the AzzDi Soul Fires 9100s are for classic/cleans …how about u give me all that in 1 pickup - that’s a good pickup then and haven’t had much trouble actually doing that myself so my point stands on its own

[@phoonarchy]

​@bloomtikbloom9593yeah but as stated in the video that all goes to shit once you add gain, compression, etc

[@phoonarchy]

@bloomtikbloom9593 well, I mean, I have multiple harley bentons and noise isn't really a problem, with guitars starting from 150 € all the way to 550 €

[@Hikaeme-od3zq]

Damn Glenn's literally crusading against the whole guitar community, and I love it lol

[@AmericanNationalist852]

I can't help but wonder how many people watch Glenn's videos and go buy a Squire Bullet series then believe that it's just as good of a guitar as a Pro II...

[@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623]

@@AmericanNationalist852 There's obviously going to be quality issues, I'd rather get me a top of the line Squier or Harley Benton then the lowest cheapest range. Spending a little money more means better quality control, components and set ups. Which is exactly what Glenn says in his videos. But if you set it up right you can make the Bullet work.

[@gaboxd4407]

@@AmericanNationalist852 expensive guitars are a literal waste of money unless your a professional yourself

[@AmericanNationalist852]

@@gaboxd4407 that's just not true. That's a cope for people who can't afford better gear.

[@gaboxd4407]

@@AmericanNationalist852 there are far more important things to spend money when playing music. A proper setup is far more important than buying an overpriced piece of wood that probably costed less than 30$ to be made. Do you even play with other people? Nowadays most people cant even pursue a career in music...

[@LeMans512]

As a guy who plays funky, jazz influenced pop, I have to say I love this YT channel. Glenn’s irreverence for all the BS is refreshing. I use a Twin Reverb tone most of the time and occasionally turn on an overdrive pedal (Zendrive). That being said, there is definitely a difference in each guitar of the shootout but not so much that a little knob twiddling wouldn’t close the gaps. Glenn, once again you’ve pulled back the curtain. Great job!

[@Draken0023]

This absolutely has an effect on my mentality towards pickups. Coincidentally, I was in the process of giving a friend of mine advice on upgrading his pickups a few weeks back. I’ve since messaged him and told him I was full of shit and that we should be looking at his speakers and amp/effects settings. I think downing a slice of FREE humble pie is far better than watching a friend’s face drop after realizing I convinced him to waste money on something that made zero difference to his sound/tone. If no one else has told you this today, let me be the first: thank you, Glen. You rule 🤘👑

[@BlazonStone]

Awesome! I am recording an album with my start pack Epiphone Les Paul Special II with stock pickups. Not getting any worse results with the Epiphone than any of my other guitars. And yes, I do have several fancier guitars wth Evertune, stainless frets, roasted necks, brand pickups, all that shit. Great guitars. But so is my Epiphone Les Paul Special II.

[@RandysRides]

Make sure you tell your buddy this only applies to maximum distortion and literally NOTHING else. Most people play other genres, too....not death metal 24/7. Pickups DO matter. A lot.

[@murrayguitarpickups9545]

I just made this quick demo, the differences are more obvious when you play clean....ish kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6i8i5xpn9eJeZI these two pickups are designed to sound similar anyway so don't expect massive tone shifts.

[@Draken0023]

@@RandysRides Oh man, I didn’t think I’d come across one of the butt-hurt pickup guys in the wild! So what do you do; plug your guitar straight into the amp with no effects or EQ on the speakers? What style uses a 100% virgin guitar signal? Sounds boring as hell

[@Turboy65]

And yet there isn't the slightest doubt that I'd grown tired of the honky midrange pushed sound of the Seymour Duncan JB I had in the bridge of one of my favorite guitars. I replaced it with an SD '59 I had lying around and yes, it's much more to my tastes as they are now. The midrange hump is way down now. I can tell the difference even in very high gain settings with my Mesa Mark IV.

[@derekspear]

Overall, this channel has really helped me to get over years worth of guitar hang-ups (shapes, features, tone woods, pickups, etc) and just go with whatever is either more comfortable to play and/or whatever inspires me to play more.

[@221b-l3t]

While he has many great points and I often agree ge always looks at it through the lens of his sound, DT-1/MT-2 type ultra gain, death metal kind of sound. With that sound everything really is the same. Pickups definetly sound substantially different with an overdrive tone, or bluesy type sound, edge of breakup etc... You can argue body shape doesn't matter, type of wood doesn't matter (but I think they do, just not like premiun guitar builders say, just density differences that sorta stuff, lighter guitars seem to be more resonant and brighter). And you can say nuts and bridges don't matter, but it's an electric guitar. Besides the amp the nr.1 thing that will actually change tone are the pickups, unless you play speed metal with two MT-2 in series cranked on top of a heavily distorted amp then okay... it probably doesn't matter enough to be worth doing anything about it, when you can just use an EQ after the fact to tweak it a little. I have two nearly identical guitars, Gibson Flying V and an Epiphone Flying V. Both gorgeously built but the Epi has early 2000s cheapo Epi PAF style and the Gibson has super hot ceramic 500T/496R or something like that, Dimarzio super distortion type pickups, about as heavy output as EMGs. They couldn't sound less alike. And my Les Paul clone has Seymour Duncan PAF style pickups and it sounds closer to the Epiphone but still way different. I often show that to people who ask why I have so many guitars and I play them each one and most can get the basic stuff, the Epi is quite dark, the Gibson sounds like 80s metal and the Les Paul sounds like classic rock. And that is with reducing gain on higher output pickups. I wouldn't be surprised if the woods make relatively little difference, unplugged they do, the Flying Vs (one mahogany one Korina) sound utterly different. Plugged in I don't think it matters a huge deal, as long as it's some decent wood and not plywood or cardboard. If anything the vibrations do transfer and it can influence how the strings behave, indirectly affecting tone, a greater mass dampening more, maybe the higher frequencies a bit more. Lighter guitars do seem brighter. But most of that will be relatively insignificant compared to the pickups and anything that directly affects the strings (playing style) maybe if the bridge is really cheap and shitty it might rattle or absorb vibrations vs a solid metal one that is firmly mounted. The strings definetly matter. Just take a guitar with old strings that are all corroded and compare it to one with new strings. So I disagree with the attitude that none of that matters but I also disagree with the guitar snobs who think it has to be mahogany it can't a wood that has similar density, and the nut must be bone it can't be a synthetic one with identical density etc... paintjob blablabla. Both sides are kinda wrong on this unless you run a fully cranked MT2. Then yes a Strat = Ibanez RG. Not fully but nearly indistinguishable. But amp on edge of breakup + tubescreamer? My guitars sound different enough to be a nuisance, I have to turn the brightness knob on the screamer up or down to get the tone I want. I'm getting a PAF Les Paul in the mail this week, I'll compare it to the other one with Seymour PAFs, very curious. Different brands but same factory, similar wood and construction, similar finish (why would you not have a LP with flame top?). But the new one has EMG Fat 55s. Should be about the same output. I'd be surprised if they sound exactly alike but also if they are substantially different. I actually hope the same because one was a grand thw other 350 bucks so I wouldn't mind the cheaper one sounding exactly alike. And if it does I'll get more of them. Because I have a sickness in my mind.

[@jme92685]

I don’t play metal, I play classic rock with plenty of clean riffs. So the pickups for me make more of a difference. Still, the speaker is way more important. I’ve learned so much from this show. Keep up the great work, Glenn!

[@GreenCanoeb]

I'm the same type of player. I've found I can tell the difference between major pickup styles such as a hot humbucker vs a PAF but telling the difference between various manufacturer's hot humbuckers or different PAF models is next to impossible.

[@anotheryoutubed]

​@@GreenCanoebif mfgs made identical wind alnico IIs vs Vs etc, I doubt anyone would be able to tell the difference. I think it all comes down to potted vs not, winds/heat amount, not so much the magnet type like mfgs want us to believe.

[@FunkAndFluff]

THANK YOU for including DI sounds in this experiment! The more data that's collected and shared, the more helpful the findings become. Even as somebody who mostly plays clean, I agree it's really just about having appropriate pickups for your application/genres that aren't microphonic or too noisy. That's it. We don't have time to obsess over little details at the expense of losing the big picture.

[@bluecollarguitarist]

I used to gut guitars and swap pickups all the time. Figured out years ago that it wasn't really worth the time or the expense. Another thing that might've changed the tone slightly on the guitar shoot out was the build of the guitar; meaning that it might shift your picking hand forward towards the neck or back slightly towards the bridge. That would make it even more difficult to tell the difference between the pickups. Nice job Glenn. And thank you for helping us not waste our money :)

[@sonofham85]

Really good point, in the DI examples there was a clear difference between the HB Failure and the Schecter V, with the HB having more bass. Looking at the video, the HB bridge pickup does seem to be further along the string i.e. away from the bridge than the Schecter, which is what you'd expect given the difference in sound. So yeah, the pickup itself may well not account for that difference. Jim Lill's excellent videos seem to back this up.

[@thebaldshredder]

I did a blind test on my channel with a Seymour Duncan vs a twenty dollar pup from Aliexpress. Half of the people guessed wrong, and out of the other half a lot weren't even sure. Some were shocked when they found out they were wrong. So yeah, you are 100% correct. No need to spend a ton of money on pickups.

[@91Metalhead]

I think the importance of pickups is mainly a legacy thing. With modern amps it doesn't matter much, but back when you were using everything possible to push the amp, getting the highest output pickups might have helped you get there.

[@danieljimenez7520]

i think it might be the case, i can sense a notable difference with my rocktron piranha, but i don´t know with a modern amp, i don´t own one

[@jacobfurst4266]

That’s a really good point actually cause it did matter back in the day. Glen always specifies it hardly matters with modern high gain and back then high gain like didn’t exist

[@zombiemontage]

Medium/low output pickups into a high gain amp with a boost sound the same to me as high output pickups with no boost

[@danieljimenez7520]

@@jacobfurst4266 exactly, like put this 10 guitars through a plexi with a tubescreamer and you are going to hear more difference. with the amount of gain he uses im sure i can plug my ass into a hig gain amp and it wouldn´t be very different than the guitars haha

[@JoeBaermann]

There where fewer boost device and speaker options too.

[@twobarsfourstars]

This series gets better and better because of your continued honesty and refining of your thesis to being specifically about high gain tone. That only puts more weight on the question of how much of a difference there really is on clean tone too! (There is but let’s be critical instead of susceptible to marketing). It’s hard to purchase and figure these out for yourself so tests like this help us avoid the mistakes and time taken to get them and put all that back in music. Much appreciated 🤘🏼🤘🏼 hope you try a filtertron soon, would love to see you do a pup video on magnets as that seems to be the sauce to me. Some good ones already out there but never enough! Also I’m sure it’s dumb but I did hear slight more sustain in the Nazgûl’s notes and I thought the same same thing as the commenter you highlighted, is it because I wanted to?? If you’re going high gain hope this saves you money and gets you to where you’re going, thank you Glenn!!

[@mikeg6666]

I love the fact that he doesn't shill for guitar companies like so many of these other guys do , they are bitches to whatever company sends them a guitar to review even if the guitar sucks!

[@BoBcabbage]

ONE MAN SINGLE HANDEDLY DISASSEMBLES ENTIRE PICKUP MANUFACTURING COMMUNITY

[@asnark7115]

There's a great video by Pete Thorne involving a couple dozen pickups in a shootout using an identical signal chain. You can hear the clear difference between most of the pickups, while some are practically clones. The point Thorne demonstrated is that if you have only one amp, one cab, and one guitar, you can get tone and texture results so far apart that you could credibly cross over into different genres just by changing pickups.

[@thedavesofourlives1]

buy 3 $20 chinese pickups and return the ones that aren't wax potted. Roll the dice.

[@BittenHand19]

I’m curious about lead tones. This was great showing rhythm tones, but I wonder it it effects lead tones since chords have more overtones than a single note. I agree with this video 100% and you’ve actually saved me some work because I was going to swap out the pickups I had in one guitar to another and it won’t matter for what I use them for. But I would love to see a similar test with a solo to see if there is any difference.

[@lookingbehind6335]

Does not make a difference. There’s videos already covering it.

[@DylanTalksTone]

As a pickup builder… I loved this. It was fantastic

[@aliensporebomb]

One thing I would add - active pickups such as EMG or Fishman (or any of the other active pickup brands) they tend to be quieter than some passive pickups (but not all of them) so to my ears are better for recording high gain sounds. Some passive pickups (and especially single coils) tend to be noisier so there can be a problem in recording high gain type sounds. Very interesting video - some of the changes were so miniscule! It was even more revealing to just listen to the audio of this video in headphones while not looking at the screen!

[@James-eg3nf]

Point taken! I have a Schecter with “Duncan designed” humbuckers that sounds *very* different than my Les Paul with 57 Classic Plus humbuckers at relatively low gain, but with high gain the difference is extremely negligible, especially in a mix.

[@bobbykoalaproductions]

Thanks for including DI’s glenn! :D I still believe different types of pickups can be be used in a specific situations if you know what you’re looking for (single coil, humbucker), but you’re totally right that you don’t have to spend a ton of money; because most listeners don’t give a damn. Can’t wait to see what you have brewing up next

[@thisdyingsoul76]

I will also say that for guys who rely on pedals for their dirt, you still need the right amp for the sound you're after. I spent a few years trying to get a vintage vox style amp to sound like a high gain monster. I got high gain tones, but there was always something lacking. I even tried different cabs and speakers. It helped; but ultimately the best thing for the sound I was after (70's and 80's Marshall) was to get a Marshall or something based on that. I find myself now using the amp's OD and boosting with pedals and I'm much happier. I have other amps geared toward a more Fender style sound that I use sometimes too and the high gain pedals do alright with that, but I usually find the Marshall style amps form the foundation of my sound and I put the other amps on tracks that just fill out the sound. You don't really notice them until they are muted.

[@heavyvibrationstudiopl3256]

Buy strings and weed.Don't compromise.

[@WilDBeestMF]

*insert I'm doing my part meme here*

[@dundun8640]

Dude just grow ur own, trust me its worth it (except if you get caught)

[@Vermonster23]

@@dundun8640I live in Vermont… We do have some interesting government problems, but we do get to also grow weed! Long-term I’ve spent much more money on weed then gear. That said, I’ve spent a lot of money on gear!

[@dundun8640]

@@Vermonster23 I live in a country that has a 0-tolerance for weed. But i have spent more money on gear than on weed (Gibson SG got me acting unwise), but if you got good gear a little bit of weed from time to time makes the gear sound better imho

[@AnxoHunter]

I agree. Weed is as necessary as strings for guitar players. 😂

[@sir.shreddington]

Recently I started taking speakers so much more seriously than the after thought that they used to be. I've also dropped thousands on guitar pickups over the years and I'm finally happy to be leaving that rabbit hole. So yeah, you've helped a lot. A big thanks for pointing me in the right direction to help level up my recordings.

[@gustavelantierronan]

I agree !

[@ickweesochnich]

LOVE IT!!!! you opened my eyes where I was MARKETING blind (Pickups, wood, fingers, all the stoopid blah, blah, blah) and you supported that little "wisdom" I already had for 20 years: put the EQ behind the PREAMP and be a MASTER

[@metalsthelaw4238]

I think pickups are more of a “feel” thing than actual tone. I tend to gravitate toward emg’s for their tightness and pick attack. I can definitely feel a difference between them and most passives, regardless of how much gain, or boost you throw at them.

[@grinder2401]

Exactly my thoughts even before watching the first video!

[@mickshreds]

I came here after thinking about this a lot. Certain pickups will make me wanna play different because of how they feel. Some call for super tight chuggin some for loosey goosey fat open string riffs.

[@voodoocustompickups2547]

They definitely effect tone differently but it's only really discernable if the signal is fairly clean. A PAF and an Invader through a 5150 will sound similar

[@metalsthelaw4238]

@@voodoocustompickups2547 I think that point is well proven. This test however, is under high gain. One point I rarely see is pickup placement. Guitar manufacturers sometimes have wildly different placements, and that can considerably change the character of a pickup.

[@voodoocustompickups2547]

@Metalsthelaw Absolutely. A pickup is just an inductor so where it is and how close to the strings it is makes a huge difference. The closer it is and closer to the magnetic field the stronger the signal will be

[@diggielixx]

The pickup comparison was great and i would say a real eye opener. I know Glenn is just doing this for the sake of high gain distortion but I would love to see this same test applied to a variety of effects. That would be amazing to see.

[@homerzeppelin]

I thought the same thing, so I made a video using Glenn's DI signals into different profiles/models in ToneX (like a kemper). kzbin.info/www/bejne/m2rMnaOtYtF9oJI Spoiler in case you don't want to watch, The general rule he spelled out applies pretty well that adding more and more gain tends to make the differences smaller. The other obvious thing when doing this to me was those active harley benton pickups are LOUD compared to everything else...and the "tone is in the fingers" also applies--as this riff sounds better and better with high gain (as that is obviously what he played it for). It doesn't shine clean, or even sound too good with moderate vintage fender overdrive.

[@diggielixx]

@@homerzeppelin will definitely check this out. Thank you!

[@michaelpal7641]

"Did you learn anything from this shootout"?? Hell yes!! I use Neural DSP plugins with 2 guitars w/ Humbuckers- Plus an acoustic with clean tones, plus the same acoustic guitar with a Neural DSP "crunch tone"-End result is a layering or thickening effect (for me anyways). Fully understand how Amp/Mic placement affects Tone, but kind of stuck with using Plugins for now. And..Revelation-changing the Mic placement and/or Mics themselves within the Plugin also gives you a Tonal difference. As long as you are happy with your recording workflow, and you are getting the "Tone" you want for a given arrangement-you are good! Your videos enable us/show us simple Rock/Metal players to work smarter!! (And save a few bucks) Again-another great video! Thank You Sir!!

[@robertvarner8195]

I've always thought that pickups don't matter that much with high gain as long as they're not cheap microphonic pickups but it's really cool to have it confirmed. Thanks Glenn and keep up the search for the truth. 👍

[@allenblumenauer]

Out of the dozens of guitars I’ve owned over 25 years, I’ve only upgraded pickups once. The tonal changes were noticeable, but certainly more so with cleans. As soon as I add high gain, the nuances are minimized. My old Schecter with Duncan Designed pickups still sounds killer through a decent setup of amp and it’s settings, cab, and speakers. 🤘

[@r21d]

Aye, and there be 2 types of "gain", preamp gain, and poweramp gain. So distortion is preamp gain, overdrive is poweramp gain. Difference is clipping. Distortion has hard clipping, and overdrive soft. To achieve soft clipping, one must also increase the volume, per added voltage/gain. So (impo) one should add gain in the preamp stage with some peak catching before hitting preamp; which should be tubes as its just gain sure, but transistors are physically connected to the ground. Tubes work with gdmn light. And after the preampstage, one should apply some limiter just to squeeze overtones before feeding it to a powerstage that is set to full(ish) gain full(ish) volume powerstage feeding 1 or 2 mic'd elements. Ofc with a powersoak, but you want to drive the powerstage to the fullest. Why..? soft clipping.

[@nickwilschut5356]

I think different pickups are mainly a response / character thing, and not so much of a tone thing. When I play a guitar with seymours it seems tighter and more smooth than with EMG's for instance. I think you can compare it a bit to making minor adjustments with an EQ infront of the amplifier, it doesn't change the tone that much, the amplifier just responds in a different way. Atleast that's my view on this topic and i'm not a studio owner, so take it with a grain of salt ;)

[@murrayguitarpickups9545]

The "feel" is a huge part of it, the way the magnet powers the current effects how quick it responds to your pick attack. When the gain is high you need your pickup to have loads of attack so that it has clarity but if you set your gain lower or even clean you need to reduce how quickly the pickup responds to suit your level of gain. If you use a high output ceramic magnet pickup for blues or jazz it will sound harsh and "ice pick-ey" likewise a low output jazz pickup will sound muddy at hi gain.

[@CassiniProjekt]

Ironic, just today I was thinking I like EMGs the most because they give such a defined tone compared to passives

[@murrayguitarpickups9545]

@@CassiniProjekt thats because they have a preamp to boost the output rather than just overwinding the coils which pushes the mids. So, they are a nice sounding low output pickup with a fairly flat EQ which is boosted, preserving the high end clarity

[@JoeBaermann]

@@murrayguitarpickups9545 High output ceramics does not mean tons of high frequency if the poles and windings compensate for it. For a very tight rythm sound for metal I find that utilizing multiple gain stages makes it respond tighter than switching pickups, but I guess going insane gain on one pedal and adding a fast gate with something like the Cock Blocker does the same thing, only issue gating that fast is when playing leads, hence why I prefer close to no gating and a few gain stages instead, like 2 gain pedals with very little amount of gain before the amps gain, it’s more a matter of shaping what the final gain and frequencies sound like and how it responds to techniques. My main issue atm. is to keep thecstring ringing when fretting at the highest/last fret, but that is most probably me missing out on some technique.

[@TYLERtheMAGGOT1]

This comment right here ! It's the response and character, not so much of tone. You can't tell me that a pair of EMG 60s is similar to a pair of fishmens and blackouts. They all respond far different from my experience

[@dannfeltrin]

This is the best shootout video regarding high gain settings with different guitars and pickups! Thanks for that, Glenn! Yes, clean sounds is where we can hear the differences. So, I would agree that this would be something to consider only if the clean sound is really important, because again, if you use lots of effects and an EQ (like on a Helix system) you can definitely "change" your tone as much as you want. I'll love to see the same test with different strings, though. I feel there's a more noticeable change in sound when I change strings compared to changing the pickups!

[@ClaimedEagle]

I don't know you guys but even if I don't play clean that much, the moment the cleans need to sound, they need to sound glorious so I can't go cheap. My best guitar has some Alnico 2 in the neck and a Full Shred in the bridge. Alnico 2 is weak but delivers some amazing cleans while my full shred reacts good enough with high gain

[@dannfeltrin]

@@ClaimedEagle yeah, a low output alnico on the neck does sound great. But what mean is that I use 3 completely different guitars, each one with different pickups (one is the ESP design pickups from the H200 model) and, other than different tunings, no one can tell if one sounds better from one to the other as we play only metalcore, high gain at all times hehehe .

[@ryanschindler923]

Have to say this channel has been great at dispelling lots of myths that i assumed were true over 20 years of guitar playing, and it's helped me realize what's important in tone and guitar sound..

[@JJames666male]

I've listened to this with my eyes closed, and while I agree that as long as the pup is good quality you can very similar tones from different specs, I also immediately recognized the active ones as my least favorites, so that's a nice confirm

[@jedishredder8541]

I gotta say, your videos have inspired me to go and buy a cheaper guitar and run it through the same paces I do my more expensive ones. Not that I’m disillusioned about why I paid more money on some than others (mostly aesthetics). My curiosity is getting the best of me and who knows, maybe I find an inexpensive hidden gem that ends up in regular rotation.

[@photoniccannon2117]

I've bought guitars from the $200 range all the way up to the $1000 range. The best guitars I bought were usually the ones in the $300 range, just from personal experience.

[@martinlicht1969]

I've learned over many years that most tone is in the Hands. Thanks for sharing.

[@SpectreSoundStudios]

That’s not even remotely close to being true. Source: numerous tests conducted right here. Please watch a few & save your money!

[@Th_RealDirtyDan]

I can’t wait to see you explore the EQ and speaker topic. It’s so fascinating to see what types of effects and differences the speaker would have vs a standard EQ curve

[@TexAgsArmyVet]

I love these videos. I've learned a ton from them. I've played a bunch of different guitars, pickups etc over the years. I'm an EMG guy and I'm not ashamed! 🤘🤘😄😄😄 I use them because they're consistent. I know what I'm getting with each purchase. Keep the great content coming Glen!!!

[@ryanw.2587]

I love the solderless wiring system from EMG

[@dritt-drittpaniagua739]

Watch your videos "absolutely" change my way to shopping..Glenn, I'm 63 and always searching for tone I don't worry about my vacuum tubes anymore. And now I don't have to worry about pickups. Thanks Glenn

[@davismiller3769]

Okay, I really need to hear this test: Glenn, if you could, I'd love to see a shootout between the "big four" pickups in the bridge position of a guitar - a p90, a filtertron, a passive humbucker, and a fender-style-single coil, all setup for high gain (and cleans if you want). I've done some blind tests and I'm fairly confident that even with super high gain, I can tell the 4 apart pretty reliably, but I still think it would be cool.

[@Muzikman127]

Fr

[@Stretchwreckedem469]

I definitely think that if you have an amp and a set of pickups that blend really well together to create the harmonic character that you're after, then that's all that really matters. With that being said, i feel as if the most important part about picking out new guitar pickups is finding a set that you feel best captures the way you pick, and has enough output to where it can be pushed into high gain.

[@JoeBaermann]

Does the amount of a pickups output push newer ultra high gain amps into more gain? Old amps sure, but I doubt that it has much affect on newer ones set to crazy amounts of clipping.

[@jeremyrafuse5330]

You missed the point here

[@Illegal-Swede]

Hey Glen! John Eck here from Fishman. I agree on one point that in high gain scenarios the pickup takes second place to the amp since each tube stage is EQ'd and steered to achieve a certain tonal target, and the compression from the distortion often minimizes the differences. However, I suggest that the tonal differences in pickups affect the front end response of an amp and make a valuable difference for those who seek to fine tune their tone to maximum awesomeness. On our signature models we work directly with artists to create pickups to suit their specific goals. These are folks who can play any amp they want, but they still feel like their pickups could be better. We often go through more than one round of fine tuning to get things to their liking, and when we reach that point we are also stoked about the sound. Our pickups have multiple voices to achieve a tonal range not available from traditional passive designs. Anyway, I hope that's useful info. Best regards!

[@jethrofloyd67]

So cool you included the raw tracks this time. Really puts it in perspective to hear the differences from guitar to guitar, and then hear them completely vanish under all the gain. I use more cleaner tones, or "edge of breakup" as they say, but also have way too many fuzz pedals haha. Knowing how much "tone" is lost even with moderate amounts of gain tells me that if I want to vary the tone for a lead or overdub part rather than grab a different guitar instead focus more on the stuff like amp/cab, mics and mic position, etc. ...and how DARE you save me time in the studio, Glenn, you ass...if my tracks don't take days to finish then the bassist won't be rushed and will try to *gulp* write basslines hahaha Keep the uncomfortable truth science experiments coming, I'm laughing and learning at the same time

[@TheGtrman91]

As someone who used to repair wind instruments, it was mind blowing how many items are just placebos that make absolutely no actual impact on tone themselves, but the mentality they provide helps the player. Hell, I've done a number of free "tune ups" where I just brought a perfectly working horn into the back for a bit, maybe hit a hammer against a can or something a couple times, and brought the instrument back out in exactly the same condition claiming I'd "made adjustments" to hear then happily say that it now played much better.

[@bassyey]

So placebo also exists in the orchestra side? I thought only metal players are susceptible to that.

[@TheGtrman91]

@bassyey until metal players start putting small strips of aluminum tape on random parts of their guitars, gluing literal rocks to "nodal points", using high mass screws, buying "cryogenically treated" parts, or arguing that unlaquered guitars play "fuller"; they have nothing on the band/orchestra side.

[@lachaineguitarededavid]

I've found out that, as long as the gear isn't crap (and you're not playing hardcore on a nylon string guitar) you should be able to get a pretty solid tone. Also, a nice thing to do, at least for me who's used to old, dusty guitars, is to replace the potentiometers if they're ancient relics. Sometimes that alone will save you from changing pickups ('specially if you tweak the values, like "muddy ? => bigger ohm" "harsh ? => lower ohm" ) The only reason i see today to do so is so you want to personalize your guitar, for instance from high-output ceramic to lower-output PAF-on-steroids style (or the opposite) if you're really about subtle nuances in tone. But that's about it, really. I would rather buy books than more expensive pickups these days.

[@aoasjoshuam.473]

Learned something new today. Please, Glenn, Don't ever ever stop making videos such as this. This made me appreciate the pickups that I have on my guitar even more. Keep rockin 🤘. Greetings from Philippines 🇵🇭.

[@APKyle]

Glenn is low key the Dave Ramsey of the KZbin guitar community. It would be impossible to accurately assess, but I am curious to know the total amount of money Glenn has saved viewers from buying new, unnecessary gear. Thanks for doing the experimenting so we didn’t have to, my man!

[@actuallynotsteve]

Has to be in the millions at this point

[@jrrarglblarg9241]

The more of his videos I watch the less I want to replace my pawnshop Squier and G10 mkii until I know why.

[@Yakomoe]

Lmao Glenn and Dave on the same stage

[@gibsonflyingv2820]

Dave Ramsay is a total fraud. That’s kind of an insult to Glenn.

[@MonteTristoGuitarRips]

I completely agree. One thing that also makes a huge difference is the quality of materials, hardware metals, what the nut is made with, etc that also affects whether the guitar has a brighter tone or a more dull tone. Way cheaper options to adjust before you start spending money to have a guitar wired up.

[@lookingbehind6335]

Wrong…watch more videos.

[@ThomasHendrickson]

I think aftermarket pickups make the most sense if you’re building a guitar or if there’s something actually wrong with the old pickups. Beyond that it’s just 15% better at best.

[@CamiloPefaur]

Yeah, and 15% is already a stretch

[@EvilTB]

Or if you have a lot of money. This channel is great for encouraging those to allocate limited resources more effectively. I'd swap out my pickups only if I was wealthy. There's much more important shit to buy. I might get back into playing guitar and I've been wondering what a good cost effective rig would be. For example right now, I'd like a decent 100 watt solid state head like the new katana pro for headroom and maybe a 20 watt tube head. Not sure if tubes are really needed anymore. Maybe I just want to own one because I never had one. A good serviceable tube amp is expensive even at 20 watts. Add a few cabinets. Maybe a few of the higher end import guitars. Perhaps a chain of eight or so pedals and maybe a separate multi effects unit direct to PA. When I add up the costs even this rig ooks to cost about 10 grand in total if you add everything I think I may possibly want to it.

[@xxxxneoxxxx]

@@EvilTB I often think about the whole thing like that. But then I question myself... Like, do I really NEED a tube amp?

[@CamiloPefaur]

@@EvilTB You know, there are cabinets that operate only as a power section, designed to be used with all these new IR pedals, like the Helix and stuff. So as a suggestion, use your guitar, use your pedals, buy the Sonicake IR pedal and one of these cabinets. and you'll have tons of valve amps to try

[@fernandosilva6295]

It pleases my heart and my wallet knowing that spending 17 dollars on a GFS pickup will get me 85% of the way to the sound of a 70 usd Fender/DiMarzio/Seymour

[@Laevus2321]

The results definitely affected my thoughts on my next purchase. I'm looking at getting a multiscale, specifically for down tuning and metal (what a surprise!) so this helped a bunch to cut out one factor from the comparisons. I've already got clean tones I like on another guitar, so the only pickup related question I'll have left is whether to go active vs. passive.

[@thisdyingsoul76]

Pickups might be more or less muddy depending on their quality and output... but EQ can compensate for that if you know how to dial it in. The amp and speakers will make the biggest difference.

[@romansilociramzes]

When starting the journey with my own studio, I bought an orange amp for that “British” tone and an EVH 5150 for a more metal tone and recordings. Thought about switching from the factory humbuckers to something like the Juggernauts for my guitars to sound more massive tone wise. Boy, was I wrong about the whole thing. Thank you Glenn for the great videos about tone, comparison of different speakers, and showing us what difference they make. Greetings from Moldova! 🤘🤘🤘

[@crate718]

It is amazing how similar pickups are when you AB them with same exact volume

[@StanSinitsky]

Personal experience: I had a PRS SE Custom 22 made in 2008 with cheap SE humbuckers. They sounded good for rock and playing power chords, however, if you wanted to play something more complex like a minor chord or some six-string sus7sus11blahblah chord, it sounded super muddy, clarity was close to none. Then I got PRS SE Mark Holcomb instead of this guitar. It has Seymour Duncan Alpha and Omega pickups, and clarity is their main feature. When playing said six-string chords, I can hear every note in them. Also, these pickups have a very unique sounding coil-split - it instantly gives that "djent" sound. The same was with my PRS SE SVN 7-string guitar. I tune it to Drop F#, and stock 85/15 "S" pickups sounded good for single note riffs but lacked clarity in very low chords like F#5 power chord. I replaced them with BKP Ragnaroks and that fixed clarity problems. I don't know if that's about a magnet type, or the way pickups are EQ-ed, but that worked for me. However, I have other guitars, and I wouldn't say which is which in a blind test. JB, Super Distortion, and EMG81 sound very similar on high gain. Minor differences are there when you're hearing just the guitar but in the context of a full mix, you'd never tell which pickup was used.

[@HELLPATH]

That Nazgul and the Fishman sounded best to me. A bit less muddier, but to be honest this is something you can do in the EQ as well. Great video Glen!

[@kenbell9094]

I totally agree.

[@serdiezv]

I was surprised with how similar the Nazgul and the 81 were

[@clothbooster]

I have a Nazgul. Propably one of the best pickups for low tunnings.

[@GoingBrogue]

The Fishman Fluence pickups sounded totally different coming through my 5.1 Surround setup. They had more depth and clarity. Overall though, you’re absolutely right that pickups aren’t that important particularly for chugging and rhythm. There’s definitely an argument to be made for specialist pickups for cleans and leads.

[@dmanandcmac]

Tell me you have Fishmans installed in your guitars without telling me you have Fishmans installed in your guitars 🐟 🎸

[@vladv5126]

KZbin only outputs in stereo. Meaning on your 5.1 Surround setup, you would only be either getting 2 speakers working, or the same stereo signal coming out duplicated from both the front and back pair, depending on how your system is routed. Meaning, it doesn't matter, and, at best it would have just sounded louder. Have a marvelous day.

[@JanXD]

@@dmanandcmac I have them in one of my guitars and I hate them. My only guess on the original video was that guitar 8 had Fishmans, and I was right because they actually make a difference.

[@GoingBrogue]

@@dmanandcmac I play acoustic folk music. I’m listening to the video on a home theater system which has a different audio fidelity from your computer monitors, TV speakers, soundbar or headphones. I noticed they sounded different. Am I here sucking Fishman’s dick? No. I fucking hate their acoustic magnetic pickups… they sound like shit, but I could absolutely hear a difference in them through my specific audio playback setup.

[@GoingBrogue]

@@vladv5126 ok? If the only thing that changes is the pickups, and I hear a difference in some of them, that just means I can hear a difference. Clearly something makes them sound differently when the pickups are the only variable. Did I claim I thought it sounded better? No. I only stated that they sounded different through my audio setup. Your mileage may vary.

[@davorsixstrings1642]

It's great, thanks for the reveal. It finally comes down to looks and build quality of any guitar. Basically, we should focus on neck feel and tuning stability, instead of worrying about pickups.

[@bassplayer2011ify]

Gretsch guitars are an underrated gem. You might have to put a booster in the chain to hit them amp hard enough for metal as their pick up output is closer to a hot single coil. But for classic hard rock if you roll off the tone and crank the amp they sound amazing. All of their solid body guitars are chambered so it doesn't matter which one you grab.

[@delusionwalker8852]

Agreed. I got G5260 baritone and its really something else comparing to any other baritone I ever tried but also their normal guitars are awesome. Bigsby is garbage but hard tail version I would buy every single one.

[@JohnDoe9764]

Great video, Glenn! As I get older I more and more realize, that most gear (except speakers, mics etc) doesn't make that much of a difference once you are in a band/live situation or a full mix. Keep up the good work!

[@Vincentpadrutt]

One of the reasons my Band switched to using HX Stomps live :D To me the benefits of digital amps exceed analog ones by far - less to carry around, in ear always sounds the same, the rig is midi controllable (there are amps that can do that to, but not to the degree digital amps are capable of doing) and in general, there are far less problems which can occur live (Think of a cable breaking on your pedalboard or something like that). Oh, and every sound engineer will be thankful, that they have one microphone less to watch over. In the Studio it's an other ballgame of course - Mic placement and trying out different mic combinations are just far too awesome and probably will never be replaced by digital amps. So yeah, I completely agree.

[@JohnDoe9764]

@@Vincentpadrutt same here. My band is on the verge of switching to digital amps and in ear monitoring. Makes life so much easier...

[@chrismccarthy7107]

The thing is that a lot of us just play in our bedrooms and the you can tell the difference in that context. Once it's recorded or playing live you can't really tell. but that is Like 1% of my playing. The rest of the time I'm in my bedroom and I can certainly hear the subtle differences in each of my guitars. I like all the gear, but if my guitar isn't putting out what I want it to, I'll swap pickups and that's solve the problem. Sure speakers are more important, but the pickups do play a part in the guitar's tone. Subtle as it is.

[@chrismccarthy7107]

Yeah, but you'll lose some edge and wind up sounding like an mp3. It'll sound good, but not as good as tubes. The trade off is probably worth it, but nothing beats a tube amp. @@JohnDoe9764

[@JohnDoe9764]

@@chrismccarthy7107 absolutely right 👍

[@gitartysta]

In general, this is a theme that will keep on giving. It's a neverending story. When you do any pickup shootout there will always be someone to tell you something like "but you didn't include Fishman Fluence". When you will they will tell you "but you didn't include Fishman Fluence MODERN". And when you do that they'll go "but that was not Fishman Fluence Modern TOSIN ABASI SET". And so on.

[@therealalexmullins]

For rhythm I agree, but leads also are more affected by the pickup as well as overall feel of the neck and frets. Some pickups just do not sing when holding single notes. Active pickups seem to be the best for me but I've also liked the Nazgul and Black Winters for leads. Probably not sonically noticeable but I can feel the difference pretty substantially.

[@forthecreator1]

I switched from Active to Passive pickups. What you are describing could simply be the active pickups having more gain. You could possibly achieve a similar result with passive pickups, by turning up the amp gain (or drive pedal, if using one)

[@stimpsonjcat26]

I have tried a lot of pickups and can say that even under high gain they do make quite a difference. Not so much in the shape of the tone (although there is still a difference) but more in the attack and way it sustains and breaks up. Pickups have resonant frequencies which cause a boost at certain frequencies and those boosted frequencies will break up first much in the same way a boost such as a tube screamer works. Also most modern metal tones could sound way better and less similar if you dial the gain back a little so the distortion isn't compressed to the point that you lose all the pick attack and feel of the playing.

[@jedrow]

And this is what people aren’t getting.

[@CR3W1SH03S]

Did you watch the video?

[@serdiezv]

If you dial back the gain you lose the cool tone you get from the compression, the uniformity in the pick attack when doing the melo death riffing. Different strokes for different folks, but nothing beats a guitar with EMGs (high output and compressed) into a 5150 with gain on 6-7 being boosted by an overdrive pedal.

[@stimpsonjcat26]

@@serdiezv I agree for the most part. You can get the best of both worlds if you set your gain just right so that it compresses more when you hit the strings hard but has less compression when you don't. Add a little pick control and you will get good uniformity in the attack. I prefer less compression and more dynamics in picking. I also agree for active EMG is the way to go. I really like the new EMG-X. I tried the Fishman fluence moderns and found them to be lifeless and dull.

[@-IMMOBILIZER-]

@@serdiezv , and the BETTER YOUR PICKUPS ARE the LESS you'll need to "dial gain back" , if you even need to at all!!!!

[@smoreshaunted]

3:43 to 4:28 Bro Glenn, there is ABSOLUTELY a huge difference in dynamics(how the pickup responds to your playing) here and you have made the proof. Cheers! :3

[@DazzleRebel]

Honestly, a set of new strings makes more difference to guitar tone than changing pickups! I recently brought my first guitar from back in the 90s out of storage, a Yamaha Pacifica 112M. I decided to have a play with it through my VST amps and it sounded horrible. Swapped out to some brand new strings that weren't over a decade old and wow, what would you know, it sounded great!

[@ianknopke5010]

Some pickups like EMGs or Lace Sensors are supposed to be quieter and pick up less noise and hum on stage. Did you notice any of those noise differences in your test, and is it an important factor for recording metal? Btw, David Gilmour famously switched to EMG pickups in his strat for noise reasons and sounded amazing, which would tend to support your conclusions regarding pickup tone.

[@JoeBaermann]

Active pickups are not the be all end all. I can use some pretty high output pups in front of my tone bender, as soon as I use active pickups it completely craps out. Some things also sound better with lower output, like that I personally prefer Yngwie’s lead tone pre Seymour Duncan.

[@CyberChrist]

I suspect David Gilmour would sound amazing even on a Gibson ^^

[@JoeBaermann]

@@CyberChrist He played quite a few songs on a Gibson LP, so yes. The EMG’s he uses are medium output coupled to a fully fledged active EQ, so it’s a bit more than just pickups and volume/tone control. Not sure if he still uses some of the old stomp boxes, if so pickups and the whole circuit have a lot to say, since even a modern muff pi triangle fuzz reacts different to what different pickups feed into it. Besides that he is known for blending the neck with the bridge pickup.

[@edwardrinehart1967]

That was fun to watch. I learned a good bit here. It makes me less concerned about pick ups and more about my amp and pedal chain. Thanks mate.

[@georgeradulescu7175]

I appreciate the experiment and the insight. Since most of these guitars were already aimed at the metal crowd, I'd be curious to see how a low output PAF style pickup would compare to a Fluence or Nazgul at high gain (impedance, resonant frequency, harmonics, attack, etc...). I'd also like to hear more about how the tone is shaped by the amp, any external overdrives, and then the speaker. Anyway, good stuff and keep up the great work!

[@Thido123]

You might want to check out jim lill's youtube channel. He tested out in what way strings, amps, speakers etc. effect your guitar tone. Really interesting.

[@martianmurray]

To me I mainly just notice the output level so I get to the edge breakup at different points, but yeah humbucker vs single coil is what I can hear a significant tone difference on.

[@raakareiska9804]

The pickups are tool that guitarist use how he likes the guitar response his playing. Same way as drummers choose their cymbals, pedals, drumheads or sticks. Average listener can't hear difference from them recorded but yet drummers prefer one over another. The thing with different pickups is also that you would not dial them all in same way while recording cause some of them are heavy in treble, some in middle and some in low end. This "debunking" just slaps them all in same setup and dialed sound and the conclusion is that there is no diffrence cause they are all played thru same dialed tone. Didn't convince me

[@joshshultz1250]

@@raakareiska9804 But... if all other variables are controlled and the same... he is kind of proving that it doesn't matter for high gain. Certainly no where near as much as an acoustic instrument like a cymbal.

[@raakareiska9804]

@@joshshultz1250 I guarantee if there would be extreme metal cymbal demo where every setup would be reviewed by blast beats and heavy hitting the difference in outcome would be like in these pickups.

[@Polarium416]

I build custom guitars, and do luthier work, and if I'm not told a specific pickup to use, I use the pickups from GuitarFetish, every time. They sound great, just as good as a "good" pickup, while being 1/4 of the price, and the build quality is fantastic!

[@pickthestickup]

I'd love to see a comparison between actual amp+cabinet/speaker stacks and software modeled combos

[@amrickdhillon1283]

Glenn, because you've put so much great info into showing us how pickups react to high gain, I really want to hear your thoughts on what happens that 2% of the time you do work on clean tones. Do you ever run into having a really great high-gain tone only to find that the clean tone on the same guitar sucks? And if this happens, do the pickups even come into question? (I'd imagine the answer would still be to check the amps other equipment before blaming the guitar.)

[@gab_ale]

The first paragraph of the comment at 10:55 nails it. When one has so much clipping and other types of distortion, the nuances of the pickups, guitars or even amps get lost. Definitely EQ changes (speakers, eq shaping circuitry, microphone placement, etc.) will have the most impact on the sound.

[@GreboGent]

Imagine this, The year is 2050, all instruments have become midi controllers hooked to sample library’s… and Glenn is still having to SHOW the guitar snobs that infinitesimal details like what kind of solder was used bares no relevance to the tone! It’s like a never ending game of chess against a pigeon. Excellent work as always dude!

[@Bfordandafter]

That will be a horrible day for music.

[@marshall91t]

Absolutely love this series of debunking, genuinely surprised how little difference there really is. I do wonder if some of these variations come from things like the height of the pickups and differing caps and tolerances on the tone circuit (if there is one). Would genuinely be curious if all high gain pedals also end up sounding the same, especially if you match the EQ on them. Looking forward to seeing what the next thing to be disproven will be....

[@Eliphas_Elric]

FWIW, tone caps only matter once you start rolling off the tone knob, at 10 a straight piece of wire will sound the same as any cap. Pot values have a much bigger effect for everything on 10.

[@raakareiska9804]

He should use better sound for demo. I would never use that much of low end in guitar recording. It's overwhelming. This is why I also hate Dimarzio Tone Zone cause you always drop that bass down

[@bassyey]

Pickup height and picking/strumming. We are humans, you don't strum EXACTLY the same way each time, the human factor kicks in.

[@CR3W1SH03S]

Glad you added the caveat (big word for bass players I know) about how it doesn't really matter for high gain stuff. Was at an amp show a while back and a booth had a high gain setup and guys were trying all these different guitars, and guess what... all the guitars sounded exactly the same. Lower gain and clean is where guitars and pickups matter.

[@JJDon5150]

Pickups absolutely make a difference. The question is, what should you change first? The biggest change you could make first would be amp, and then I'd say speaker and/or pickup. I've tried a lot of pickups out, and the biggest difference IMO is clarity and output. Yes, you can EQ a lot of things, but some pickups just have more clarity/note and chord definition under gain than others. I compared the Suhr Aldrich, Duncan JB, and BKP Holy Diver all to each other, and the Holy Diver has the best clarity under gain. They're all good pickups, but playing a chord with a JB isn't like playing a chord with a Holy Diver, no matter how much you EQ. I actually did a comparison vid of the two on my channel. I've noticed that when you upload a lot of stuff to KZbin, it compresses the sound, so any differences you're hearing in person are negated and sound more subtle. But in person, you can hear and "feel" the difference. You also have to consider how many guitars you have and what you're using them for. If you're only doing high gain but have a guitar with a low output Gibson PAF and another guitar with a JB, you're going to have to EQ, mess with gain, maybe use a boost pedal, and do a lot of stuff every time you switch guitars. That's ok for at home or recording, but not great in a live sense if you switch between multiple guitars for tunings, tremolos, etc.

[@kainagami]

And that's it, as soon as you mix everything and upload it to a streaming platform all the subtle differences vanishes. If changes get lost after doing everything then they're not that important, what do you think about it?

[@JJDon5150]

@@kainagami that's why I also added nuances to what I said. Playing live or with other people, pickups make a difference due to clarity and output. If you can't hear the notes you're playing clearly, then you're guessing. Granted, when I did my own comparison I was just recording direct with a multi-effects unit. I've noticed that multi-effects units like FM9 or Helix have their own compression and make differences between pickups a little harder to tell. But the differences are bigger when you're using a real amp.

[@stringerheavymetal8283]

I love how you're working to myth bust so much industry bullshit Glenn Keep up the great work, yours is definitely the go to channel for music production querys.

[@JacubWhite38]

Wow, it's amazing how different those pickups weren't

[@wadewilson4998]

I would definitely like to see a video done about the difference (whether there is any) between active and passive pickups

[@BabTheBabs]

From my experience and some videos i've seen, I think its about the same as this here. I don't remember who but one popular guitar KZbinr said active pickups are simply easier to get a better tone since you often have a 2-3 band eq on the guitar.

[@rollme1kenobi768]

Passives sound different,in different wood bodies. Like a mahogany body compared to Ash. Actives have preamps to basically clone the manufacturer's designed for sound

[@randallabracadabra]

There's really big differences between actives and passives and a lot of it is feel and dynamics, and how they affect you when you play. You can especially hear and feel the difference in Tom Anderson passive pickups vs more traditional humbuckers and when compared to actives it's like a whole other world. You really just have to listen to samples of a bunch and then compare the ones you liked the most in person and if you're really paying attention, you will notice each one hits differently and inspires a different path or approach to your playing based on the sonic textures you're hearing.

[@sirspongadoodle]

@@rollme1kenobi768 wood only makes a difference in acoustic. anything else you'v heard is bullshit.

[@EricMakingWaves]

The more times I listened the more differences I heard. The Solar FF #3 was my fav in the first video-and it still is here. Reminds me of my fav metalcore records. Pickups may only be 10% of the sound but that 10% matters to me. When you study recording you realize your final sound is the sum of hundreds of small changes. A 3 dB dip at 400hz seems incredibly small until you make that same move on 13 tracks. Pickups might be a small part of the total but the more parts you get right the better your final output is. I think the outrage is better spent on guitar makers rather than just pickups. There may be a few hundred dollars difference in pickups, but there are thousands of dollars difference in guitars and God knows tone wood is worst myth of them all.

[@jackie.p6891]

honestly, I was almost convinced it was just the same sample played on repeat xD I build guitars and pickups myself, and there's 3 things I look for: - action/intonation - position of the pickups - how awesome it looks

[@Magikarp5600]

if you're able, i think it'd be a good idea to show us some frequency response graphs from these guitars so we can all visualize exactly how similar they are, and point out whatever differences are there, however minor they seem to be

[@larrymace2361]

A pickup with higher resistance will filter off more of the higher frequency and can really change how the GBE strings sound. Glen is right though with gain the differences are very small however when you have a pickup with very high resistance it can be noticeable with gain there is a pickup that is over 50kohms to put that in perspective most pickups are wound at 8kohms and i think humbuckers are at 6kohms don't quote me on that though. So with that spicy 50+kohms, a lot of the highs are cut out even with gain making for some pretty cool-sounding solos. It also adds a lot of distortion even in clean channels. Here is an example of a 54kohm humbucker really spicy and I believe he is playing it through a clean channel kzbin.info/www/bejne/i5evhmdua9t7sLM

[@randallabracadabra]

That's the real proof in the pudding and I think you guys will be surprised just how different they actually are from each other. Not to mention how different they affect the vibration of the strings due to their magnetic properties.

[@TheKlaun9]

Not having done a real test myself apart from fiddling around on my guitar a bit at times, but I think he'd need to exactly match the distance between strings and pickup for each guitar. This is not a guitar channel, other people have done those tests though. It's a test for your ears and the listener won't care about graphs

[@serazac25]

It would be cool to see at what point do the guitars still sound significantly different as you're adding gain. Now that you are busting elctric guitar myths, it would be great to see these experiments on a bass guitar as well.

[@luigigetsu]

I like this idea, does crunch gain sound different across all those pickups or is it close to no differences as in the heavy gain demo we just watched?

[@travisspaulding2222]

There's a KZbin channel called Mike Stamper Official where you can listen to a ton of videos that do just that. My Evo just went microphonic on me, and I decided to get something with more output because I'm kind of tired of having to adjust my volume on stage when switching guitars, and even my wife noticed that once you get into high gain, there really isn't a noticeable difference. I use cleans in about 6 of our songs, so clean is important to me, as well as output. It's difficult to compare output from a recording, but I ultimately went with a Super Distortion because of how it sounds with cleans, and the output should be more in line with my stock Ibanez V8 in my other 2 guitars.

[@serazac25]

@@travisspaulding2222 I follow his channel! It's very good. Love his demos. Really liked this Ajo pickups

[@dindinbre]

Bass is mostly played clean, even in metal, so I guess there is a more significant difference between different bass pickups, and especially with shitloads of different pickup designs compared to guitar, different style single coils and humbuckers with variable placement. My fav bass sound ever is with two P style pickups, and, for some reason, that setup is very rare.

[@jomesias]

Dude, you have to try Heavy core strings then!! Either the Dunlop, DR ddt or Ernie ball ( the Hetfield signature )! They’re so freaking tight even though they feel tiny! I do agree with the pickup marketing, though there are clear tone differences between pickup magnets, the other variation is the windings ( to make it a low or high output). That’s it, each “era” of tone was determined by the pickup style (P90, humbucker or single coil), number of windings and magnet used at the time. DiMarzio also experimented with diff metal for the pole pieces and a hybrid magnet (ceramic and alnico), though IMO the difference in tone wasn’t really remarkable. For example, older P90s have that twangy full spectrum response (a lot of that tone is because single coils and P90s don’t cancel noise, unlike humbuckers) and mix that with your magnet material selection and you get the pickup tone mixing the pickup type and magnet material. Now this sounds needs to go into the distortion and then it will get the eq cut and focused in the mixing stage and this is were the tone starts getting lost literally “in the mix”. This is where you start contemplating if it’s worth it, for a tiny difference. Now, we do need to recognize there’s a problem with brands and their “metal” guitars that typically come with overwound windings with a ceramic pickup that makes it really muddy. Alnico 8 magnets can help but it’s a matter of taste, some like the mud so go figure lmao

[@nugeforprez]

Would love a vid on seeing if its possible to EQ humbuckers to sound close to single coils and vice versa. Love the work you do Glen, cheers.

[@nashmanzl]

The SD JB is the most recorded pickup in history. I've thought how my buddy's hand-wound Loller clone sounded quite similar, and the same with the DiMarzio Tone Zone. But I haven't felt that way about just any and all. It's the musician's tendency to hear these differences when ALONE in the room with a rig. I mean, in my own home, over my amp and pedals and cab, I don't have to listen for the difference, I already know which guitars have my favorite sounds. I feel like a lot of what "we" are getting that you don't has to do with response. Like, when I play over the EMG 81, I can't palm mute the same way, or it gets to "chinky" and metallic instead of tight. The Bare Knuckles give me a muddy "bark" in the lows at times. My "hands" don't think these differences are as subtle, as it drives me nuts and keeps me from liking the guitar as much as others in my small collection. I can't seem to "connect" with EMG actives for example. Where I agree with your principles is that a listening audience just can't care about any of this. They just want to sing along.

[@Mikey__R]

This is so true. We don't buy gear for the audience (they're drunk anyway), we buy it for ourselves. The feel of the guitar and how it interacts with the amp is so important, and you're the only person who will ever notice.

[@BooBoo-mv9if]

Love it preaching the truth let the amp work. The bridge pup in eddies Frankenstein was 7.9 max output.

[@INDAmedia]

Thanks for ripping apart all those guitar myths for us. I put my guitars through a similar test. The only difference for me was play, feel and response but not the recorded signal. But then…I only know that I know nothing! Can’t wait for the EQ/DIST deep-dive. You’re my favourite guitar scientist :)

[@void_snw]

Most of us here have already seen the Jim Lill video on amplifiers, but the EQ vs gain / clipping stages thing is explored and put into practice in it, I can only recommend it.

[@INDAmedia]

@@void_snw Thanks, will have a look at it!

[@sonicalstudios]

There are so many variations of tone you can get with different pickups but once you get to a certain point with gain it starts to not matter as much but it still does matter. Really depends if you want tone or white noise, best sounds are always perfectly tuned without causing too much stress to the song. Perfect example is to listen to Enter Sandman the guitar has barely any gain at, all perfectly tuned for the song

[@doombringer1505]

This is just my opinion....When you're gigging in front of a bunch of headbangers, none of it matters. As long as it's grungy and loud.

[@cordero6960]

a $40 distortion pedal would change the guitar tone way more 😂 than them pickup

[@soundmanlab659]

I recorded a riff with with two different guitars (yahama pacifica 612 and prs SE tremonti signature) both with bridge humbucker (yamaha has some seymour duncan pickup and tremonti has the signature humbucker pickup in the bridge position). At the time of recording i thought "well the yamaha has more mids " and tremonti has scooped mids. The amp, mic position and all the gain settings were same. After A/B testing, i can assure i could not hear .00001 % difference. I followed your advice glenn and got a new speaker (vintage 30) for my Laney lv200 amp, it sucked before (was going to sell it to save up for a "better" amp) , it sucks less and the tone is quite usefull now, Thanks a lot glenn keep up the great work.

[@Argoth534]

I completely agree with you. There is definitely a difference between the 10 guitars, but not a big one, and certainly not one to get me to spend over 200 dollars on pickups. I bet if you edited the sounds or changed the settings on the amp, you could get them to sound identical

[@ItsDrewsif]

I hate to be mr. well actually, but a lot of these pickups are built to be very similar in result- super over compressed active pickup stuff. I appreciated seeing the Nazgûl in there because it definitely has quite the unique tone to it in comparison. I'd love to see some Bareknuckles in here or even some lace death buckers or something similar. this feels very much like a "why does my 9mm Glock make the same size holes as someone else's 9mm 1911?"

[@ItsDrewsif]

regardless, this is a very nicely done video, and I quite appreciate what you're doing for folks regarding the "who cares about gear" war

[@SSPGwemlin]

It seems to me personally that pickups, when it comes to tone-shaping, are just the icing on the cake. An icing that you don’t NEED to change to make the cake taste better. Basically, the amp you’re using, what mic you use, pedals, etc, change the overall foundation of your tone while pickups just provide polish that while not needed, can make a good tone. Although you shouldn’t drop $3000 on something meant to just provide a little polish. For example, I plan on taking my JP70, removing the neck pickup and filling in the cavity, and replacing the bridge pickup with an EMG 81. The whole process would probably be a bit expensive, but the pickup itself is only $110 bucks on Guitar Center. As much as I like the sound of the EMG 81 for Nu Metal, Metalcore, hell, even Doom/Sludge Metal, the thing that I’m looking to REALLY push the tone further would probably be, like, an 5150 head, + an Orange cab since I love to simp for Wata from Boris lol.

[@Billiamwoods]

I don't know why I read all that but I agree with the last part

[@mr.e.1512]

I’m VERY new to guitar and after watching a video on pickups I was pretty convinced I’d made a dumbass purchase and was looking at a set of pickups. So grateful for this. Instead, I brought my guitar in and had them adjust the neck (as I’m still not even sure how to do that), had a smaller gauge string put on that was nickel wound, and it cost less than $50. The pickups I was looking at were nearly $200 a piece, and my guitar now sounds EXACTLY the way I want. Thank you for saving me enough money where I could buy another lower end guitar or maybe a Peavey 6505 +. Nothing like NOT wasting your money on things that won’t make me happier and instead spending it on things that build my confidence and make me sound far less shitty.

[@serdiezv]

This vid basically brings out that the difference in pickups is output and how they compress the pick attack. To me the best sounding were the EMG and the Duncan Nazgul, and they were almost the same sound wise. That headless Harley Benton did sound super cool too.

[@danielshafer3227]

I will offer a counterpoint. I had a pre-2012 Epiphone Les Paul Classic with the intentionally muddy pickups and equally unimpressive pots and caps. I took it into the music store for a shootout with an AIO Wolf LP copy equipped with the IYV brand Destiny wound pickups. The Epiphone sounded like it was played through a wet blanket. I sold the Epi and bought the Wolf because it was easier and cheaper than swapping pickups. If you buy used, with the amount of options you have these days, it's easier to sell the bad pickups and buy better ones with the guitar attached.

[@berndkiltz]

Shocking how big the di differences are and that almost nothing come through on the distorted sound. Amazing!

[@tiomkinnyborg2289]

I learned many years ago that to make pickups sound different you use the tone control. Many musicians just leave it cranked to 10, then blame the pickup and spend $$$ on replacements. Many metal guitars even remove this device. Want a different sound? TURN THE KNOB!!! Thanks Glen.

[@pierremandon2323]

The thing that did a massive difference with pickups that I saw once was a bass with a single pickup, mounted on a rail: you could slide it in any position you wanted between the neck and the bridge. didn't look bad either, and a very simple yet clever concept. probably didn't sell well because I never saw it again. It's a shame.

[@Randy-jz9ox]

That is a cool concept

[@chuckyb_]

It's funny, the discussion question at the end there really got me thinking. I run a one man boutique custom guitar shop and wind my own pickups for my builds. I wondered how much of the tone difference is like a psychoacoustic thing. From all my testing with winding pickups (spectrum analysis and everything) i settled on three different pickup designs to offer customers for high gain tones. I was, and still am, convinced that there is a really big difference in tone of these pickups but going over it again in the studio comparing plugins, reamping to outboard gear etc i have to admit that for all the work i put into researching, testing and winding pickups for high gain tones the actual difference in terms of shaping the sound is negligible compared to everything before or after the guitar in the signal chain. Now this isn't particularly surprising at all but i was very eye opening. Reestablishing the fact that the player is ultimately the most important piece of equipment in the chain by debunking your own psychoacoustic biases and professional opinions puts everything i do on a daily basis back in the proper perspective. If it sounds good it is good, ain't nothing more to it ;D

[@andrewsmith1520]

I have been messing around with guitar modding, and building for about 15 years now. Where I've ended up is, when it comes to pickups, enough if you play clean, as long as they are made to a certain spec, they will sound fine. Most of the expensive or hand wound pickups I've owned, were all bought back when I didn't know any better. If the form factor I need is relatively standard or widely produced, I go as cheap as possible while still hitting the spec range I want. I bought 2 neck pickup alnico 2 humbuckers from China for about $15 each for my double humbucker build a couple years back, and they sound perfect. The fact that I stayed away from 14k resistance in why I like them. They are both 7.5K and they both sound amazing. I also have a custom parts built Strat that I used $35 Chinese made Strat pickups in. They are wound to vintage specs with Alnico poles, and guess what? They sound great! The single most important part of any guitar build, I would say, is the neck. You have a good neck and the specs YOU want, everything can be fairly par or substandard, and you can still have an amazing guitar. Good tuners help too... But $35 Gotoh's are more than enough for me.

[@andrewsmith1520]

And I say all this, NOT being a metal player. The heaviest I get is a Big Muff into a fairly clean amp, but most of the time I play fairly clean or with mildish over drive.