Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
At The Back => Time Out => Topic started by: Mr. Air on December 01, 2009, 10:05:54 AM
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I thought it could be fun with a thread about your worst pickup experience soundwise. What's the worst sounding pickup you've ever come across?
From my very limited pickup experience the worst sounding pickups I've encountered was the ones in my old Ibanez RG320 (think they're called Ibanez Power Sound or something like that). I sold the guitar a year ago and before that it had been sitting in my parents attic for about 10 years. I had totally forgotten about it. The pickups were just so dull and lifeless and all in all it was a horrific guitar.
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DiMarzio Tone Zone!
To be fair, I tried it in a couple of mahogany set-neck guitars (an SG and a Gordon-Smith GS2). In those it has far too much bass - it sounds boomy clean and muddy distorted. I think it would be OK in something with a bolt-on neck and a trem.
(A couple of others I didn't like: EMG60 - too bright as a neck pickup, Duncan Jazz - too weedy sounding)
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DiMarzio Tone Zone!
To be fair, I tried it in a couple of mahogany set-neck guitars (an SG and a Gordon-Smith GS2). In those it has far too much bass - it sounds boomy clean and muddy distorted. I think it would be OK in something with a bolt-on neck and a trem.
They're in Ibanez J.Customs :o
But I guees J.Customs are neck through, and have a tremolo, and a maple top. So not like it at all, lol..
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DiMarzio Tone Zone!
To be fair, I tried it in a couple of mahogany set-neck guitars (an SG and a Gordon-Smith GS2). In those it has far too much bass - it sounds boomy clean and muddy distorted. I think it would be OK in something with a bolt-on neck and a trem.
They're in Ibanez J.Customs :o
But I guees J.Customs are neck through, and have a tremolo, and a maple top. So not like it at all, lol..
Are the J Customs mahogany? I'm guessing the through-necks are mostly maple.... the neck material and the trem are going to affect the acoustic tone a lot more than the body wood, in that case (I believe).
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If we discount stock pickups installed in off-the-shelf guitars, then the worst after-market pickup I've tried was the Duncan Custom bridge humbucker. Perhaps my Gibson V was ill-suited to it, but it was utterly VILE - thin, weak & muddy all at once.
I hated that pickup with a passion & as a result hardly played the guitar for years. It now has a Miracle Man & gets played a lot more :)
EDIT to add: A true measure of "worst" is if the pickup's malign influence stretched beyond the lousy sound it gave out. In the case of the Duncan Custom it did - I held off buying a BKP Cold Sweat bridge for a few years because people on this forum (you know who you are, hang yyour heads in shame!) said it was "like" the Duncan Custom :)
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The stock pickups in somebody's old, cheapo Vintage Les Paul copy.
Lifeless and dull.
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It's the JB! Horrible. Spend a fortune trying to make it work( pots, etc.) Stopped playing guitar a" Whole Year" in frustration! Until one day read and article about this hand made pickups in England by an unknown gentleman!! Right next to lot of reviews of well known brands. Mmmm( I thought that somebody here is trying to beat the system! Mmm!!!!).
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Barring poo stock pickups the joint worst pickups I've ever used are the Duncan 59 and the Duncan Custom 5.
Both are horribly scooped sounding and very dull. Just awful sounding pickups imo!
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(Keeps gob shut in this thread for fear of offending)
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(Keeps gob shut in this thread for fear of offending)
Were they really that bad? I certainly didn't like the Painkiller*, but it wasn't the worst.
*Just not my style, doesn't suit what I play
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(Keeps gob shut in this thread for fear of offending)
^ That's not "keeping gob shut" ! :lol:
Not posting at all is... :wink:
Now everyone's gonna wheedle you until you spill... :lol:
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:lol:
Mine was obviously a BKP, and it wasn't a particularly great guitar either (although it was a USA Gibson). I'm not going to highlight it specifically on Tim's forum, as it's inappropriate.
I stand by opion on pickups - it's all about matching the pickup to the guitar and the amp/cab/speakers you're using. I clearly had a bad combination, and the guitar couldn't be saved.
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EMG Selects in my Red Spirit by Steinberger GP. Sterile and lifeless.. low noise though :lol:
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Dimarzio HS3s - just sounded horrible in every guitar I put them in.
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EMG Selects in my Red Spirit by Steinberger GP. Sterile and lifeless.. low noise though :lol:
I am thinking that the EMG HZs have got to be my worst pickup, same reasons as above.
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EMG 85/81 set. Just awful.
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Just to reiterate, this thread is of no use to anyone as slating other pickup manufacturers is:
a) completely out of context of the use of the pickup (guitar/amp/cab/playing style/effects)
b) not something Tim would condone on his forum (I'm sure)
I expect it to be nuked...
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I'm expecting Afghan to contribute with one of his worst pickups i.e. "Are you a parking ticket? Because you've got fine written all over you"
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A Mitsubishi L200. No power at all, and the "Crew Cab" was tiny.
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DiMarzio Tone Zone!
To be fair, I tried it in a couple of mahogany set-neck guitars (an SG and a Gordon-Smith GS2). In those it has far too much bass - it sounds boomy clean and muddy distorted. I think it would be OK in something with a bolt-on neck and a trem.
They're in Ibanez J.Customs :o
But I guees J.Customs are neck through, and have a tremolo, and a maple top. So not like it at all, lol..
Are the J Customs mahogany? I'm guessing the through-necks are mostly maple.... the neck material and the trem are going to affect the acoustic tone a lot more than the body wood, in that case (I believe).
Aye. That is true, and yeah they are mahogany.
I'm expecting Afghan to contribute with one of his worst pickups i.e. "Are you a parking ticket? Because you've got fine written all over you"
ROFL. I'm waiting now too :D
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Just to reiterate, this thread is of no use to anyone as slating other pickup manufacturers is:
a) completely out of context of the use of the pickup (guitar/amp/cab/playing style/effects)
b) not something Tim would condone on his forum (I'm sure)
I expect it to be nuked...
I don't think it's a big deal.
Nobody's saying anything is a bad product in some kind of definitive way, just saying what didn't work for them. And it may be useful to other people - as an indicator of pickups which don't work in one type of guitar but may work in another (although I agree that all guitars are unique, you can generalise about different construction types to an extent).
We're just expressing opinions, like we always do.
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Yeah, but this doesn't help without the full context:
"EMG 85/81 set. Just awful."
( Sorry Bucketshred - nothing personal, I'm just trying to ilustrate my point ;) )
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A Mitsubishi L200. No power at all, and the "Crew Cab" was tiny.
i imagine it had plenty of low end, but not much high. what about the midrange?
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I think as long as we preface any comments with "in my opinion" we're entitled to say what we like in a democracy. Whether Tim wants it on his forum is another matter of course - he has the right to delete what he wants. So, with all that in mind, here's my controversial choice:
A SD '59 bridge pickup in a 335. Not a bad pickup per se, just disappointing compared to what I was expecting. Too sharp, not enough bottom end, not vintage-y in my opinion. Compared to a Mule or Stormy...well, it's not even a comparison.
As for pickup lines, my favourite is this: "What sh@gs like a tiger and winks?"
You then simply wink at the lady. :wink:
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A Mitsubishi L200. No power at all, and the "Crew Cab" was tiny.
am I the only one who got this :P
Errr....so do the legion of stock squier pickups I have count? Cuz if not, i really don't have anything else to go on!
"Cept for a pair of piledrivers...*sigh* those were the days.
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:lol:
I don't think there's anything too offensive or un-BKP-like on this thread (yet!!)
And Dave (Twinfan), that was the very pickup/guitar combo I thought you had in mind :D
Pickup lines... I knew a drummer at university whose favourite pickup line (in a spirit of "I am deliberately being a plonker but it's funny, isn't it?") was "Do you take it in the mouth?"
It might even be that this was a quote from some popular film/publication (most of his funny lines were, I've found out over the years...)
What was actually funny about it was the reactions he got - I witnessed him getting in trouble twice:
1) He said it to some snooty 1st Year bird (we're talking the days of "Charles and Di just got married" here) who was asking if we were using the spare chair at our table. Her reaction was "I do beg your pardon? What do you mean?". We made him explain it to her... :lol: Whether she was winding him up, I'll never know, but it got worse and worse for him as it became apparent that she'd never even imagined anyone might consider licking someone else's nether regions, or indeed offering one's own up for such attention...
2) He said it to a hippy-type who he considered particularly unattractive, in an effort to out-gross her and get her to shut-the-f-up... (she was being a bit of a pain). Unfortunately, she thought it was a good idea and proceeded to try to drag him out of the bar to perform the service... we helped her, until someone suggested (the bar staff) that, even if it was a Uni bar, we were being a bit too indecorous...
Worst pickup I've ever tried was not intended as one at the time - "Jeez, I want to f*ck someone..." ("I'm so dowwwnn..." depressed kind of voice) "So do I..." (seductive voice) from someone vaguely similar to example 2, except a bit more attractive, but who also happened to be a best friend's girlfriend... (ran away, but felt extremely annoyed at myself about it, until I managed to sort out the lead-singer's girlfriend a few months later :lol:)
Er... what was this thread?
Oh yeah, worst guitar pickup - stock pickups in some old LP copy I got new in 1979/80. Wasn't bad to start on, then was used as a backup to later guitars. Eventually replaced the pickups and tore one apart to see what was inside - wasn't a humbucker at all!
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"I have lost my mobile number, can I have yours?"
After troubles today, I think the worst pickup would be a Nissan Navara
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Duncan Custom Custom I reckon. Great for lead sounds, but it has so many mids that it just sounds congested and horrible for rhythm.
Not unusable but not for me!
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Is it hot in here, or is it you - Heard that one from some rah English boy to a common Essex girl in a Chamonix bar once - but, as is the luck of all rah boys, it seemed to have worked as they soon left the said French bar together.
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Worst pickup line:
'Catch a goat, you've pulled'
.....in that $%&#ing mobile phone ad with some utter w**ker texting his equally knobheaded mates to ask them for chat-up lines. Because his phone's got lots of "apps", whatever the $%&# they may be.
Every time I see it I desperately want to bludgeon that bloke to death, but since he's just some tw@tting actor on the TV I consider killing myself just to make it STOP!!!
Aaaaaaaarrrrgh!!!!!! :gib: :chain:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10......... and relax.
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I havent played many different guitars let alone pickups but from what i have played, there have been some bad pickups.
Seymour duncan pickup in the old Tom Delonge strat, the one with one pickup. Just sounded way over the top.
EMG's consume you soul and spit it out as a sterile little black sweepy hairstyle.
EMG Hz's and some cheap Ibanez (I think it was a GA model with silver scratch plate) pickups both had a similar sound. It sounded very scratchy.
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Yeah, but this doesn't help without the full context:
"EMG 85/81 set. Just awful."
( Sorry Bucketshred - nothing personal, I'm just trying to ilustrate my point ;) )
No offence taken. To Expand...
I bought the set to put in my old Ibanez PGM. I was a wanna be shredder (not any more, give me the big riffs!) and playing in a Thrash metal band thru a Marshall TSL100. Bought the pickups thinking 'aha! Loads of dead heavy meral bands use these and some of my friends have them and they sound really heavy! Turns out that I just didn't get on with the sound or the response of active pickups. They look cack too.
I'm not slating EMG's at all because I've played guitars with other models of EMG that have sounded better and I like the tones of James Hetfield/Zakk Wylde who are both noted EMG users.
Paddy.
EDIT: I don't see a problem with people adding BKP pickups to the thread. It's easy to ask whats good about the Cold Sweat/Painkiller/Whatever but no-one really mentions any thing BAD about them. Of course, this has to be Ok'd with Tim, its his forum and he can do what he likes.
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Worst was a pair of fender black dove P-90's. they were not very P-90 like and quite microphonic, which wasnt surprising when i saw how badly they were made. it takes a lot of effort to make a pickup noisier than a normal P-90
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Seems like I should have been a little more specific when typing in the thread title. But if I had we would have missed all those funny pickup lines :D
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I bought some 'Bill & Becky' Lawrence L500-XLs a while back and they were really cr@p. I was expecting them to be bright, but they were mushy in the low end. Weird.
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tbh i have been disapointed by most XL-500's i have tried from B&B or BL USA. shame i have a rebuild i am doing at the moment where the owner is insisting on having them :( .... i will do as i am told and them try and convince him to change ;)
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For me it was the disillusionment with the first Duncan JB that I bought to go in my Ibanez Iceman IC50 back in 1986
Dont know if it was the guitar or the pickup or if the just didn't suit each other, but it sounded lame - and I felt really disappointed after all the hype and build up from talking to the guy in the shop
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Gibson 500T.
And some people apparently like that pickup. I found it plain horrible sounding.
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Gibson 500T.
And some people apparently like that pickup. I found it plain horrible sounding.
:lol:
I've replaced them (with MQs - so folks can hopefully see roughly where I was heading...) in a Gibson Explorer.
But I have to admit I'm one of the people that quite like them, based on my limited experience... it's just that I don't really play the kind of music they seemed to be begging for (and I wanted covered pickups :roll:)
Possibly if I'd replaced them with a BKP high output pickup, to produce "similar but better" results, I might view them differently, dunno :D
A more general comment, though - I have a real feeling, like others have said here, or in the past, that every pickup needs to be assessed in conjunction with a bunch of other stuff - the guitar (and its strings), the amp/speakers, the person playing (and the sound they're after, and their ability to take advantage of the various knobs at their disposal), the room you're in, phases of the moon... etc..
Even BKPs, which I love and am addicted to, and which seem more "all-rounder" than some other things I've tried, seem prone to this... and I'm sure the BKP folks would agree.
Eg - I learnt something last night.
I've been playing through modellors for years now. I've just acquired a Vox AC4TV valve amp. One of the guitars I tried it with was a Gibson Faded SG with it's stock pickups. In the shop it sounded FAB, and I was itching to get my SG through it.
Started using the amp at home at the weekend. It's a bit bluddy louder than I was hoping (even on 1/4 watt) - but that's for another thread with questions that I've got brewing.
Loads of my guitars sound fab through the amp. But my Gibson Faded SG with my beloved Riff Raffs, which is just peachy through a modellor, sounded like a Complete Turd. Muddy at one end, tinny and scratchy at the other... :(
Last night, I moved the amp to another room - the room it was eventually destined for anyway - and suddenly the SG sounds heavenly, better than through a modellor. Went back to the other room, and the turd-quotient returned...
Go figure :lol:
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Its like that famous story of Robert Johnson playing sitting facing into the corner of the shop being used as a recording studio to get the right bass on the recording - not all rooms are built equally! Nothing to do with pickups that!
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Are the J Customs mahogany? I'm guessing the through-necks are mostly maple.... the neck material and the trem are going to affect the acoustic tone a lot more than the body wood, in that case (I believe).
Aye. That is true, and yeah they are mahogany.
Just to clear things up a little, over the years J Customs have been made of mahogany, ash, solid flame maple, etc and the through neck is quite recent addition, they're usually bolt on.
They do often like to stick a Tone Zone in the bridge though regardless of what it's made of.
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Andy, the Amp was place ON the ground? As Elliot said, the groung of the room might be the difference
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Duncan JB, every guitar I had one in sounded too bright and shrill. (Duncan Distortion kills it).
Some cr@ppy Schaller humbucker in a Marlin guitar that a school friend had. Microphonic, lacked everything really.
EMG 707. Sounded terrible in Alder. Too raspy and sizzly. Sounded ok in Mahogany but overall, too compressed.
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Andy, the Amp was place ON the ground? As Elliot said, the groung of the room might be the difference
It was more the natural reverb of the two rooms. It was on an armchair both times - can't afford to put it on the floor, 'er downstairs is very accommodating, but this thing would be pushing her a bit far! And I always try and get an amp up off the floor anyway.
Even with modellors, I've found that half the battle with getting a good tone is configuring the small amount of reverb you add... not for noticable "reverb" but just to make it more "alive"... so I wasn't that surprised when I found this out last night.
It was just an illustration of how I might have viewed the Riff Raffs if all I had was the AC4TV and the first room (incidentally, they sound great, in the same guitar, in the same room, but through my old 50W master volume valve amp... :roll:)
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:)
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"You must be tired, you were running through my mind all last night. Screaming".
And I'm single why?
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Probably the duncan invader, tonezone a close second.
And I've heard evos be quite incredibly harsh and brittle, so throw them in too.
And the JB. Such a honky sounding piece of cr@p.
And EMG 85s. Though I love 81s and 60s. Go figure.
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"You must be tired, you were running through my mind all last night. Screaming".
And I'm single why?
this thread has begun to spiral...off topic! lets keep it that way!
let me quote the internet -
"My shameless pickup line:
"Is your daddy a pirate?" [she says 'no, why?']
"You could have fooled me with booty like that."
General reaction to this line:
She kicks my ass to the curb."
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"You must be tired, you were running through my mind all last night. Screaming".
And I'm single why?
this thread has begun to spiral...off topic! lets keep it that way!
let me quote the internet -
"My shameless pickup line:
"Is your daddy a pirate?" [she says 'no, why?']
"You could have fooled me with booty like that."
General reaction to this line:
She kicks my ass to the curb."
I can see why a girl might find that offending :D
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"Do you believe in love at first sight or do I have to walk by again?"
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"huh... you're... huh... yeahhh... you're, yeah.... you're, uh, hot..."
(Was watching "School of Rock" again the other night :D)
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what was ever wrong with "hey I'm [your name here]"
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what was ever wrong with "hey I'm [your name here]"
I dunno. Does it work?
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I'd like to go back to guitar pickups for a minute with a bit of a mystery.
On another forum there was a topic about guitars you sold and now regret you ever did. Well I still regret selling my Epi Korina Explorer.
Y'all remember those pickups now known as Gibson Modern Classics? They came stock in 90's Les Paul Studios.
They were horrible in Les Pauls, slightly better in SG's but still not great.
How come they sounded so damn great in that Explorer? They shouldn't, especially with that mid hump.
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The JB.... just say no!
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I'd like to go back to guitar pickups for a minute with a bit of a mystery.
On another forum there was a topic about guitars you sold and now regret you ever did. Well I still regret selling my Epi Korina Explorer.
Y'all remember those pickups now known as Gibson Modern Classics? They came stock in 90's Les Paul Studios.
They were horrible in Les Pauls, slightly better in SG's but still not great.
How come they sounded so damn great in that Explorer? They shouldn't, especially with that mid hump.
I'm looking to sell my Epi Korina Explorer, hint hint :lol:
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The JB.... just say no!
I've got a JB, which at some point will be swapped for a Crawler. While it is a terrible humbucker, it is surprisingly good split.
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what was ever wrong with "hey I'm [your name here]"
I dunno. Does it work?
it did on Friday
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Guitar pickup --- Duncan Disortion. High-output ceramics have never been my thing.
Other pickup --- "In my alphabet, U & I are next to each other." :roll:
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not mentioning stock pickups, i'd say EMG 81.
but of course it's a matter of guitar/pickups combination... i had awful results from a set of Holy Divers in the wrong guitar... i put them in a completely different axe and now i love them!
but the 81... i don't think it could sound good in ANY guitar on earth.
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not mentioning stock pickups, i'd say EMG 81.
but of course it's a matter of guitar/pickups combination... i had awful results from a set of Holy Divers in the wrong guitar... i put them in a completely different axe and now i love them!
but the 81... i don't think it could sound good in ANY guitar on earth.
The single worst tone I've ever had came from a miracle man in hondo knockoff strat.
But the MM is a great pickup - that same one sounded awesome in several other guitars.
The 81 is *fairly* consistent from guitar to guitar, but there is variation. In general I find the warmer the guitar, the better an 81 is in it. Guitars with a hard top end and lots of mids dont agree with it as well. I'd like to put it down to woods, but I hated my 81 in my jackson (basswood/maple/FR), because it sounded like an icepick, and liked it in my old dean custom (alder/maple/FR) and it sounded best in my old yamaha SG (all mahogany/TM obviously). All rosewood boards.