Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: darkandrew on April 27, 2015, 07:20:10 PM
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I would guess that since we are all on this forum, most of us have replaced our stock pickups but why do we always do it? Are there no such things as good stock pickups?
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There are, I have a Duncan Design rail pickup that IMO beats their normal premium line pickups. Also, I think the Ibanez Uppercut series come with some pretty good stock pickups. :grin:
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I've not changed the 498T and 490R on my Gibson Les Paul but that's the only guitar that's ever kept the stock pickups. It's partly because they give me the very distinctive Les Paul sound I've loved since I was a kid, partly because the guitar uses a PCB so it would be a pain to change and mostly because I'm afraid that if I change anything about it, the guitar will lose that special something that makes it such a joy to play. I'll change them eventually but not any time toon.
With all of my other guitars I changed the pickups because they were just too mushy, flat, dead, lifeless etc. These days I generally avoid buying guitars with expensive pickups in because I know I'm paying for something that I'll probably change anyway. I'd much rather buy a great quality guitar with rubbish pickups, save a few bob and change them to what I actually want.
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I was going to say that the main reason I changed the pickups in my guitars was that they are Gibsons!
I guess I just hate the sound of the 490R ... the 498T I didn't mind so much, but compared to the Cold Sweat it really isn't that great. I found the 490T lacking oomph in my SG Special, I guess because SGs don't have that much bass anyway, so that was replaced with an A-Pig.
The only guitar I had where the pickup change was not necessary really was the Junior. I liked the stock P-90. I just needed something with more bottom end for the style of music I am playing in my band, so I got the Stockholm
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I've not changed the 498T and 490R on my Gibson Les Paul but that's the only guitar that's ever kept the stock pickups. It's partly because they give me the very distinctive Les Paul sound I've loved since I was a kid, partly because the guitar uses a PCB so it would be a pain to change and mostly because I'm afraid that if I change anything about it, the guitar will lose that special something that makes it such a joy to play. I'll change them eventually but not any time toon.
With all of my other guitars I changed the pickups because they were just too mushy, flat, dead, lifeless etc. These days I generally avoid buying guitars with expensive pickups in because I know I'm paying for something that I'll probably change anyway. I'd much rather buy a great quality guitar with rubbish pickups, save a few bob and change them to what I actually want.
I'll second the 498t in my les paul also. I swapped it out but I like trying new things just for the hell of it.
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I guess guitarplayers are headstrong, crazy tweakers searching for the last juicy tonedrop. The audience doesn't hear we play scatterwounds, but we do! ;-) I must admit I sound about the same with stockpickups. It's about details, but 70 procent of the tone is in the fingers. So, if you're playing isn't happening, get new fingers instead of new pickups. :wink:
But serious, a lot of stockpickups are not bad, yet a lot of them sound a little generic and do miss clarity and dynamics. It's also a matter of taste. I dislike most of the Gibson- and Duncan-pickups. I do like by example the singlecoils in the Classic Vibe-tele's.
But before swapping, realize that amps have a bigger impact on your sound than pickups.
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I found that installing Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound pickups into my Squier Jazz added some growl and output, but the biggest change was adding the Audere active preamp. Ultimately it's EQ (including EQ on the amp) that has the biggest effect
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High end production guitars often have pretty good stock pickups. Gibson's stock pickups are absolutely fine, but the problems often are created more by the design of the guitars themselves. I think stock PRS guitars also have good pickups in them and you don't really need to do anything to the guitars to get a great tone.
Godin's high end guitars also jive extremely well with the seymour duncans they are equipped with stock, it's only the cheaper ones that are underwhelming.
Of course, there are all those guitars that come equipped with BKP stock...
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I have got a few DiMarzios or Lollars in my guitars, but other than that its BKPs all the way for my post 1984 guitars. anything before then has the stocks in.
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Fender pickups are good... PRS pickups are good... surprisingly, Agile passives are good (at least, the ones in my 828 are!).
But they're not, none of them, Bare Knuckles! :grin: I sell a lot of Fender guitars, and the sound the guys are looking for is exactly that tried-and-true Fender stock sound: Fender guitar with Fender pickups through a Fender tube amp. You could say they lack imagination, or you could say they know exactly what they want. :rolleyes:
Me... while I'm super pleased with my Agile pickups, the PK's in my 7 have that just-a-little-bit-more, to the point that if I ever have a spare $400, I'll grab a Jugg set! :evil: Until then, the Agile Cepheus do just fine! :smiley:
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Fender pickups are good... PRS pickups are good... surprisingly, Agile passives are good (at least, the ones in my 828 are!).
But they're not, none of them, Bare Knuckles! :grin: I sell a lot of Fender guitars, and the sound the guys are looking for is exactly that tried-and-true Fender stock sound: Fender guitar with Fender pickups through a Fender tube amp. You could say they lack imagination, or you could say they know exactly what they want. :rolleyes:
Me... while I'm super pleased with my Agile pickups, the PK's in my 7 have that just-a-little-bit-more, to the point that if I ever have a spare $400, I'll grab a Jugg set! :evil: Until then, the Agile Cepheus do just fine! :smiley:
There some great P/U's out there. The SD Quarter Pounder is a great s/c option that never disappoints. I've got a Dean superstrat that came with a SD Custom Custom. It's had A Riff Raff, Crawler and Holy Diver in it but the CC is back in and it sounds amazing. The JB gets a bit of a pasting on here and there are far more bad ones then good but I've got a stock '86 Baretta with the original JB in and it sounds fantastic.
Another contender is the Bill Lawrence L500 XL, a really good pickup and sounds great when Nuno Bettencourt uses 'em.
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well, my next guitar will have a holy diver/emerald set as stock pickups :grin:
I also like stock gibson 57 classic pickups
the 49x models are passable at best
the prs mccarty pups sound nice and smooth, and have alnico 4 magnets, but they sound very muffled compared to bkps
their "50's" models are supposed to sound great, but I've never tried those
the tremonti is fine, but way too hot and a bit harsh... voiced somewhere between the c-bomb and painkiller, but lacks the bkp finesse
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There some great P/U's out there. The SD Quarter Pounder is a great s/c option that never disappoints.
I've put these in my Squier Jazz bass and the bridge of my friend's Telecaster. Awesome pickups indeed, massive output and growl. Not the clarity of a BKP but it terms of output I don't think BKP really make much that's on a par. The closest BKP to the Quarter Pound in terms of output would probably be a Warpig or Pig 90. The Telecaster has more output now than the Stockholm in my SG Junior. The Quarter Pounds in my Jazz are a little too hot if anything. I have to turn the neck pickup down relative to the bridge.
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Fender pickups are good
I've kind of come full-circle with my Fender Tele Custom. As stock, it came fitted with an Atomic II in the bridge and a Black Canyon in the neck. The Atomic is a Bill Turner designed scatter-wound Alnico 5 humbucker that is so bright it would never work in anything else, but the guitar itself is so dark that that won't work with anything else either. I've tried all sorts in there from both SD and BKP ranges but after years of trying different pickups in there I've now gone back to the stock ones because it's the only pairing that seems to work.
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Stock Musicman Silhouette Specials can be delicious. Agree with the negative sentiment regarding some stock Gibson models.
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I guess that most guitars never get gigged. My Firebird Studio came with the 498T/490R set. The 498T was a lovely pickup to play at home through my Microcube but I couldn't get on with it at gig levels. On the other hand the RYs don't sound that great at low level through the Microcube but totally demolish the Gibson pickups through a cranked valve amp.
In another thread I talk about the Yamaha guitar I will probably be buying very soon that comes with a Duncan C5 (bridge) and Duncan P90 neck. The more demos I listen to the more I like the sound of the Duncans. Also, there doesn't seem to be a BKP that would qualify as a 'better' C5 (SH14) except for maybe the Cold Sweat ?
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I would guess that since we are all on this forum, most of us have replaced our stock pickups but why do we always do it? Are there no such things as good stock pickups?
My US Standard Strat came with Custom Shop Fat '50s, and stopped me dead in the tracks while I was looking for a replacement set of Strat pickups from Bare Knuckle. They totally kick ass! I don't see my self replacing them any time soon.
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I've had a few guitars with fantastic stock pickups.
My RG331m which is a cheap guitar came with some INF things. With my amps they sound amazing far better than anything that i've tried replacing them with. My RG950 came with some dimarzio/ibz that according to dimarzio are a super distortion with less bass and a super 2 thats a little more scooped and nothing suits the guitar more than them and trust me with these guitars i've tried everything. BKP,Bulldog,EMG,Duncan,Dimarzio
The only one in the RG950 that came close was a catswhisker A8 that is currently in there but the guitar is missing a certain something now so i'll be changing it back most likely.
I find that with an excellent amp or three you can sound amazing regardless of pickups. If it was still playing standard amps or modellers my opinion would be the opposite that different pickups are needed to overcome the deficiencies in the amp/modeller.
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I've had a few guitars with fantastic stock pickups.
My RG331m which is a cheap guitar came with some INF things. With my amps they sound amazing far better than anything that i've tried replacing them with. My RG950 came with some dimarzio/ibz that according to dimarzio are a super distortion with less bass and a super 2 thats a little more scooped and nothing suits the guitar more than them and trust me with these guitars i've tried everything. BKP,Bulldog,EMG,Duncan,Dimarzio
The only one in the RG950 that came close was a catswhisker A8 that is currently in there but the guitar is missing a certain something now so i'll be changing it back most likely.
I find that with an excellent amp or three you can sound amazing regardless of pickups. If it was still playing standard amps or modellers my opinion would be the opposite that different pickups are needed to overcome the deficiencies in the amp/modeller.
Surprising. My experience with Ibanez-stockpickups is that they are totally bland.
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I've had a few guitars with fantastic stock pickups.
My RG331m which is a cheap guitar came with some INF things. With my amps they sound amazing far better than anything that i've tried replacing them with. My RG950 came with some dimarzio/ibz that according to dimarzio are a super distortion with less bass and a super 2 thats a little more scooped and nothing suits the guitar more than them and trust me with these guitars i've tried everything. BKP,Bulldog,EMG,Duncan,Dimarzio
The only one in the RG950 that came close was a catswhisker A8 that is currently in there but the guitar is missing a certain something now so i'll be changing it back most likely.
I find that with an excellent amp or three you can sound amazing regardless of pickups. If it was still playing standard amps or modellers my opinion would be the opposite that different pickups are needed to overcome the deficiencies in the amp/modeller.
Surprising. My experience with Ibanez-stockpickups is that they are totally bland.
Oh they are in certain guitars I have hated the INFs in many guitars but in that one they shine. And the ones in the 970 by dimarzios own admittance there is very little difference between the standard models theyve even made by Dimarzio themselves in NYC
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I am one of those guys who hated the INF that came in my Ibby S series. Staggeringly horrible. Worst stock pickups out of any of my guitars.
The 230 quid Dean 7 string? Not great, but usable. The 45 quid axe off ebay (newprize around 60 I recall)? Fizzy and weak, but not muddy and had a certain lowfi charm. Classic 57s in an Epi? Probably my favorite stocks so far. EMG HZ (passives) in my ESP-type LP? Usable for rock and could do a certain sound well. Wilkinsons in my Superstrat-ish? Muddy, but alright for low-gain. The Ken Armstrong HB in my headless Feline? Great, but not really what is meant here.
The INF were to me the absolute worst out of all of them. Just a muddy, undefined mess with no character. Fell totally apart under gain.
Weirdly enough one of my favorite bands, Protest the Hero, has on occasion played them and made em sound alright.
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None of the stock pickups have been bad in any of my guitars -mainly Fenders (US, Jap & MIM) and one Gibson. They have been replaced in the hope that they would sound better and all have. The Gibson still has stock pickups though but as I have said a few times before , I am considering changing them. They are not bad but I suspect that the BKP's will improve things.
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Out of my 5 electrics only one guitar - a Gibson Les Paul Junior has still got its stock pickup in it, a P90 which I'm looking to change.
The others have had some kind of pickup change, 3 have BKP's in and I'm really happy with them, 2 guitars (the dirty rock tones) have humbucker bridges and other 2 (clean stuff) a single coil set.
I would say the pickup changes have improved the tone of the guitar as the original stocks were flat, uninspiring and weak.
Just my opinion though sometimes you'll get a great guitar with a great stock pickup and not need to change a thing!
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I'm not honor-bound to stick to any company's idea for what their guitars should sound like. If Gibson makes terrific pickups, fine then, I won't have any trouble selling them on ebay so I can buy what I want.
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If your amp and cab sound bananas, then you can only improve it by improving your guitar. A great set of pickups can really open up your amp's potential.
If your amp is weak you can make all the changes you like but it will still sound like cr@p.
Volume levels make a big difference too, especially on valve amps.
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None of my guitars have stock pickups. I replaced all the Gibson pcb stuff so I could fit some decent pickups as the stock ones weren't that inspiring. The old Pearl I have has passable pickups but they're a bit muddy. I've got a duncan in my strat which actually sounds great but for the most part BKP are the best I've tried so far!
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Stock pickups seem to be selected with the aim of being good all-rounders, so even if they are relatively decent, they won't be outstanding for any particular tone or style.
That said, I like the Dimarzio D-Activators that came as stock in my Ibanez XPT700. If I did ever change them out, I'd reuse them in another guitar.
I will definitely be upgrading the stock Dimarzio/IBZ S pickups in my S2170, once I can afford to. They're far from terrible, but considering this is a 'Prestige', I can't help but be underwhelmed.
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Also, I think the Ibanez Uppercut series come with some pretty good stock pickups. :grin:
Can certainly do much worse than Aftermaths / Nailbombs! Is Ibanez the only brand to offer BKPs as stock?
Their Iron Label series also offers decent stock pickups. EMGs or decent Dimarzio.
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The stock pickups on the PRS S2 Mira are absolutely awesome for what I play. Sadly it's a bit out of my price range, but at Guitar Center it sounded incredible through a Triple Rectifier and not half bad through a used Fender 10G.
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I read somewhere (here?) that stock pickups are voiced to sell the guitar. In other words, they're voiced to sound as good as possible when the guitar is played in a shop at "shop volumes".
How much truth there is in this, I don't know... but it's certainly what I'd do if I wanted to shift a bunch of cheap to mid-range guitars.
EDIT (Hit send by accident!!)
Obviously, the stock pups will do a job, but the job they're designed for (sell the guitar in the first place) is not necessarily the job we want to do with it!