What is your tone philosophy?

[sebby123]

What style do you play?
I play everything but heres an idea : www.myspace.com/thehaven

Do you like high-output or low-output pickups (and which magnets)?
I love  Ceramic bridge & A5 neck, thinking a C-Bomb for my neck paul.

Do you boost with a pedal for leads?
BB preamp love that pedal!

Which pickup (bridge or neck) do you use for rhythm/lead?
Cold sweat calibrated set.

Any other general thoughts?
As manys have said already if it sounds good it sounds good.

[MDV]

On the aleged redundancy of high gain pickups due to high gain amps

What bollocks

High gain pickups have different tonal characters to low gain. They're more compressed, which is often pleasing under high gain (a requisite, to a degree) they have more pronounced, often much tighter low end and more percussive attack in their sound.

If your only objective is shear gain, then yes many modern amps can make many low output pickups very gainy indeed, but you dont get the same sort of sound from it. Gain =/= tone.

[sebby123]

On the aleged redundancy of high gain pickups due to high gain amps

What bollocks

High gain pickups have different tonal characters to low gain. They're more compressed, which is often pleasing under high gain (a requisite, to a degree) they have more pronounced, often much tighter low end and more percussive attack in their sound.

If your only objective is shear gain, then yes many modern amps can make many low output pickups very gainy indeed, but you dont get the same sort of sound from it. Gain =/= tone.

Thank you for this have been thinking about which way to go for awhile, for my next les paul.
I do love the compression so im sticking with the higher gain side i guess since i dont use a huge amount of gain that extra push is amazing.

[Bradock PI]

What consitutes high gain and low gain in a pickup - where is the changeover?

[MDV]

What consitutes high gain and low gain in a pickup - where is the changeover?

13.39632K ohms and above is high. 

[the prince of shred]

What consitutes high gain and low gain in a pickup - where is the changeover?

13.39632K ohms and above is high. 

lol.... but i would say about 13k seems to me where they start being more gainy beasts..... but thats just from lookin at specs so.....ill be damned if i know...

[tomjackson]

What style do you play?

Progressive Blues to Jazz, Classic Rock, Reggae, funk and general noodling.


Do you like high-output or low-output pickups (and which magnets)?

Low - Stormies, Blackguards and Irish Tours.  But I do fancy something insane for the weekend....


Do you boost with a pedal for leads?

Just turn my guitar up, but I've just bought a BYOC Mouse so maybe that will change.


Which pickup (bridge or neck) do you use for rhythm/lead?


Neck Pups are best except on Tele's.  I Probably use 60% neck, 30% mix and 20% bridge.

Any other general thoughts?

1. I like low output pickups for their dynamic range.  Turn the amp up loud and let the fingers make the tone.  I find that higher output pickups do too much of the work.  It makes it harder for the players personality to shine through although with some more modern harder music that's not really the aim I guess, it's more about a fat low wall of sound.   However I do fancy something that's more powerfull and effortless for the odd mad half hour.

2. Yellow really stands out, thanks for showing the way Philly :D

3. I'm not vey good at percentages.

[dave_mc]

What style do you play?

a little bit of everything, but mainly 80s rock/metal/hair metal/thrash and the like.

Do you like high-output or low-output pickups (and which magnets)?

depends on what i'm after. Reasonably high output for my main styles mentioned above, but for more vintage styles, i like low output.

Do you boost with a pedal for leads?

depends on the amp, i guess. I have an engl which doesn't really need a boost (and doesn't always like boosts, either), but if i had an amp which needed a boost to get it where i wanted it, i wouldn't have a problem with that. i certainly use dirt pedals with my valve junior!

Which pickup (bridge or neck) do you use for rhythm/lead?

bridge for rhythm (assuming you mean distorted rhythm- i'd sometimes use the neck pickup for clean passages), bridge (mainly) and sometimes neck for lead.

Any other general thoughts?

i disagree that high output pickups are obsolete now that there are high gain amps. plug a high output pickup into a high gain amp, and then a low output, and they'll sound completely different. depends on your preference and what tone you're after. that's a bit like saying that non-master volume amps, or single channel amps, should be obsolete now that we have high gain, channel-switching amps. That's just rubbish.

looks like i was beaten to it... :lol:

On the aleged redundancy of high gain pickups due to high gain amps

What bollocks

High gain pickups have different tonal characters to low gain. They're more compressed, which is often pleasing under high gain (a requisite, to a degree) they have more pronounced, often much tighter low end and more percussive attack in their sound.

If your only objective is shear gain, then yes many modern amps can make many low output pickups very gainy indeed, but you dont get the same sort of sound from it. Gain =/= tone.

exactly, mark. i bet the people saying high gain pickups are now redundant don't even play metal. I rarely, if ever, play anything approaching br00talz, and even for the not-too-heavy metal and hard rock I play high output pickups are extremely useful, for when i need that tone.

[Dmoney]

What style do you play?
hardcore, some blues, some straight up rock.

Do you like high-output or low-output pickups (and which magnets)?
I like hi output, Alnico V. i have MM's which i like also, but i find the ceramics less sweet than my rebel yells.

Do you boost with a pedal for leads?
Kind of. I use a DD-3 to thickin things up, and my wah's both have a little gain in them, but not much. they cut through. specially my parababy wah.

Which pickup (bridge or neck) do you use for rhythm/lead?
I use both.  neck is the primary

Any other general thoughts?
tinkering is good

[Jonny]

Surely high gain pickups and high gain amps work together, not nullify one or the other out?

Would it not be the same in saying, if you have the humbucker than you don't need a single coil since it can do everything to does?

Or am I just talking out of my ass?

[JEFF MAKOR]

This is a great open post and brings all our secret tonal requirements to the fore.
Congratulations for submitting it.
For my part, the backing off of volume shouldn't diminish the quality and tonal spectrum-just clean up as you'd expect.
When wound up, the articulation and pick attack should be evident at all times.
Soft clipping and natural sustain should emit from whatever pickup or note played and the pickups should not unduly colour the integral tone from the instrument.
Alnico 4 seems to provide a clear, clean response, even under gain and that means that neck pickups will again be in fashion in a LP type guitar and usable again.
Alnico 2 sounds warm but can clean up, but will struggle to do so effectively with dollops of modern gain.
I appreciate the reasoning behind wax potting (double or otherwise), but for low output pups, try leaving them un-potted for a more lively and strangely vocal delivery.
It may howl in front of a blasting Marshall stack, but you'll smile a tad more.
Amp selection is a difficult subject, but I've come to understand that certain guitars/pups deserve particular amps, valve or solid state.
Regards
Jeff Makor

[MDV]

What consitutes high gain and low gain in a pickup - where is the changeover?

13.39632K ohms and above is high. 

lol.... but i would say about 13k seems to me where they start being more gainy beasts..... but thats just from lookin at specs so.....ill be damned if i know...

There is no one qualtifiable cutoff. The actual variable that DCR attempts to estimate is the number of turns on the wind. More turns = more output. DCR isnt a measure of this because wire guage varies. You can get high DCR with low guage wire and fewer turns, giving lower output, and vice versa. Magnet power and type both influence subjective 'hotness' or 'heaviness' of a pickup because of the strength of the field and the tonal characteristics they create. There are quite a few variables and theres no quantitative way to deliniate high from low output (and that includes by seperating the groups with medium; that just makes it worse, since now you have 2 boundaries instead of 1)

In summary, a pickup is high output if it sounds high output.

[the prince of shred]

In summary, a pickup is high output if it sounds high output.

ah that i can cope with ;)

[AndyR]

In summary, a pickup is high output if it sounds high output.

ah that i can cope with ;)

Yep, I understood that as well :D

[MDV]

So a crash course in electromagnetic induction wouldnt help out then?