Hot vs. vintage pickups in detail?

[kahawe]

Guys, can you help me better understand the advantages and tradeoffs between hot and cold pickups in detail? The argument of "pushing the amp into overdrive" is something I just cannot hear anymore and personally don't care about AT ALL. Any decent amp nowadays should have plenty of gain on tap or you just got an amp in the wrong completely wrong ball park IMHO. (And there are pretty-much linear boosters too, anyway.)

So, what are the details to keep in mind when selecting hotter or lower output pickups? What thoughts and decisions and ideas go into selecting either? I just want to get a much better, much more detailed understanding of the subject. Great link suggestions to read are also much appreciated!

[Alex]

Beats me, I'm more and more unable to see any connection between "high output = better for metal/distortion".

[Telerocker]

In my experience vintage(hot)-pickups sound more open, detailed and complex and provide the best clean tones. I'm totally in love with Mules at the moment. Perfect balance, threedimensional tones, rich and fat, but crispy at the same time. Full chords with gain keep the note separation, touchsensitivity, dynamics and details. And the lower output BKP's have unsurpassed clarity and definition, even with massive gain. Plus, I like the warmth of alnico magnets.

Nowadays amps have so much gain on tap, you could easily stick to this category. And there are boosters and od-pedals... Imho my Orange Rockerverb sounds better with Mules and VHII then with the Crawler (all pickups I have in HSS-strats and a all mahogany Saint Blues which carriies Mules). Of course it's about my taste and the music I play. Others will support the contemporary BKP-range.

[Kiichi]

Let my give you my feeling about pushing the amp: Yes todays amps have a lot of gain on tap. Thing to me always seems, that I get a different sound and feel out of the tubes when I put an OD or clean boost in front of the amp instead of just turning the gain knob up. So in a way that argument still stands at least to me.
BUT, in a day and age where you can get so many different and great ODs and boosts pushing the amp really is not what the pickup needs to do.

In the end I think I end up licking low to medium output pickups (medium by BKP standards that is). They are great for the reasons Telerocker layed out, but at least in the bridge I like em a little hotter to get a bit more compressed.

Because of this believes my most frequently used setup is: Ibanez S with Mule neck, IT middle, RY bridge --> MXR supercomp for sustain --> Klon(e) Centauer Overdrive (lot of level, some gain) ---> Orange Tiny Terror with gain @ 2 o`clock, it feels like it really opens up at between 1 and 2, and I take it over the top from there.

Fast and punchy on the bridge, open and singing on the neck. I like!

[tekbow]

Also, not everyone plays a high gain amp, a lot of people have old amps, vintage style repros etc and, i feel this is the most important part, these people like the sound of a higher powered pickup pushing an amp into overdrive. Just like you don't need an OD or a fuzz pedal to get more gain out of an amp (remember this is what they were originally designed to do) but a lot of people use them because they provide a different flavour.

If everyone played high gain amps at full preamp gain the world would be a less varied an interesting place.

In terms of BKP's high gain PU's, seems to me that they're tailored not to turn into an over compressed indistinct mush like a lot of other manufacturers PU's do. Vintage style PU's, to me, seem to be tailored to reproduce the characteristics of vintage style sounds. The vintage hot pu's IMO are tailored to come out with that great hot rodded sounded that people got from rewinding vintage PU's back in the early 80's, which i think produce some of those the most open high gain crunches you can get. Not so high output to compress too much, but enough out put to add some more grit to the sound

Personally i can tell the difference between higher output and lower output pickups. if the gain settings are the same on the amp it's pretty clear (totally IMO). and you can definitely tell the difference in their dynamics.

So at the end of the day, it's all about your taste and requirements.

I myself am looking at new PU's for a guitar i have, and am considering using lower output PU's to get more of the guitars characteristics through, more dynamics and turning up the gain on the amp a little to compensate. But i don't have my pre amp gain anywhere near maxed, some people do. And that case, with an uber modern, ridicculous gain amp, PU choice isn't going to make an awful lot of difference because it's going to be all compressed to hell anyway. Which some people also like.

[WeAreNotGentlemen]

I like the high output of the Blackhawks when they're split. They still have a lot of balls to them. Because of how the Blackstars are built, the gain channel does not give very good crunch at all. You have to boost the Clean channel a lot because it's got some headroom and no gain knob. Nice to have extra output plus I just like the voicing.

[dave_mc]

Personally i can tell the difference between higher output and lower output pickups. if the gain settings are the same on the amp it's pretty clear (totally IMO). and you can definitely tell the difference in their dynamics.

+1

a hot pickup into a high gain amp sounds and feels different from a lower output pickup into the same amp.

[Laars]

New amps have tons of gain.... Pushing the amp is not needed with these kind of amps. With that said, I use amps that require the front end to be pushed or there just is not enough gain. My Voodoo V-plex is a clone of a 1968 Marshall. I went with the Black Dogs to push the front end enough to get the notes to sing but still be able to clean up by backing off how hard I hit. Too hot like a super distortion type, and the notes tend to compress too much and you lose touch sensitivity.

It really comes down to what you like, what you have for gear, and what your trying to do.....Older type amps can be VERY unforgiving..... When playing with little gain, you can hear everything you do, good and bad..... Play sloppy, and your gonna know it, but if your looking for that, nothing is better for being able to vary your sound by changing how hard or easy you play....