Isn't tightness a playing style as opposed to a pickup characteristic?

[Chargrilled]

I was wondering this because I could djent on my old DiMarzio PAF 7s, it was just a matter of turning the gain down a bit and making sure the noise gate clamped down effectively.

What in a pickup's construction makes it 'tighter'?

[EffigyForgotten]

Rolled off bass and lots of mids. Which your pickup has.

[Cam_H]

Have a look over on the Dimarzio site at the ToneZones. There's a clip on there by Misha Mansoor doing Djent with them. They actually sound reaqlly cool for a Bass/Lo-Mid focussed pickup.

[Sarkasis]

Tightness is a characteristic of every piece of gear in your signal chain, including your power tubes, your cabinet and speakers. Some pickups have a more precise pick attack or an overall faster reaction. If you try an Aftermath and compare it to most anything else you can tell the difference.

[ericsabbath]

Rolled off bass and lots of mids. Which your pickup has.

not really
bkp has some pretty tight pickups with big bass and not much mids, like the miracle man, ceramic nailbomb, cold sweat and the VHII
it's about the hardness/dryness of the picking response
most bkps have a greater articulation and faster response than the similar big brands pups

[EffigyForgotten]

Well IMO BKP's sound tighter because they have a certain "clean" sound to them, like the Warpig is a super hot pickup but still doesn't have the access noise that a SD Distortion has, but overall a pickup with boosted mids and not too much bass is obviously going to tighter, like the SD Custom vs the Distortion.

Tightness is probably the most opinionated thing in all of the guitar world though so everyone thinks its something different, and for me its kinda hard to describe what it is.

[Dave Sloven]

Tight I like, dry I don't. :D

I think it's the dry sound of the Aftermath that puts me off it.

I think you are right that the clarity and articulateness of BKPs gives them that 'tightness'.  Even my A-Pig seems tight due to its clarity, but the sound is also very 'juicy'

[witeter]

Tightness is subjective, but has more to do with playing style than pickups,amps,etc,etc in my opinion. Equipment will help  an already tight technique be even tighter but cannot make a sloppy player sound tight-if that makes any sense

[Sarkasis]

Tube sag is what it is, there's not much that's subjective to it, either the amp is responding quickly or it's not. The tightness of pickups can be similar.

If a player is bad they're bad and a tight pickup won't change that, but I do think tightness an be a pretty objective factor in tone.

[Dave Sloven]

My Peavey 6534+ sounds 'tighter' than my friend's ten year old 5150 II. I guess his tubes are 'sagged' versus my almost new ones, or would this just be an EL34 vs 6L6 thing?

[Sarkasis]

Sagging is just the slowness of the reaction in the sound caused by the character of the tube, it's not really a literal physical characteristic of the tube. EL34s are known to be tighter than 6L6s, but if his tubes are pretty old that might not help either.

[Dave Sloven]

It might also be an effect of the increased mids in the voicing of the 6534+ relative to the 5150 II/6505+. I let him play through it, so that I could stand back and listen and really compare them being played by the same person, with the same guitar and cabinet. Even with the EQ at the same settings as his amp, i.e., really scooped with a heap of presence and resonance dialed in (in fact it seemed to be pretty much dimed except for the mids, which were on 1 or 0, and the pre-gain and post-gain, which were on 7 and 4 or 5 respectively) there was a noticeable increase in mid-range cut vis-a-vis the other guitar (another Schecter through a Krank Krankenstein head and Revolution cab).  Could this middiness also have contributed to the impression of 'tightness'?  It seems to be the lows that people associate with 'looseness' or 'flub'.  This might also be a product of the 6L6 power tubes as much as any changes in pre-amp circuitry (pre-amp tubes are the same type, although there may well be different brands installed).  I think he had the tubes biased recently, but to me it didn't sound much different from before.  His amp always sounds like a bulldozer or something, very big bottom end.

[richard]

What's 'Dryness' ?

[PhilKing]

What's 'Dryness' ?

Just waiting for Afghan Dave to chip in here!

[Dmoney]

Sagging is just the slowness of the reaction in the sound caused by the character of the tube, it's not really a literal physical characteristic of the tube. EL34s are known to be tighter than 6L6s, but if his tubes are pretty old that might not help either.

This is incorrect. Sag in amplifiers is a result of the power supply not being able to provide the current required to meet the operational needs of the amplifier at a given moment or condition. Usually it's caused by the output stage being driven hard (whether that is for a split second of sustained period). The physics of the power supply mean when the output valves demand more current than can easily be provided, the voltage of the HT (B+) feeding the amp is reduced, changing the operating characteristics of all the valves because they are all fed from the same reduced high voltage line. This gives you that squishy compressed sound and is referred to as 'voltage sag'. The type of rectifier and the method chosen for filtering the high voltage all contributes to the overall effect of sag and isn't dependant on a valve rectifier.