Are there no such things as good stock pickups?

[darkandrew]

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? 

[Alex]

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. 

[Slartibartfarst42]

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.

[Dave Sloven]

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

[JimmyMoorby]

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.

[Telerocker]

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. 

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.

[Dave Sloven]

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

[Yellowjacket]

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...

[gwEm]

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.

[MerlinTKD]

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! 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. 


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! Until then, the Agile Cepheus do just fine! 

[seancorker]

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! 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. 


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! Until then, the Agile Cepheus do just fine! 

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.

[ericsabbath]

well, my next guitar will have a holy diver/emerald set as stock pickups 

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

[Dave Sloven]

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.

[darkandrew]

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.

[fdesalvo]

Stock Musicman Silhouette Specials can be delicious.   Agree with the negative sentiment regarding some stock Gibson models.