mixing it

[chris o'donnell]

Does anyone know what type of sound I would get if I put my Emerald ,alnico V, in the bridge of my Les Paul and combine it with my Stormy Monday, alnico IV,in the neck position. I was thinking about the tone with both pickups selected.

Im looking for any kind of description before I go ahead with the soldering work.

Will I damage my guitar if pickups are changed too often.

Chris

[jt]

:D Hi Chris i don`t think you can do any seriouse damage to your guitar if you keep changing P/U`s the wire that you solder can be easily replaced & the only other thing i can think of is the holes that you screw the P/U into the wood at the sides of the P/U`s themselves, might start to pull through as it were & thats also resonably easy to repare as well. [depends on wether you have a floating p/u mount or wether you screw directly into the wood] As for the sound of the configuration your proposeing if the p/u`s  havn`t been calibrated to work together you might have to adjust the heights of the  individual p/u`s to  extremes but Tim & the boys will have a better idea of that than me i`m afraid.  :D  8)

[Steve-Mr Pig 2U]

I think that that stormy and the emerald should sit quite well together. Alnico V and IV sound very nice when put on together, we make V/IV combos of pickups quite often. Give it a go and see if you like it!
 Im always swapping around the pickups in my bass, so it should be ok.

[chris o'donnell]

thanks guys.

I think I'll try combinig them out of curiosity. Just a little experimental phase I'm going through.


Chris.

[Tim]

Alnico V and Alnico IV is a personal fav of mine and works really well............the in between tone is really quacky!

[PhilKing]

I have an Emerald (V) and Mule (IV) and Riff Raff (V) with Stormy Monday (IV), and the combined tone is great.  Very Peter Green or early Santana.  

The other thing you can do is blend the pickups with the volume control.  This gives you a whole new set of tones. Go for it, you won't regret it.

[Drac]

-I think you should go for it, satisfy yer curiosities , and stick with yer own proven results-there are endless combinations of guitars & their hardware, pickups, combinations of pickups, wiring methods, pot values, capacitors,  workmanship, etc. before the signal ever gets out of the axe-
Make a plan: what do you want your axe to do?-Does it suit your style/taste?-
Get the overview-like a golfer's clubs, it can make more sense to have specialised tools for specific sounds, as opposed to the "SwissArmyKnife" all-arounder mentality...
If you're careful, your guitars will be better in the long run, as at some point,you will go back to what sounds and feels best  to you, and the endless tinkering will cease-Guitars are never really finished-as soon as you stop working on them, they are decomposing-
-Make things easier for yourself by getting all yer bits and pieces for experimenting together before you begin-so you don't have to wait wondering how something else might've worked out-
-Tuneamatics are well suited to quick pickups changes-you just loosen the strings at the tuners, place a capo gently over the strings, and a piece of thick leather under them so as not to get stringwelts by the frets-place a piece of paper masking tape over the ballends to keep them where they belong, loosen the tailpieceretainer screws and place the whole thing
 intact to the side while you change the pickup out
-You can save time by using solderless connectors,"EMG style"-, though when finished exploring, hardwiring is always best...
Most players have limited "ears-on" exposure to different pickups-They are costly, and tend to have a reputation, catchy name, star sponsorship, not unlike packaging for perfume or wine affects our final purchase-What's worse is the confusion multiplied by different guitars and amps-
-Try everything in the guitar you are working on plugged into your own amp,play on as many other axes as possible, as many different pickups...
You are lucky in that the LP is a "classic" design, and others have tried most everything that they can do-draw from their experience, stick to the recipes, and mix with other gearheads-you are never alone...
-cheers from the icy North!
Rotten in DK, Drac

[carlaz]

i don`t think you can do any seriouse damage to your guitar if you keep changing P/U`s the wire that you solder can be easily replaced & the only other thing i can think of is the holes that you screw the P/U into the wood at the sides of the P/U`s themselves, might start to pull through as it were & thats also resonably easy to repare as well.

I keep hoping that someone will invent a clever "snap-in" fitting for pickups that would dispense with all the soldering and mucking about :).  Like a pickup "receptacle" that could be fitted into the guitar and then pickups designed to slot into the receptacle (with, like, little pins instead of wires to solder) could be popped in and out with relative ease (OK, perhaps not in mid-set onstage, but easily enough in the studio once you had loosened the strings).

There is probably some excellent technical reason that wouldn't work, or would be extremely difficult -- like a need to keep the pickup in firm contact with the body material, or something -- but from a blind "user friendliness" perspective that would be way cool.  (Otherwise, somebody would have done it already, I guess.) But think of how many more pickups would get sold if changing pickups was as easy as changing strings! :)

[YT]

EMG do it with thier pickups. They have a little connector, one side male one female so you can unclip the pickups and swap them around/put another EMG in.

I can't see why something similar couldn't be done with normal pups? Or is it an active only thing...

[rinse_master]

I can't see why something similar couldn't be done with normal pups? Or is it an active only thing...

I would have thought it would be harder to do with actives than passives, so from that point of view I think it can be done, as long as it is secure I can't see a problem, but I'm no electrician.

[Ratrod]

I'm sure it can be done. Now if all munufacturers would use the same system...

[YT]

Hmmmmm

Now maybe there's an idea for Barenknuckle.... be the pioneers in the passive world!!

Gotta admit if it took off it would be so handy and probably make people more likely to buy pickups. So much easier to try a few out if you could just clip them in with no soldering

[Steve-Mr Pig 2U]

The only problem is that everyone would have to have the connector installed into there guitar. I cant see every guitar manufacturer going on board with the idea either. And it would also make coil taps, series, parallel options very difficult to achieve.

[jt]

:D Hi guys i agree it would be a lot easier if P/U`s could just be snapped into place  :!:
But Steve is right all the guitar builders as well as the P/U makers would have to agree a design they could all live with & then all the guitar repair guys would be up in arms about the sudden drop off in business so........ :D  8)

[TwilightOdyssey]

:D Hi guys i agree it would be a lot easier if P/U`s could just be snapped into place  :!:
But Steve is right all the guitar builders as well as the P/U makers would have to agree a design they could all live with & then all the guitar repair guys would be up in arms about the sudden drop off in business so........ :D  8)

HDMI/DVI ring any bells?
VHS/Betamax?

I don't think there will ever be a uniform method of doing this. It'll lead to format wars.