What's the point of a high-powered pickup?

[JonnyScaramanga]

I've been thinking about this lately...

When the Super Distortion was first invented, there was no such thing as a high-gain amp, and there wasn't the wide range of overdrive pedals that there are now. So people needed a pickup to push their amp into overdrive, especially at lower volumes.

The trade-off, many people found, was that high-output pickups don't have as much tone as low-powered ones, right?

But these days, pretty much every amp on the market has a shiteload of gain in it. And if that's not enough, there are a million great pedals available. So why bother with a high-output humbucker? If you want to push the amp harder, you could just use a low-powered pickup, and then use a clean boost pedal. That way you get all the level you need to push the amp, but when you want to back off you have all the tone and dynamics of a more subtle pickup.

Obviously a lot of players are still using monster pickups, so there's a hole in my logic. What am I missing?

[maliciousteve]

High out put pickups give a certain 'thunk' to the sound. The incredibly tight low end of a clean boosted amp and high output pickups give a really modern sound and sounds 'BIG'. With lower output pickups you wouldn't get the same desired tone. You might get close, but not the same.

[Davey]

one word




Brutality

[BloodMountain]

one word




Brutality

+1

[Twinfan]

I don't see the point of a high output pickup either.  Stick an EQ pedal in the front of the amp and you can boost overall volume and whatever frequencies you like.  Adjustable custom pickups!

[Joe Dorcia]

Why do you need a reason to destroy an entire room of people with one chug of your guitar?  :lol:

Demonic pickups make metal = simple as

[Miracle Man Matt]

Yea theres a load of decent pedals and stuff but,

Unless u spend alot of money on a really expensive one, its just another factor that will distort (in a bad way) the original sound of the guitar or pickup.... hence why some people have guitars with no switches o pots they say that it bleeds some tone away from the PU.  And so completely nullifing the fact that you've just spent alot of money on a quality PU.

yes u can have a low output PU, but naturally it wont sound as heavy or as brutal.

[dave_mc]

one word




Brutality

+2

more distortion = better. always.

 :lol:

EDIT: to quote frasier,

"If less is more, think how much more "more" is!"

[BloodMountain]

^  :lol:

[OD-Black_Fire]

High output pickups don't sound as sweet as low powered pick ups, duh. 'Cause they're brutal.

[BloodMountain]

low output pickups give a better mellow sound

[99_not_out]

Someone has to say it ...

Becasue they go to 11

To use a metaphor: I'd rather have a sweet V12 than some straight 4 pushed to the edge with a turbo and no where to go when you need something more :)

[Crazy_Joe]

Tim uses Mules for a lot of metal such as Zakk wylde in Ozzy songs and stuff.

[HTH AMPS]

I don't care how many overdrives and EQs you use, a Mule will never sound like a Warpig.

You gotta decide if you like that cleaner PAF tone, a brutal metal tone or somewhere inbetween (lots of choices).

I've got a Crawler in my LP and it's not as sweet as a PAF (my personal fave type of pickup), but it's close AND I can get some extra grunt when needed for heavier stuff.

 :twisted:

[Davey]

EDIT: to quote frasier,

"If less is more, think how much more "more" is!"

frasier rules!!


but way to remind me of my g/f  :(





anyway... thing is with this kind of setup, when you play a small-er venue, people dont know what to expect, then when you start chugging away, the only thing louder and harder than your rig, is the sound of peoples jaws falling on the floor  :twisted:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol: