Bug's Guitar Pick upTesting experiment 6
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Be prepared to find that cheap pickups can be equally as good as expensive ones - after all, the much-lauded "goldfoils" were simple items cobbled together from basic materials so they were cheap enough for bargain basement guitars.
Cool, educational and bloody good rifs ;-)
mine are not that long bug
P.s the cheap strat was a left handed restrung right handed upside down and tuned to d (hendrix style)
so may have affected the constant, as most otheres were right handed tuned to E... ish
If anyone can elaborate with a video a more constant test, I would love to watch it.
right back to work lunchtime over.... :>(
Mark Thanks for you comments, I agree this is in no way a science test and the wood ,nut bridge scale length and pickup position and strings all play a part in the sound. In my mind I cannot understand why coils and magnets should sound that much different, but they do. I plan to some tests on a CBG I have.
There is a difference between a Kay,Strat and Goldfoil Pickup taoped in place on the same set of strings.
Each pick up has different windings and different magnetic fields and strengths. I use the same strings on 99% of my guitars and yet ach sound so different. This is what amazes me and facinates me to know more.
I have been studying this for a couple of years. I have to say a cheap chineese pickup sounds ok in a cbg ( they probably copied a strat?) But this dark art still Facinates my curiousity to know more and understand more about why and how... Thanks for all your comments keep them coming Im off to rent a science lab....
Min I need is 1100mm
Out of those sounds I liked the cheap strat copy and the repro Gretsch best. Frankly they're all good sounds.
It's a fun comparison but not really an objective test. I have the following thoughts:
Problem 1: Each pickup will probably produce its best sound with a different amp/settings. So it's really difficult to do a fair test... If you use identical amps and settings (as here) then it might be right for one pickup and less good for others, thus putting those at a disadvantage. However if you put each pickup through its own setup then how can you be sure whether it's the pickups or the amp that's really responsible for the tone?
Problem 2: If you really want an objective comparison then science tells us you need to take certain precautions to avoid various types of bias that would otherwise be inevitable - ie.you need to do what is known as a "double blind" test. Unfortunately that's going to be a bit tricky with guitar tests - because ideally the person playing the guitar should be unaware what they're playing (other than obviously it's a guitar).
The difficulty is that perceptions (both those of the player and the listener) can make a significant difference to what people hear. If you're told that a pickup is some sort of marvellous, rare, deluxe model then there's a chance you will imagine you hear subtle qualities that aren't really there, or if you're told it's a cheap copy then you'll find things to criticise. Likewise, a person's playing can be affected by the knowledge of whether they're playing a dirt cheap instrument or an expensive instrument with a vintage pickup.
I have to say I've reached the stage where I'm very sceptical of most tests and comparisons I read about - especially those in guitar magazines. I really think there might never have been any genuinely objective comparisons of guitars (with the possible exceptions of some work done in proper research labs - which has its own limitations). Guitars are especially difficult because we get very emotional about them. It's very difficult to come up with truly meaningful objective tests.
Thanks for trying though - it's fun at least.
a piano .
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