Re: Pickup Poll

[Phil Clevenger <phil.clevenger@gmail.com>]

Hey thanks everyone for the thoughtful replies on the subject of pickups.

Looks like I'm gonna try another flight from the Seymour Duncan menu: a Hot Rails humbucker in the bridge position, a Little '59 in the mid, and a noiseless single-coil at the neck. 

If these don't do, I am gonna have a look at those Kinmans, Bill!

Phil

p.s. upside of being Strat-less this week is the rediscovery of a FINE piece of gear I have not used in over 20 years: A Rane FMI 14 1-in, 4-out Mic/Line submixer. For amplifying my acoustics, both of which have an old but still sweet Countryman phantom-powered pickup on board. The Rane has an XLR mic and 1/4" line input, two balanced and two unbalanced 1/4" outputs, a really nuanced adjustable 3-band EQ, 48v phantom power, 20db pad, two aux sends and a freaking INSERT. LOL. Built like a tank, quiet as outer space, and all crammed into a half rack unit. Totally forgot about this thing....

On Aug 11, 2011, at 11:20 PM, tEd ® KiLLiAn wrote:

Phil,

I don't know if this question was purely rhetorical or not.

I tend to favor Seymour Duncans (since I used to work there in the '90s).

Specifically, I favor humbuckers, but occasionally I want that snarky single coil notch position Strat sound, so I use switches for coil tapping on them.

My Gibson RD has a JB in the bridge position and a Jazz in the neck.

My 3-pickup Surfmaster has the same but with a 59 in the middle position between them.

Alas, my Tele copy is just a Tele copy with whatever stock no-name pickups it came with.

It's mighty quiet for just having single coils though.

Yeah, noisy pickups can be a bugger if you're looping.

I have a Jazz Bass that's a bit noisy, and my Surfmaster used to have P-90s which were sortta prone to hum and buzz despite having a very creamy-glassy sound that was way cool otherwise.

I hate extraneous noise though.

But sometimes you run across a guitar that sounds so good despite some little niggling extra hum or noise that it's a keeper anyway.

Sorry to hear that you didn't like your new pickups.

Duncan makes a couple of different kinds of single-coil sized humbuckers.

There are the "Rails" variety and the "Stacked" varieties  . . . and they also make a very narrow side-by-side model typified by the George Lynch Sreamin' Demon model.

Frankly they make so many different kinds of pickups these days, and I have been so long out of the loop in the industry, that you'd be better off to get a current catalog from them (or any other manufacturer you favor) and check what the tone charts say for each model.

Some sort of hum-canceling type of pickup may be required to get rid of the noise - or much better shielding in the wiring and control cavity (and double check the soldering joints while you're at it).

Just suggestions.

Best,

Ted

On Aug 11, 2011, at 10:23 PM, Phil Clevenger wrote:

Say LD-people,

What kinds of pickups are you using in your electric guitars?