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This is my opinion. The Wood gives the TONE, brilliant, warm, bitey, more forgiving, sustain etc.... but the Pickup gives the quot;SOUNDquot; and the certain qualities of the guitar. It is after all.. AN ELECTRIC GUITAR.

What do you think? Time for some ellaboration.

Because i like Alder, a relatively bright, full tone, with pickups that have lots of gain and clarity, that scream and can whisper. DiMArzio Super Distortion, Duncan D, Duncan JB even.

A bright wood with fat crunchy pickups.. wow.

I think the pickup is the single most important element in the tone of an electric guitar. Back in the 60's all we really had were Gibson guitars with a humbucker (or P90) and Fenders with single coils. But when we started putting humbuckers in Fenders, all of a sudden those Fenders started sounding like Gibsons!

I tend to think of an electric guitar as a quot;systemquot;. That is, I don't think of it as a quot;holderquot; for pickups, and I don't think of pickups as microphones for a guitar. Its part of the reason that my own guitar wiring has gotten away from concerning myself with having a pup on by itself. Its the quot;tonequot; I'm going for - not the configuration. Now that I've played with the wiring in my Strat for awhile, I'll be replacing the 5-way with a 3-way that just gives me:

1. N M
2. N M B
3. M B

Simple, clean . . . sounds great.


Originally Posted by ArtieToo

Now that I've played with the wiring in my Strat for awhile, I'll be replacing the 5-way with a 3-way that just gives me:

1. N M
2. N M B
3. M B

Simple, clean . . . sounds great.

Really!?! I like the neck pickup alone to much to ever do that! That's the pickup I play all my jazzy chords on. In fact, if I could only have one pickup on a guitar, I'd be bummed, ) but it would have to be the neck pickup...that's the one I spend the most time with. I love all the tones of a Strat...except the middle pickup alone. Never use it by itself. Lew


Originally Posted by LewguitarReally!?! I like the neck pickup alone to much to ever do that! That's the pickup I play all my jazzy chords on. In fact, if I could only have one pickup on a guitar, I'd be bummed, ) but it would have to be the neck pickup...that's the one I spend the most time with. I love all the tones of a Strat...except the middle pickup alone. Never use it by itself. Lew

I understand what you're saying completely. I hope to have quot;realquot; Strat in my stable in the not-too-distant future. That guitar will have the Surfer combo that you talk about in the quot;Ultimate Stratquot; thread, and it will have conventional wiring. But this guitar is my quot;oddballquot; Strat, with Cool Rails and Vintage Rails. It just plays a different role.

Artie

Edit: Also, did I mention . . . this is this week's plan.

Here's the rule.

Guitar/woods/construction: The instrument's voice

Pickups: The microphone

You can get different results with different mics but you can't change a person's or instrument's voice.

I suppose this comes from my early training in classical and jazz (never got too proficient at jazz) guitar, but I think that the important thing about a guitar, even a olid body guitar, is the way it sounds unplugged. I basically see pickups as a way of enhancing an instruments sound, not a starting point for developing a voice. That's probably the reason I like lower output pickups, they let more of the basic sound of the guitar come throught the amp.

to PICKUP the sound....and what lew and artie have said

I agree with the above statements. Pickups have a huge effect on the tone, but a great pickup can't save a lame guitar(I site my long ago sold Carvin). That said, I'd probably rather have an ok guitar with great pickups than a great guitar with crappy pickups.

Mike


Originally Posted by Lewguitar...if I could only have one pickup on a guitar, I'd be bummed, ) but it would have to be the neck pickup...

This has nothing to do with anything but I definitely think you should get a Strat with just a neck single coil. I've never seen that and it would be a :fing25: to kids like me who are okay with just bridge humbuckers

-X

depends on the music to be played, too ... for mega-distorto, gain-a-plenty, crunch-o screaming madness, the guitar's wood is going to contribute far less of the resulting tone than the pickups ... for clean (jazz, country, etc), the wood makes a hella difference but the wrong pickups can still ruin the result

and agreed as stated above- all in all i'd rather have a lame guitar with excellent pickups than a great guitar with crappy ones

with all the pickups on the market today, it might be a lot of effort to find 'your' tone, but there's really no reason to put up with bad tone

t4d

The pickups are sort of the personal touch.

I think of a pickup as what it is, a microphone /transducer.....

IMO all guitars are acoustic... some use large air filled boxes for amplification and others use a n electrical system. But every guitar has it´s own quot;voicequot; than no pickup, amplifier or player can hide.....

Thinke of it as singing... if I sing quot;My Wayquot; into a Beta 58 it´s still gonna sound like crap because I can´t sing... but if Sinatra (R.I.P.) were to do the same into a 25$ POS mic it would still sound unbelievable

I´d definitely much rather have crappy pickups than a guitar that doesn´t sing unplugged....

Every guitar has its own specific sound, even if they are of the same model and same material. That's why we really have to play the guitar before we make our decision on buying. This is especially important if we are buying an acoustic electric or semi hollow bodies for folk, jazz, blues, rock and some other easy listening styles. The pickups just amplify the sound and resonance of the body. On the other hand, if you play nothing but heavy metal, fury distortion or super shred, then the guitar itself may not play that important a role. But, still I think a well made guitar will give you much better sustain and resonance even you play heavily distorted music. I would definitely get a good sounding guitar playing unplugged before I will plug it into an amp to check out the tone.