Glenn coming back and calling out Thomann despite their very public working relationship is the very reason I love this channel. Consumer advocacy. 10/10 Mr. Fricker, 10/10.
@@SuMeK41 i think cuz they dont realize theres a problem yet I assume theyll eventually fix this though cuz i think thomann is a decent enough group of people to actually do something
The differences I usually hear in pickups is how hot the signal is. Compaing my passive EMG's in my Warlock to my Seymour Duncan Blackouts in my Jackson Soloist, it is significantly hotter in output.
emg vs dimebag set in the same guitar made a very obvious difference for me. same amp etc....in a mix probably still obvious to you and me as the tonal curve is really different....but i doubt my wife or neighbors could tell
Your active pickups are hotter than passive pickups? You don't say! If the only difference you can hear is output, most likely you're playing high gain styles and all your tone is coming from pedals and/or amp. Differences in pickup tone are largely lost in the clipping.
@@KelticKabukiGirl Dude, the only difference between pickups is the strength of the magnets and the number of windings. That means sensitivity and output.
Dude, this is one of the best videos you have done in a while. I watched the original as I too have wondered if the HB brand was only sending you hand selected guitars for the show. I'm so glad to see the original and this follow up. I'd REALLY be interested in what Thoman has to say about this experience.
In the near future I believe the ease of adjustability for pickups will really affect the sales. Not everyone can solder, so being able to save at least 30€ from a technician switching the pickups is a great option!
ye i love quick connect from EMG thanks to it you can replace pickups in guitar in few minuts if it's already have emg system and in a little bit more if not
I love that stuff like quick connect exists, but at the same time I don’t want it to become a singular standard. It would suck for components to become harder to tinker with and harder to use in more experimental builds. Being able to connect everything to everything at will with just a soldering iron is very nice and ideally solderless options would be available of more stuff, but I would hate if brands started doing only systems like that.
I am a "Quality Assurance" professional. When faced with a "defect" as we see in your new guitar, I would generally initiate a ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS, by asking Five (5) Whys? Sure, we could ask "Why" the inspector did NOT "catch" the defect. That IS a FAILURE, no doubt! But, more beneficial to improving the process for Thomann, shipping fewer defects to their customers, is determining WHY the assembler put the p/u s in the wrong spaces. I LOVE your channel, my friend. Keep up the GREAT work! 😬
Pickups swaps have been a very inconsistent thing for me in my many years of swapping and trying out pickups. In some guitars it really made very little difference…maybe a touch more clarity and output or maybe a little brighter and clearer(if I put a PAF style in). But in other guitars it made a HUGE difference. It’s case by case.
I think if you're changing types (single coil to P90 to PAF to active) it makes a big change, but like for like is a much smallest difference. The biggest change I ever saw was going from standard single coil to Fender Noiseless, and it's because they're stacked coils vs the original true single coils.
That's been my experience too. Unless the pickups were absolutely terrible, like the stock pickups on the Ibanez 7321, if I swap humbuckers for better humbuckers there wasn't really much of a difference. Maybe a bit of clarity that makes no difference in a mix. For single coils when I upgrade those it makes a crazy huge difference, but when I swapped from Jackson branded humbuckers or Duncan Designed humbuckers to Seymour Duncans, there wasn't really a difference. I actually swapped the Jackson branded pickups back into my 1990 Soloist after so many forums told me that a JB and Hot Rails would be so much better. Those Hot Rails are now in my Fender Telecaster. THAT made a difference lol.
Biggest difference I noticed was swapping my USA PRs custom 24’s stock 85/15 for fishman classics. It was a dark guitar and I tried several pickups to no avail. The fishman brightened it right up. Then a Les Paul…swapped the very trebly burstbuckers for some Seymour Duncan and the guitar roared after that and had way more low end authority. I do think Glen’s crusade against tone wood is flawed. I think tone wood does factor…but not so much the type of wood, and more so that every piece is different. I’ve owned many PRS custom 24’s…all about the same weight and made of the exact wood types, and 85/15 pickups, but that one sounded drastically different and darker.
@@brandonbryson3317 Thats really interesting. The only time I noticed a difference is when I went from passive to active, which again, didnt sound very different as much as behaved differently. A little bit of EQ and I go completely earblind to the differences. The tonewood thing. I've got an ESP LTD Cult 86 made of alder, 94 Jackson Soloist made of poplar and an '87 Kramer Nightswan made of mahoghany. The LTD and JAckson both have EMG 81/SA pickups. The Kramer has a Seymour Duncan Full Shred and a JB. When I run those into my Mesa Boogie Dual Rec or my Randall RG100 G3 Plus, there really isnt much difference at all. When I switch to the JB it is notably thicker and softer but the full Shred sounds really close to the EMGs and those guitars are 3 completely different woods. I think the tonal differences arent so much wood as they are construction. My Les Pauls sound alike but different from my "super strats".
@@visionop8 yeah, I also have 3 Les Paul’s, all mahogany with a maple top, and different but similar pickups. They all sound pretty different imo. My trad is very bright on the top end and upper mids, my trad pro is deeper in the lows, and my custom black beauty is more mid scooped but with a very aggressive attack.
as a long time Gibson and Epiphone user I am always watching out to see what other companies are doing with the explorer shape, debated on getting a HB and I'm glad you made these videos! thanks Glenn! 💜
I have to say, pickups do make a difference. I bought several Kiesel guitars recently and had the standard lithium pickups installed. There was something off about the sound, so swapped for Bareknuckle Ragnarok and polymath pickups and wow, what a difference in sound, responsiveness and feel. Also the clarity between notes was a lot better. The Kiesel pickups just didn't have that individual note definition when playing chords.
If only he would compare an active EMG vs a bareknuckle aftermath or something on a 7 string in B standard or lower, there would be absolutely no denying the difference.
Man those lithiums are so inconsistent. On some guitars they sound great and are very defined but on others they're complete horseshit and have almost no articulation.
As I said on the other video, the reason I bought new pickups was to get consistent sound because the ones I had were worse than the worst. And I wanted higher output which I think the reason for buying new pickups isn’t for tone change but for output level. Otherwise, what a great video man I’m happy your getting more views and I hope the trend continues as we all love you anyway :)
The 81 was the first one you demoed. I know that because the demo with the 60 was slightly out of tune. Other than that they were practically identical. It really wouldn’t upset me too much if the 60 was in the bridge, it just sounds like a slightly warmer 81. Great video!
it was warmer. i head that too. But is it really that unnoticeable? I mean if we hear it back to back like that it's almost night and day. Or am i missing something here?
@@darkflash32 i think its just matter of a different amp eq. they both sounded great with distortion and it’s the same or similar design. slightly warmer isnt that big of a deal.
@@darkflash32 it is perceivable when you A/B the solo tracks, but in a band mix those differences would be very difficult to tell apart. And then you can put an eq before the distortion to compensate, so it's really not that worthy tone-wise
The more distortion you use, the less tone difference you will hear between different pickups. It would be interesting to see you do a pickup test with clean and lower distortion tones.
Having done pickups swaps on two 2000s Epiphones, I will say that I noticed a huge difference in tone going from the stock pickups to some Seymour Duncans. But then again, Epiphone used to have really crappy pickups back then. I wouldn’t bother swapping pickups on newer models unless I was changing a PAF-y pickup set to a metal-friendly one.
I could hear a bit of difference, for sure, but nothing world shaking. When I got my HB EX-76 GHWAN I kind of hated the stock pickups. But after spending some time playing with tone sculpting with my AMP, I've actually come to like them quite a bit. And shifting my focus from "what the guitar sounds like" to "what the amp sounds like" made all the difference. They're actually pretty great. Versatile and a pretty unique personality. Perhaps in the future I'll still throw in something a bit punchier, but the more time I spend getting to know and understand the relationship between the guitar and amp, the more I'm liking the pickups. So, maybe not. They're the Roswells, btw. Apparently the thorn in the side of every RUclips guitar guy. Gotta say a big thanks for helping me shift my focus on sound. It's been eye opening for sure, and I'm positive it will continue to be helpful as I grow as a player. 🤘🔥🤘
Concerning the pickups, keep in mind that this goes for a high gain metal sound. When I'm playing through my cranked tube amp for a classic rock sound, different pickups do sound slightly different but not massively different. For me it's more about the feel than the sound though.
honestly i think some differences between different pickups would be more audible with a lot of gain. like if a pickup sounds pretty muddy, that will be much more obvious with distortion.
@@snow15243 That's for speakers, amps, etc. For pickups it's more audible with crunchy tones or slight high gain. Also its a feel and output thing with pickups for me. When cranking the gain on an amp, the output of the pickup wont matter as much, since you cant really hear if it's more gain or not.
I know when i upgraded my ibanez gio to some duncan sh8 invader pickups it was a massive difference, the old pickups were flimsy and hollow, but thats just my case, as always great work glenn
I generally agree with most of your mythbusting, but I have tons of experience swapping pickups in guitars over the years and changing pickups have always been the #1 change in tone that I can audibly hear when it comes to the guitar itself, with the amp and speakers being more noticeable in the chain as a whole. I heard the difference between the pickups in this video very easily with a cheap $40 speaker as well. The difference in sound could very well be eq'd out of course, but it does make a difference. The output difference alone is a huge factor that can vastly change the intensity of your tone.
Keith Merrow did an awesome video comparing humbuckers in metal mixes for Seymour Duncan. Sure enough, they all worked and a great product was created with either option. No pickup in the list was a deal breaker when mixed. That being said, the character and response between them did vary quite a bit, with some more than others. I'm not sure how much of that can be compensated for with eq and gain tweaks until I could get behind the board with them. Going between different types of pickups is definitely quite a leap (IE single coil to humbucker etc.) because they change the location and width of the magnetic field under the strings. Same reason why 2 identical pickups sound very different in the neck or bridge position respectively.
I bought the SH-5 Custom based on that video, all the others sounded 'meh' but then that one showed itself halfway through and I fell in love instantly.
Hey Glenn, thank you for taking your time and making these videos. Recently picked up my old guitar and am improving. Your videos, especially when it comes to sound recording are top tier. Hopefully the QC at Harley Benton improves as they have some things I'm eyeing.
A lot of EMG pickups that are made for the neck position also sound great in the bridge. Usually a little warmer sounding. I noticed that in this comparison as well.
@@yantz8281 I have the 81/85 set reversed. The 81 is supposed to be in the bridge but I think it sounds a bit harsh. IMHO for example the 81 in the neck tames the mids and bass so the neck position isn't so boomy like it is on many guitars. Guitar is all about experimenting and doing things your way. And I think a guitar's electronics are a great way to tinker and put your own spin on things.
Great video Glenn! Honestly, I’d say the Harley Benton QC in this case is pretty inexcusable. A truss rode floating around in the neck, pickups in the wrong place (it doesn’t matter if they sound the same, they’re supposed to be put in properly) and a loose Alan wrench? The guitar looks and sounds fine but I’d expect some really basic stuff like that to be correct. If I was a kid who didn’t know anything about guitar all I’d really know is that something was wrong with my brand new guitar. Hopefully this was a one off thing because HB really does look to be a great option for the lower price point.
Yeah but some slip ups are expected at that price point. Have not such glaring ones but still. I'm really surprised they have such consistent QC at all. Especially the paint jobs are really good.
Hey Glenn, I'm pretty convinced pickups will play a part in tone. I'm a bass player, and I recorded an A/B test when I bought some new pickups for my Squier Classic Vibe Jazz. It's the stock pickups compared to some Lindy Fralins, and there is a noticeable difference in tone between the two sets. I can already see there are nearly 500 comments on this video, so I assume you won't actually read this. IF YOU DO, by chance, please respond, and I'll post the clips to my YT channel for a blind A/B so you can check it out! I did my best to control for every factor except the pickups themselves.
@@dmytrotarasov9477 I mean, yes perhaps. But that's not really the point of the discussion; unlike tubes, which have been proven to not change tone, pickups will 100% make some difference. Glenn, seemingly, was concluding that they don't, and I am willing to provide some evidence to the contrary.
@@dmytrotarasov9477 well if a pickup doesnt have much high end or low end, you cant really fix that with EQ. 'cause you cant boost a frequency that isn't there.
The difference is not massive, but brightness is slightly noticeable. Another thing I found when changing pickups is how they sit in the mix that isn't always noticeable when played alone. First clip, I think it might be the first one, I'm noticing more brightness and pick attack. Second clip, seems to be the opposite, but it's alot less noticeable with that riff.
I was literally looking into what would happen if a bridge pick up got put in the neck last week so i found this interesting. I found a couple videos on CSGuitars that explained things nicely. One thing he noted was that a large portion of why a bridge and neck sounds different was where they were placed under the string, and that different pick ups were originally designed to compensate for differences in volume to balance them, and because the string spacing is different so they moved the pole peices to match to help with clarity.
From what i've heard the tone definetly varies from pickup types (humbucker, single coil etc.), and there are some differences between brands, but small enough to that you can just filter your way to the sound you want anyway. But what varies the most seems to be the volume of the guitar signal. Which makes sense, since that is the resulting voltage level of the electromagnets. And the voltage depends on the amount of windings, resistance of the wires and the magnets.
The only time I’ve had a noticeable change in “tone” is from changing out “cheap” pickups to slightly better ones or messing with the coil arrangements, even then that was only really in terms of note clarity, however the biggest change in tone I ever noticed was from doing shielding in my guitar, aside from less buzz I found the higher end was far more distinguishable than before, i was only expecting a decrease in buzz and hum but I was pleasantly surprised by the addition of more clarity!
WOOHOO!!! It’s like a VC bonus video! I like it! Not a bassist but this is why I come back to watch your content week after week. Still, Thomann need to fix these issues. I like that double cut but if the QC isn’t great… Kind of a disappointment.
Excellent videos, but I definitely think that pickups have a major impact on the sound of your guitar. You need to take into consideration that the distortion is compressing the signal and making it difficult to detect a difference in pickups. I think that a clean signal with no distortion might reveal more of a difference.
Exactly this. The more gain and distortion you run the more you're narrowing the range of pickup tone you can hear as chunks get clipped out of the signal. For stuff like metal output will make the biggest difference as it changes how hard it's hitting your pedals. If you're playing clean through a Fender it's a very different story.
GLENNN!!!!! I think (especially after this video) a lot of people would love to see a video on pickups. Keep everything else in the signal chain the same and just swap out a lot of pick ups and see the difference.
I find that different brands of pickups do sound quite different to each other, even for metal playing. Though, the differences seem far less noticeable with different models of the same brand.
I suspect Glenn’s experience in Germany was down to all the pickups on offer being of a similarly high quality (the same issue with him getting the ‘pro’ version of Harley Benton guitars delivered on a bed of swan feathers when they know it is going to be reviewed). In reality, many of us are swapping out cheap pickups installed into otherwise good guitars, and getting an instant and very noticeable improvement in output. Pickups are one of those components at threat of being challenged by cost accountants, especially when private equity owners are involved.
Agreed. I have several guitars with several different pick-ups and they all sound different. Part of that you can argue down to different body styles, but one old Yamaha starter guitar I have, I recently got the pick-ups changed out to Seymore Duncans and there is a MAJOR difference. The Yamaha ones were darker and beefier whereas the Seymore Duncans are thinner with more high end. All guitars are played on the same amp with the same settings, so no one can argue they sound different because of being played through different settings.
Hey Glenn, would you consider doing a solid body vs semi-hollow vs full hollow shootout? Obviously no one is reaching for a jazz box to play metal, but since your tonewood videos and Jim Lill's air guitar video, I've wondered how much it actually effects the sound. It may just be the lower vs higher output pickups that tend to be installed in each.
Merlin pickups and Hathor pickups - another two gems from Polish music market that can upgrade your harley benton for dirt cheap. Worth checking out! Cheers and thanks for all your YT tutorials. You inspired me to try home production and now it's my favourite hobby. Godspeed!
Glen, I've been playing guitar for nearly 60 years and still gig 4-5 nights a week. I couldn't tell if that guitar was hollow or not. There was a difference, however miniscule, when you switched the pickups around. And with the heavier low E on the strings. Just a tad punchier and tighter. Probably something you would feel, more than hear. I bought an HB 35 Plus a while back. It will need a fret level and crown (but still plays and sounds pretty good). It also could use treble bleeds and possibly a no-load tone pot on the neck pick-up (much less expensive way to brighten it up a bit). But considering that I got it shipped with a decent gigbag for $329 I'm very happy with my purchase.
I got an active HB bass for £210, it sounds, plays and looks like a £500 instrument. I recently bought a "travel" sized HB acoustic , mahogany, £109 . Comes with electronics, built in tuner and a decent case, none of which really matter to me - I didn't even know it had electronics etc when I bought it. It plays really nice, sounds really good and most importantly, different from my jumbo acoustics. For the price of a few Ubereats orders it's fantastic
@@ericdpeerik3928 Yes that's true..or maybe just can't be arsed to cook for one after 16 hours work. Plus, UK is a total rip off. I hardly ever eat pizza but I got a Papa John's recently, a medium. It was £16. With service and delivery via Ubereats it came to 22 fucking quid. Pizza was ok but not great and I could have eaten two. I wouldn't pay 22 quid for a pizza in a frickerin restaurant so you see what I mean?
@@luciferpantykrist7570 Agreed, I paid $159 plus $68 shipping for the cheap 7 string and it's way better than I expected at that price, just to buy a replacement neck from stewmac would have cost more than the entire guitar.
The first source that effects your tone is the pickup windings. Your guitar and the pickups, cables, and entire signal chain together form one big LC filter. That is The Tone. The dynamic between capacitance and resistance in that signal chain are where an electric guitar gets its tone. Changing speakers and mic placement dramatically change the sound that gets recorded through phase filtering and physical interaction of mechanical diaphragms with atmosphere.
Yeah 85's are so bassy it's super obvious I find. But that's just an EQ thing. To me the 60 has always been... sort of an 81, just a little less? I switched my 60 out for an 85 just to get a bigger contrast between the two.
My observation on pickup changes……some people buy new pickups that do provide a substantial change. Some people buy new pickups that are too similar to the old ones to tell a noticeable difference. What do you say?
Okay, this guitar has turned out to be extra useful. On the one hand Glenn had the experience of finding the pickups were in the 'wrong' order, and then he finds out that the factory and the inspector were right in this case not to care which pickup was in each position. Not so much a negative for Thomann as a valuable learning experience. There is a particular case where the pickup wiring would matter. That's for the out of phase thing if you were buying one where the middle switch position is supposed to put the pickups out of phase. If you got one where it was meant to and didn't then that would suck and be a fail. But this Harley Benton? Not perfect on delivery but still very much better than the crap we used to see for stupid prices back in the day.
Idk I think if you miss something as obvious as a pickup being in the wrong cavity, what the hell else can slip by them? That seems pretty obvious to me, on top of multiple strikes with loose truss rods. Think of it like this, not only did the ASSEMBLER fuck up, but the INSPECTOR did too. That's two points where something very obvious should have been caught. They weren't. How are you supposed to trust that all 24 frets are level? That the neck is straight? That the nut is slotted properly? You can't. It's all a big gamble. Trust me, I got an awful one to show for it.
Zup Glenn, old friend. The guitars are checked by the quality service on failures, they do a basic setup, clean and tune the instrument. If the instrument is supremely faulty, it won't make it to the store. Maybe those get repaired and sold as b-stock with 30 days money-back and 36 months warranty. Regarding the pickups: those are done in the factory. For the money you get a super bad ass instrument. I wish I would have something like this 22 years ago, when I started. My first guitars were in a worse quality back in the day, plus if you have any sort of issue with your instrument within the warranty, the company does almost everything to fix this issue. EMGs cost 78€ each, this makes 156€ is total, the whole guitar costs 399€. This is a hell of a great deal.
I'd be curious to hear an A/B between the factory Harley Benton electronics and a full upgrade of all the internal electronics. I suspect that might matter more than the pickup swap
@@thejusticeization Potentiometers have different tolerances, I have replaced Alpha mini pots with full size CTS pots in many guitars, the volume sweep has a different taper depending on the style used as well as the action of the pot can be fast or slow, cheaper pots can crackle and buzz when you turn them and rust quicker etc. Even a full size Alpha potentiometer can have a variable between a few k be it a 250k pot being only 246k if you test it or even 254k. Some swear by no pots at all and use direct wiring to the output jack. There are more than just wires.
I have just ordered a CTS to replace the cheap mini alpha pot in my HB 7 string, I don't think it will make a tonal difference except with volume swells, but it will last longer and not rust as easily.
@@myopicautisticmetal9035 yeah they will probably last longer and I agree with the taper, what i meant was there won't be much change in tone. I also have full size premium pots on all my guitars
speaking of swapping pickups, I have always wanted to be able to swap pickups myself. i know it isn't hard but have always been a tad weary of messing something up! think you could whip up a pickup swapping tutorial??
The second snippet sounds muddier and a bit brighter in top end, I would presume those are the traits for the neck pick-up whereas first take has more mids in it and the tone is cleaner, sounds like a bridge designed pick-up to me. And yes Glenn, there is a difference :) it's not huge, but I could hear it.
If memory serves, one of the EMG pickup pairings (might be the 81/60) were chosen to try and balance the volume between the two while otherwise maintaining a very similar minimal tone that's more affected by position than pickup's influence. So... they're supposed to not have much difference in this case. And a lot of people find EMG aren't that distinct to begin with - "sterile" is a common description.
Right! There is less amplitude in sound created by the bridge. When manufacturing pickups, it's a common practice to add more or fewer windings to match the volume of pickups AT THE SAME STRING HEIGHT. That part I believe is important because you want to have the pickups a different height based on how powerful the magnetic field is.
Glenn, cool vid. Have you had much experience using Dimarzio or Seymour Duncan pickups? I have used them as well as some other brands and have had good luck with them. And in my experience, replacement pickups do effect your tone significantly enough to warrant buying them. Some guitars I own have had some shitty pickups that came with them, so I replaced them and didn't regret it one bit. Not all pickups are created equal.
This video reminds me of an interview I read with Keith Richards years ago where he was talking about the fact that even though he loved his setup of a Fender Tele into a Vox AC30, you could hand him any guitar and any amp and he'll be able to dial in his tone within 5 minutes. I think the differences between higher quality pickups are fairly minor. You might have a higher output or a slightly different EQ sweep, but for the most part, they kind of run together when put back to back. Go look at any of the hundreds of comparison videos online for passive Seymour Duncan pickups. They're great sounding pickups but with few exceptions where a certain set might stand out from the rest of the pack, they all kind of run together in a high gain setting. And the few differences there are can be totally negated just by tweaking your EQ, moving your mic, using different speakers in your cab, or playing through a different amp.
I’ve guitar teched professionally on tour with bands and worked for a major guitar company. I totally agree that tone wood is total boomer legend, but pickups can make a huge difference. That being said I’m not personally a fan of active pickups. I’ve never tried fishmans but all the emg’s I’ve owned and installed in others guitars have been underwhelming. I also 100% agree that speakers make a huge difference in your sound, but next to speakers I’d say pickups and strings are the other major factors…and your ability to actually play of course lol
Tonewood....sure it's a thing, IN ACOUSTIC INSTRUMENTS!!!! As a drummer, yes wood makes a difference, as a classical guitar player with a hollow body and no amplification yes it makes a difference, a solid piece of wood with electronics in it, doesn't matter one bit. Wake the fuck up people!
My dad was a Silent Generation, on the subject of Boomer myth, Dad told me that Tone wood was just a term used by Luthier's to describe woods that are best suited for Instrument making, That's it. It never meant magical wood that gives more tone or why do Saxophone's work, he went on to say xylophone's aren't made of sapwood, they're made of Rosewoods because they're better suited for the musical tones they produce. Metallophone's are not made of wood yet they also produce tones when hit with a stick. it's just a fact that the term Tone wood was not invented by Baby Boomers, they just misunderstood.
Glenn watching you test the tone while playing all the classic Judas Priest makes me realize they are the greatest metal band of all time and I need to listen to them more!
Love your channel. Just want to say that as you put out there that you are a self-proclaimed beginner -> intermediate guitar player I would pay attention to statements you are making now. After 30 years of playing I can say there is a (not huge) but BIG difference in pickups. As someone else commented, the "output" of the pickup, the guitar and the setup.... make for some very distinguishable differences. I say "setup" because every pickup has a set distance 'string to pickup' for proper delivery of sound. That could be something else you discuss with your viewers on how to get the most out of their pickups.
I've been appreciating affordable guitars a lot more lately. My 2002 ltd ec-100 (which is around the same price point as most HBs) still gets good results.
I've definitely had some terrible stock pick ups on cheaper guitars (I'm broke so the 300-500 AUD range is usually what I go for) but I 100% agree that clarity and noise Floor wise, new pick ups make a huge difference, however when it comes to actual tone, I agree with you. they don't change the tone very much if at all. Maybe some are higher output than others but to my ears as a Mediocre rhythm guitarist at best, I believe pickups arent going to do that much for you tone. The Speaker/ cab IR you use is gunna change that. (fucking obviously).
I agree with you in some cases for sure. But recently I swapped out a no-name brand humbucker in a Vester (Jackson soloist copy) and threw in a Dimarzio Super 3, and holy shit balls it brought it to life. I’ve found much less difference between a SD JB and a SD Custom5, but going from real cheap pickups to a decent brand seems to make a huge difference. Best $100 AUD I spent on a cheap guitar.
I can definitely agree that pickups have cleaner/dirtier characteristics and can affect the sound in both good and bad ways. I have my Strat with Seymour Duncan Hotrails and Coolrails. I have the Ibanez Jem with Dimarzio Evolutions. These are two completely different pickups though. The Evolutions in the Ibanez to me have more of a dirtier sound compared to the Hotrails. They are set down pretty low, nearly flucs with the pick guard and they're still dirty.. My video of my song Funky Nights is using both guitars with the same distortion settings on both. Eventually I'd love to put hotrails in my Ibanez but I don't want to mess with anything just yet, but the hotrails definitely have more clarity. Love your show Glen. Never stop entertaining us!
Hey Glenn! Big fan of your channel! Just to bring my own experience to the HB topic: I bought a HB Multiscale-7 3 weeks ago, as watching your channel, and looking all over internet, I got confident that HB was actually doing great stuff for a decent price. When I received the guitar, I was pretty happy: looks great, great paint job, locking tuners, truss rod pretty much where it should be, intonation also pretty much OK, BUT...looking at the neck, I could see how the string were not parallel to the borders of the neck :( I first thought that they mounted the bridge wrong, too much on the left, but then I thought of something else: I loosened the neck screws and yes, the neck had a bit of headroom into the neck pocket. Adjusting it completely to the right of the neck pocket made it perfectly straight and aligned with the strings. Yes, there is maybe 1 milimeter gap between the body and the left border of the neck, but if you don't know it, you would not see it. Still, I think this is intolerable that this hasn't been picked up and fixed by QC..also, pretty much every screw came loose (tuners', jack, rear plate, even the bridge's). I still think though that, now that I fixed it, it is a killer axe and plays very well for the price I had to pay (300€ + shipping to Spain), but they do have to improve QC.
Man. You do all the best work on RUclips. Ive been pickup shopping for like 2 months debating what tone differences really matter. And I’m sure there are subtle things that hardly matter but screw it. I’m just gonna get the best bang for my buck. The John Petrucci dream catcher seems like a great pickup and it’s not nearly as pricey as shipping a Bare Knuckle brand over the sea. Cheers brother, all the love in the world!
I was looking at 7 string pickups recently, everything I am interested in was $100 give or take 99 cents. I looked at low price pickups and found a ceramic Wilkinson humbucker for 7 for $22 on amazon. Needless to say I am glad I took a chance because I don't want an Evolution Dimarzio anymore and saved myself about $80! Since then I replaced the cheapo single coils in my strat with a set of the Wilkinson hot rails humbuckers similar to the Dimarzio versions, only $50 for a set of 3 and they sound great!
The difference pickups make are mostly heard when playing alone and at normal volume levels. In a band setting, recording with someone that knows what he's doing or just raising the dB on the amp will stop making that much of a difference. But they do act as set EQ filters and some push some frequencies more than others and play better with some amps than others. On a personal level, I've never managed to make two guitars sound the same with the same pickups, in the same tuning using the same strings and even trying to match the heights.
I mean, if you didn't notice the difference before its because the EMG 60 is a 85 but with a ceramic magnet instead of AlNiCo V, the same magnet a 81 have. On pickup switches my experience is changing a generic cheap pickup to a brand one does make a difference in clarity (just realized you said the same thing as Im writing lol) But in brand pickups, the difference is only noticeable when changing from ceramic to AlNiCo, but it doesn't make it "better", it's just different. Generic to brand pickup: Step up (improvement) Brand pickups with different magnets: Step to the side (you are in a different spot but its not necessarily better) Brand pickups with the same magnet: 360° turn (yep, you just end up in the same place) Btw, thanks Glenn for the awesome content as always!
I took my Ibanez RG and installed Dime bag Darrel pick ups - With a Seymour Duncan blues Humbucker in the middle . When you are not running a fully " full distorted " amp setting - you hear a difference . My Ibanez, my telecaster, my Hamer, my Jackson , and my Epiphone les Paul all have different tones coming out of the same setting on my Helix . Same thing with my Marshall amp too. My favorite guitar always seems to be the Jackson - it has a sustaineack in it too. You should feature one of those , great for metal tones. Ron
Thanks again Glenn. I gave up on this guitar after retuning it due to pup order and getting a replacement that actually had correct order but signal only came out occasionally so back to shop and for good. Also some lazy checker of course did not bother in checking electronics since besides arriving with messed electronics and with a dent, there was no 9v included so quite certain no one checked if it worked, just visual check. Great channel G
There *is* a small change in tone between the SIT's and the strings that came on the guitar - but it's so subtle it could probably just be the difference between brand-new strings and strings that have some playing time on them. And as for color, yeah, black shows EVERYTHING! The gold color offered on the original Les Pauls is actually pretty decent at hiding fingerprints; my PRS is a similar shade of gold.
One more anecdotal piece for the pickup pile: recently bought a guitar with a hot rail in the bridge position that I swapped out for a Lace Sensor Blue. The difference was night and day. The Lace is much more dynamic and has more of that "bell" quality that Strats are renowned for. From my experience, I'm convinced that the strength and most importantly the WIDTH of the magnetic field dictate the tonal response of pickups.
I had the same experience with an older Rhoads V, the EMGs and of course the whole pots and wiring set up really made a great replacement. Also recently replaced my Strat stock (non stagered) single coils with Tex-Mex (neck and middle) and Seymore Duncan Hot-rail with coil tap (bridge) and MoJo Tone wiring and pots, HUGE difference in every 5 position selection. Of course the Hot-Rail in humbucker mode sounded great, but the coil tapped to single sounded great also, totally different. I think the MoJo tone pots and wiring may have been a huge factor in in the overall difference. Looking forward to some actual scientific testing.
Hey Glenn, I bought an HB Amorok. Complete disaster. The pots scratched against the body because the holes were crooked. The top of the headstock was dented due to poor packaging, but it played well with a very low action. I sent it back and bought a second one. This one was even worse, one side of the flame top was completely imperceptible and the jack had a loose connection. The third guitar I ordered was relatively ok. I live in Germany, so it's not that big of a problem. Well, The top isn't perfect yet and it buzzes no matter how high the string action is or what truss rod setting. I ended up keeping it because it looks good on my wall and maybe I will get it right one day...
If you have dirt cheap pickups, it really does matter if you upgrade to something better. As you say, it really cleans up the signal, and you could possibly clean that up later in the chain, but not having tons of unwanted sounds is a much better starting point. Pickups deffo matter to some extent.
I've got many different guitars hanging on my wall and decided to do a comparison. I just noodled around some random rhythm and lead stuff and recorded it one after another in my DAW only the bridge position. A LTD Arrow 1000 with EMG 81 in the bridge, a 1995 Gibson Explorer with a changed Seymour Duncan SH-6, a japanese made 1993 Squier Strat with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rail in the bridge and a LTD Eclipse 1000 with Fishman Fluence Classic. It's fun to play the DAW Track and to randomly click somewhere in the DAW timeline because even with these complete different guitars you can't hear a difference. The SH-6 peaks out a bit in output but not by ear. That impressed me very hard because I feel a huge difference when I play these guitars. Especially with the strat I felt much less heavy sounding.
Glenn, as usual, you arbitrarily CRUSH any other YT reviewer for this type of music, the sound a lot of us are looking to achieve, and you run the absolute gamut when it comes to super-expensive gear, to the stuff Joe n' Janie Shmoe has to make their decisions upon. You, Sir are a one-man institution (and your "backing band-mates" are fucking STELLAR absolutely RIP. PS "'PAINKILLER' is Glenn's 'WONDERWALL'." FUCKING HA! Brilliant!
From what I’ve been learning, the difference between the 2 pickups in a typical set like this is volume output, not tone. The bridge pickup needs a bit more volume than the neck.
Soon as I heard you say pickups didn’t matter, I had to go to the comments. They didn’t disappoint. Oh the butthurt is real. I would’ve argued against that a few years ago, but I came to that realization myself a while back after getting a cheap Jackson off of a friend and thinking wow I’m really gonna upgrade this with some Duncan Invaders. Spent over $300, got everything swapped out and talk about an anticlimactic slap in the face. The pickups were worth more than the guitar and for what? Sounded exactly the same to me and my buddies who were all convinced it would be so much better. They couldn’t tell the audio clips apart either. I’ve even found a great RUclips video with blind shootouts between a bunch of different pick ups. Just numbered audio clips. I listen to that video probably a dozen times during a night shift and I kept picking my favorite. That number changed every time. My conclusion at least was the output rating would change the sound more than the brand/model. As long as it’s quality you should be able to clear up the signal just like you said. Although I will confess, I’ve definitely changed pick ups just for looks sometimes. What can I say, gold emgs are sick looking
Watched this video yesterday. Came back to write this. I bought a HB SC 550 plus (Active pickups) from Thomann in march this year. From the start the guitar had set up issues but its fixable. So I let this slide. Few months later the pick selector (bridge position) had some contact issues. I fixed it with some electronic cleaner spray. From what i understood in youtude video, this happen maybe twice a year on les paul style guitar. But this happens every 2-3 weeks. But a quick spray and its gone. Mind you, from where Im from (Mauritius), that guitar isnt exactly cheap. At least for me. Despite these issues, i like this guitar. Yesterday, it played just fine. Today, had some time to practise before heading work, its making little to no sound!! I change the battery, still nothing. I check my signal chain with my yamaha ST, everything is fine. I think the battery connector is faulty. Now Im pissed!!!
About pickups: the major difference I have found, try a 2.6 harmonic on humbuckers, then try a 2.6 harmonic on single coils. That is very real. Also had n3 noiseless single coil pickups and never liked them. Switched to standard old single coils, massive difference..... that being said, it was mostly signal response and more top end....but! I also changed all the pots, caps and wiring. I didn't hear any difference between the two EMG's at all 🤘
Great show, Glenn, thanks for all the hard work you're putting into educating us. About the "pickup doesn't matter" thing - I've seen Jim Lill's video about guitar tone and, at some point, he swaps the stock pickup of the guitar he built with a Seymour Duncan and the difference was night and day. The pickups may not matter if you change between EMGs and Fishmans, or SDs and DiMarzios, but I think it does matter when you replace your stock no-name pickup for a more expensive one.
My guess for the pickups "tonal difference" is the output differences. Neck pickups are wound slightly less hotter than its matched bridge. Since the neck pup catches more frequencies, than a bridge. But 2 pickups in a matched set like that, would be constructed similar to each other. Thus the only reason there'd be a shift, would be the output levels. Although they're usually not that far off from each other. Adjusting the heights, if they're in the "wrong" position would help balance the outputs. ie: lower the neck or raise the bridge pups. Remember back in the day, Fender would produce Strat pickups, and wind them as similar as they could. Just to keep up with their demand. Then pick whichever they grabbed first for all 3 positions. Those are some of the holy grail tones people crave today, but back then it was just what ya got.
I do believe pickups directly effect the tone but to be honest no matter which one you use you can get the same sound with correct adjustments on your amp and cab+mic
I can't tell which is which but did hear a little difference between the two. Totally agree that the change isn't massive which is handy cos I currently have 81/81 and have been debating trying 81/85 now I am thinking it's not worth the effort or expense. Thanks Glen!
Well, there surely was a difference in tone in the video! Also I've heard a lot of people say great things about the 85, so...quite likely it will be better than 81 in neck position, but how much better is up yours 💁♂ Depends on ur monetary situation and playing style what is best for you... Never heard of an 81/81 combo before though, lol.
I, too, recently was victim to their "quality control" and made a video on the MB-5 bass guitar that I bought. It's made me feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one that has had issues. I'm still awaiting a resolution after sending the guitar back to Thomann.
I've had one of these for a few years and can tell you one thing for certain. Playing them unplugged sounds amazing and the intonation can be second to none, if set up properly with the right strings or gauge. HOWEVER, the big caveat is.. they sound like total utter generic crap when you record metal with them. I've tried everything six ways from sunday to make a mix sound half way decent with the thing. Maybe I just haven't found the right pickup/amp/cab combo for it yet. I know for certain I definitely wouldn't use EMG though. Tried it, not happening. Totally lifeless. Again though, unplugged it sounds like a dream.. flawless intonation with the right strings and gauge.
I'd say the biggest difference in pickups happens when you swap out cheap stock pickups for quality ones from any major brand. But between the major brands I think it just becomes a preference thing and they all meet a certain quality level so the differences become negligible. Speaking from experience comparing stock Jackson pickups in my entry-level Dinky to the SD Blackouts in my Schecter and the difference in clarity is night and day. And no, you can't EQ the muddiness out of the stock pickups using the amp's tone controls because I've tried. 😂
My opinion on the blind test, for reference I’m listening through a set of AirPods: First clip was 81, second was 60. First clip sounded a little “clearer” to me, second sounded a little “warm”. Regardless of which one is which, I prefer the sound of the first clip. Entire time though all I could think of was if I was playing through my EVH 5150iii and was getting the sound of the second clip, I’d bump the treble and/or presence a little bit and I’d be happy.
I heard a pretty clear difference when the pickups were switched from being incorrect, in the first round of riffs it was very noticably clearer and more defined, perhaps more midrange created this. It was nothing dramatic though and it sounded just fine both ways but it should of course have been the correct way. I couldnt notice any difference in sound on the different strings.
I'm so happy that you mention the pickup situation, cause that's been probably the second biggest headache I've had in my studio when recording clients (the first one is Bass and Guitar players refusing to use fresh strings) because a pickup is just magnets with copper wire. And just like the xlr cables (or any cable for that matter), we only need those that don't induce ground noise and have a decent output. Tone is almost irrelevant when it comes to pickups and musicians still don't understand how they actually work, bring their shitty guitar with no setup, and complain that the pickups are not good enough. Keep up the amazing job and I'm really interesting in that pickup shootout! Cheers from Union III, Iraq. 🪖💣
I think that second riff of Lucretia is EMG 81, because it has a bit more gain than first riff, being first riff EMG 60... I might be wrong, but I guess that first take pickup (EMG 60) is a bit more "bass focused". In conclusion, I don't think it changes much in terms of tone, but it may have a difference in playing style, making it more easy to play riffs with a emg 81 and focusing on details on emg 60.
The biggest difference between pickups is output. The last time I changed pickups was in a HB Fusion 2 with DiMarzio, mainly because I had them anyway and I didn't like the chrome covered pickups on the Fusion.
I don't know which pickup was which, but the second one definitely sounds brighter and more defined. It makes the riffs sound more brutal. Even if it is the "wrong" pickup, I'd still put it into the bridge position because it gets me closer to the sound I want to achieve without having to mess with treble and presence controls.
My reference headphones broke last week but even with the cheapo gaming headset I agree that the second one sounds brighter and a little more defined. It would likely work better in a mix but it's certainly nog a big difference. Any I've found that almost any instrument ran through enough distorsion sounds like a guitar :)
Glen, I’m mad and need recommendations. I bought a new guitar and immediately ripped out the stock pickups before ever playing it, because internet. I bought a $300 set of boutique pickups that were basically copies of the stock pickups I just ripped out. However, they were designed to cut through a full band mix in both live and recording environments, but they sounded “flubby and ice-picky” on my Line 6 Spider while playing alone in my bedroom. I obviously need to buy new pickups. I want something that sounds sweet, lush, buttery, extremely hot, but not too warm. I’m hungry. It needs to be bright with a nice low end that’s neither muddy nor tight. The upper central bottom 33rd percentile mids have to be both pronounced and scooped. The high end…I don’t know what that is, but the pickups need to nail both Slayer and Eric Johnson tones while I’m playing Smoke on the Water. Definitely no active pickups, although something with an onboard preamp would be fine as long as it’s in the vintage PAF range with a combo Alnico 3/ Ceramic magnet blend and wound above 19K. Something unpotted but doesn’t feedback would be great. Sooooo, Lollars?
I personally have a guitar with an EMG 60 in the bridge position. On purpose. At the time EMG had demos of all their pickups in both neck and bridge positions with various amps. The 60 in the bridge was crunchier than an 81, so that what's I bought. 10+ years later and I still love it.
I think the second pass of Painkiller was the 60. Just to take a guess. Sounded slightly SLIGHY beefier. I would think that maybe the neck pickup would have more body response.
With a lot of distortion I think you are totally right. You are losing so much of the signal to clipping that it would be really tough to hear a discernible difference. Playing clean may be a little different, but I don’t think pickups are the magic tone contributor they are made out to be (assuming there isn’t something wrong with the pickup they are replacing). I honestly love the “crappy” ceramic magnet pickups in my old Mexican strat. It continues to amaze me how superstitious and crazy guitarists are about some really weird crap. You even have people trying to say that old style cloth shielded wire makes a difference in tone.
I think you are right about pickups affecting EQ that much. I would say that the main difference with pickups is output gain, I like pickups with lots of gain and don't enjoy playing lower gain pickups. You can change EQ on your amp or pedal setup.
Glen rocks!! I love watching you’re reviews and videos. Keep up the awesome work! Love the fact that you call out big corporations like Gibson and other large companies. Would love to see a video on the Fusion 3 from HB.
Pickups make a difference in tone, clarity, and feel. I usually get guitars in pairs, with both being identical other than the pickups I swap in. Guitar 1 getting Fishman Fluence Moderns and guitar 2 getting either an EMG 57/66 set or whatever passives I'm currently curious about. I use the Fishman Moderns on my main guitars as they have the EMG 81/85 sound, but there's a very different feel to them that I really like. The EMG 57/66 set is my favorite pickup set, they sound and feel like a really hot Gibson 490R/498T set, much warmer sounding and more passive feeling than the 81/85/60 pickups. Because the guitars are identical other than pickups, I can hear and feel the shifts in tone/feel in real time as I put one guitar down and pick up the other. Obviously this is all on the player's end and gets lost in a recording where feel doesn't matter and slight shifts in tone or output can be changed by whoever is mixing. No audience member or listener is going to be like "Yep, this guy is using an EMG 57 in the bridge, I can tell by his tone." Anyways, as for correcting the positing of the 81 and 60 and it not making much of a difference, that's because they're both very similar in design and use ceramic magnets. If the pairing was 81/85, you would have heard a significant difference as the 85 is an alnico v and should be warmer and rounder sounding compared to the cold ice picky sound of the 81s and 60s.
I think also for beginner's if you buy a guitar online. Take it to a repair guy at your local music store. If they're competent they should be able to catch setup issues like this and fix them. You can always do some research and find out where those places are. Even guitar center will have a repair guy, though I'm not sure how trustworthy they are. Or, ask the person you're taking lessons from. They might know how to setup or they'll be able to recommend you a place to take it.
Glenn coming back and calling out Thomann despite their very public working relationship is the very reason I love this channel. Consumer advocacy. 10/10 Mr. Fricker, 10/10.
Yeah although i do like harley benton and what they do, honesty is important and if they have room to improve, they should
Amen I truly take his and few others word as gospel, man knows his stuff
why do they keep sending him guitars is beyond me
@@SuMeK41 i think cuz they dont realize theres a problem yet
I assume theyll eventually fix this though cuz i think thomann is a decent enough group of people to actually do something
There was a noticeable difference, but not a big one. This could easily be offset by EQ and mic placement. Great video Glenn!
Agreed. There was a difference...but not huge.
I heard the difference on cheap mackie monitors
At live volume with other instruments playing your not gonna hear that little difference!
@@jaymesmustaine684 But if you stack multiple tracks recorded with the 60 the spongines can be unbearable.
Same for me, I did hear a difference.
The differences I usually hear in pickups is how hot the signal is. Compaing my passive EMG's in my Warlock to my Seymour Duncan Blackouts in my Jackson Soloist, it is significantly hotter in output.
emg vs dimebag set in the same guitar made a very obvious difference for me.
same amp etc....in a mix probably still obvious to you and me as the tonal curve is really different....but i doubt my wife or neighbors could tell
Your active pickups are hotter than passive pickups? You don't say!
If the only difference you can hear is output, most likely you're playing high gain styles and all your tone is coming from pedals and/or amp. Differences in pickup tone are largely lost in the clipping.
The biggest difference I hear in tones is cheap pickups sound thin hollow and weak and lacking in detail, good pickups are rich in detail.
EMGs have flat curves. They are designed differently than Duncan SH4s and Dimarzio SDs
@@KelticKabukiGirl Dude, the only difference between pickups is the strength of the magnets and the number of windings. That means sensitivity and output.
Dude, this is one of the best videos you have done in a while. I watched the original as I too have wondered if the HB brand was only sending you hand selected guitars for the show. I'm so glad to see the original and this follow up. I'd REALLY be interested in what Thoman has to say about this experience.
Kudos to EMG for making switching pickups so easy! I wish other manufacturers would follow suit.
Have you seen the Fishman diagrams? Made me cry.
In the near future I believe the ease of adjustability for pickups will really affect the sales. Not everyone can solder, so being able to save at least 30€ from a technician switching the pickups is a great option!
ye i love quick connect from EMG thanks to it you can replace pickups in guitar in few minuts if it's already have emg system and in a little bit more if not
I love that stuff like quick connect exists, but at the same time I don’t want it to become a singular standard. It would suck for components to become harder to tinker with and harder to use in more experimental builds.
Being able to connect everything to everything at will with just a soldering iron is very nice and ideally solderless options would be available of more stuff, but I would hate if brands started doing only systems like that.
A lot of Gibson guitars use that quick connect system on passive pickups too.
I am a "Quality Assurance" professional. When faced with a "defect" as we see in your new guitar, I would generally initiate a ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS, by asking Five (5) Whys? Sure, we could ask "Why" the inspector did NOT "catch" the defect. That IS a FAILURE, no doubt! But, more beneficial to improving the process for Thomann, shipping fewer defects to their customers, is determining WHY the assembler put the p/u s in the wrong spaces.
I LOVE your channel, my friend. Keep up the GREAT work! 😬
Pickups swaps have been a very inconsistent thing for me in my many years of swapping and trying out pickups. In some guitars it really made very little difference…maybe a touch more clarity and output or maybe a little brighter and clearer(if I put a PAF style in). But in other guitars it made a HUGE difference. It’s case by case.
I think if you're changing types (single coil to P90 to PAF to active) it makes a big change, but like for like is a much smallest difference. The biggest change I ever saw was going from standard single coil to Fender Noiseless, and it's because they're stacked coils vs the original true single coils.
That's been my experience too. Unless the pickups were absolutely terrible, like the stock pickups on the Ibanez 7321, if I swap humbuckers for better humbuckers there wasn't really much of a difference. Maybe a bit of clarity that makes no difference in a mix. For single coils when I upgrade those it makes a crazy huge difference, but when I swapped from Jackson branded humbuckers or Duncan Designed humbuckers to Seymour Duncans, there wasn't really a difference. I actually swapped the Jackson branded pickups back into my 1990 Soloist after so many forums told me that a JB and Hot Rails would be so much better. Those Hot Rails are now in my Fender Telecaster. THAT made a difference lol.
Biggest difference I noticed was swapping my USA PRs custom 24’s stock 85/15 for fishman classics. It was a dark guitar and I tried several pickups to no avail. The fishman brightened it right up. Then a Les Paul…swapped the very trebly burstbuckers for some Seymour Duncan and the guitar roared after that and had way more low end authority. I do think Glen’s crusade against tone wood is flawed. I think tone wood does factor…but not so much the type of wood, and more so that every piece is different. I’ve owned many PRS custom 24’s…all about the same weight and made of the exact wood types, and 85/15 pickups, but that one sounded drastically different and darker.
@@brandonbryson3317 Thats really interesting. The only time I noticed a difference is when I went from passive to active, which again, didnt sound very different as much as behaved differently. A little bit of EQ and I go completely earblind to the differences. The tonewood thing. I've got an ESP LTD Cult 86 made of alder, 94 Jackson Soloist made of poplar and an '87 Kramer Nightswan made of mahoghany. The LTD and JAckson both have EMG 81/SA pickups. The Kramer has a Seymour Duncan Full Shred and a JB. When I run those into my Mesa Boogie Dual Rec or my Randall RG100 G3 Plus, there really isnt much difference at all. When I switch to the JB it is notably thicker and softer but the full Shred sounds really close to the EMGs and those guitars are 3 completely different woods. I think the tonal differences arent so much wood as they are construction. My Les Pauls sound alike but different from my "super strats".
@@visionop8 yeah, I also have 3 Les Paul’s, all mahogany with a maple top, and different but similar pickups. They all sound pretty different imo. My trad is very bright on the top end and upper mids, my trad pro is deeper in the lows, and my custom black beauty is more mid scooped but with a very aggressive attack.
as a long time Gibson and Epiphone user I am always watching out to see what other companies are doing with the explorer shape, debated on getting a HB and I'm glad you made these videos! thanks Glenn! 💜
Is that your actual picture?
I have to say, pickups do make a difference. I bought several Kiesel guitars recently and had the standard lithium pickups installed. There was something off about the sound, so swapped for Bareknuckle Ragnarok and polymath pickups and wow, what a difference in sound, responsiveness and feel. Also the clarity between notes was a lot better. The Kiesel pickups just didn't have that individual note definition when playing chords.
If only he would compare an active EMG vs a bareknuckle aftermath or something on a 7 string in B standard or lower, there would be absolutely no denying the difference.
Can you do a comparison video?
Would love to hear the difference
Man those lithiums are so inconsistent. On some guitars they sound great and are very defined but on others they're complete horseshit and have almost no articulation.
10000% agree! Pickup differences are massive. Im just going to leave this video here :) ruclips.net/video/Y1Io-z6rkZQ/видео.html
As I said on the other video, the reason I bought new pickups was to get consistent sound because the ones I had were worse than the worst. And I wanted higher output which I think the reason for buying new pickups isn’t for tone change but for output level. Otherwise, what a great video man I’m happy your getting more views and I hope the trend continues as we all love you anyway :)
So true about higher output being a 100% bona fide reason for fitting new pickups. It didn’t get mentioned enough generally.
The 81 was the first one you demoed. I know that because the demo with the 60 was slightly out of tune. Other than that they were practically identical. It really wouldn’t upset me too much if the 60 was in the bridge, it just sounds like a slightly warmer 81. Great video!
Dam…I had the opposite.
it was warmer. i head that too. But is it really that unnoticeable? I mean if we hear it back to back like that it's almost night and day. Or am i missing something here?
@@darkflash32 i think its just matter of a different amp eq. they both sounded great with distortion and it’s the same or similar design. slightly warmer isnt that big of a deal.
@@darkflash32 it is perceivable when you A/B the solo tracks, but in a band mix those differences would be very difficult to tell apart. And then you can put an eq before the distortion to compensate, so it's really not that worthy tone-wise
The more distortion you use, the less tone difference you will hear between different pickups. It would be interesting to see you do a pickup test with clean and lower distortion tones.
"Clean tones aren't metal" ya know despite most of metallica having clean tones on them.
Glenn conveniently ignores clean tones considering wood and pickups.
Having done pickups swaps on two 2000s Epiphones, I will say that I noticed a huge difference in tone going from the stock pickups to some Seymour Duncans. But then again, Epiphone used to have really crappy pickups back then. I wouldn’t bother swapping pickups on newer models unless I was changing a PAF-y pickup set to a metal-friendly one.
I've been debating a pickup change on my 2005 Epi SG Special, was that still the era of crappy Epi pickups?
Yeah, the old ceramics sucked. But I believe Epiphone switched to alnico pickups a few years ago for many different models.
Advocate for the Probuckers here. Affordable, 4 wire, etc.
I could hear a bit of difference, for sure, but nothing world shaking. When I got my HB EX-76 GHWAN I kind of hated the stock pickups. But after spending some time playing with tone sculpting with my AMP, I've actually come to like them quite a bit. And shifting my focus from "what the guitar sounds like" to "what the amp sounds like" made all the difference. They're actually pretty great. Versatile and a pretty unique personality.
Perhaps in the future I'll still throw in something a bit punchier, but the more time I spend getting to know and understand the relationship between the guitar and amp, the more I'm liking the pickups. So, maybe not.
They're the Roswells, btw. Apparently the thorn in the side of every RUclips guitar guy.
Gotta say a big thanks for helping me shift my focus on sound. It's been eye opening for sure, and I'm positive it will continue to be helpful as I grow as a player.
🤘🔥🤘
Concerning the pickups, keep in mind that this goes for a high gain metal sound. When I'm playing through my cranked tube amp for a classic rock sound, different pickups do sound slightly different but not massively different. For me it's more about the feel than the sound though.
That’s my experience as well. Pickups seem to make a bigger impact to cleaner tones.
honestly i think some differences between different pickups would be more audible with a lot of gain. like if a pickup sounds pretty muddy, that will be much more obvious with distortion.
@@snow15243 That's for speakers, amps, etc. For pickups it's more audible with crunchy tones or slight high gain. Also its a feel and output thing with pickups for me. When cranking the gain on an amp, the output of the pickup wont matter as much, since you cant really hear if it's more gain or not.
Another great video and content ! Way to go Glenn ! Good job
I know when i upgraded my ibanez gio to some duncan sh8 invader pickups it was a massive difference, the old pickups were flimsy and hollow, but thats just my case, as always great work glenn
Yeah my Gio's pickups are going to be replaced soon enough, farty damn things. Neck, frets and body are ace.
I took a Gio and put Dimarzio Evo's in it and it went from stale sounding to very alive and much cleaner sounding.
Yeah planning to upgrade my Gio's bridge pickup to a Seymour Duncan Distortion. Hopefully the difference is worth it!
I generally agree with most of your mythbusting, but I have tons of experience swapping pickups in guitars over the years and changing pickups have always been the #1 change in tone that I can audibly hear when it comes to the guitar itself, with the amp and speakers being more noticeable in the chain as a whole. I heard the difference between the pickups in this video very easily with a cheap $40 speaker as well. The difference in sound could very well be eq'd out of course, but it does make a difference. The output difference alone is a huge factor that can vastly change the intensity of your tone.
Keith Merrow did an awesome video comparing humbuckers in metal mixes for Seymour Duncan. Sure enough, they all worked and a great product was created with either option. No pickup in the list was a deal breaker when mixed. That being said, the character and response between them did vary quite a bit, with some more than others. I'm not sure how much of that can be compensated for with eq and gain tweaks until I could get behind the board with them. Going between different types of pickups is definitely quite a leap (IE single coil to humbucker etc.) because they change the location and width of the magnetic field under the strings. Same reason why 2 identical pickups sound very different in the neck or bridge position respectively.
I bought the SH-5 Custom based on that video, all the others sounded 'meh' but then that one showed itself halfway through and I fell in love instantly.
@@BLMeredith87 Same with me and the 59/Custom Hybrid.
Hey Glenn, thank you for taking your time and making these videos. Recently picked up my old guitar and am improving. Your videos, especially when it comes to sound recording are top tier. Hopefully the QC at Harley Benton improves as they have some things I'm eyeing.
A lot of EMG pickups that are made for the neck position also sound great in the bridge. Usually a little warmer sounding. I noticed that in this comparison as well.
I've had them that way for over 15 years and no one has ever complained about my tone.
@@killaken2000 I have an 85 (neck pickup) in the bridge position and it sounds great.
@@yantz8281 I have the 81/85 set reversed. The 81 is supposed to be in the bridge but I think it sounds a bit harsh.
IMHO for example the 81 in the neck tames the mids and bass so the neck position isn't so boomy like it is on many guitars.
Guitar is all about experimenting and doing things your way. And I think a guitar's electronics are a great way to tinker and put your own spin on things.
@@killaken2000 Nice! I better that set up sounds great 👍
Great video Glenn! Honestly, I’d say the Harley Benton QC in this case is pretty inexcusable. A truss rode floating around in the neck, pickups in the wrong place (it doesn’t matter if they sound the same, they’re supposed to be put in properly) and a loose Alan wrench? The guitar looks and sounds fine but I’d expect some really basic stuff like that to be correct. If I was a kid who didn’t know anything about guitar all I’d really know is that something was wrong with my brand new guitar. Hopefully this was a one off thing because HB really does look to be a great option for the lower price point.
Yeah but some slip ups are expected at that price point. Have not such glaring ones but still. I'm really surprised they have such consistent QC at all. Especially the paint jobs are really good.
Hey Glenn, I'm pretty convinced pickups will play a part in tone. I'm a bass player, and I recorded an A/B test when I bought some new pickups for my Squier Classic Vibe Jazz. It's the stock pickups compared to some Lindy Fralins, and there is a noticeable difference in tone between the two sets. I can already see there are nearly 500 comments on this video, so I assume you won't actually read this. IF YOU DO, by chance, please respond, and I'll post the clips to my YT channel for a blind A/B so you can check it out! I did my best to control for every factor except the pickups themselves.
there's nothing you can't do with EQ in front of your amp.
You can turn your bass into anything that's out there. I mean literally anything.
@@dmytrotarasov9477 I mean, yes perhaps. But that's not really the point of the discussion; unlike tubes, which have been proven to not change tone, pickups will 100% make some difference. Glenn, seemingly, was concluding that they don't, and I am willing to provide some evidence to the contrary.
@@dmytrotarasov9477 well if a pickup doesnt have much high end or low end, you cant really fix that with EQ. 'cause you cant boost a frequency that isn't there.
plus EQ can only boost or cut a limited amount of frequencies, by a limited amount.
The difference is not massive, but brightness is slightly noticeable.
Another thing I found when changing pickups is how they sit in the mix that isn't always noticeable when played alone.
First clip, I think it might be the first one, I'm noticing more brightness and pick attack.
Second clip, seems to be the opposite, but it's alot less noticeable with that riff.
That's exactly what I was hearing too.
I was literally looking into what would happen if a bridge pick up got put in the neck last week so i found this interesting.
I found a couple videos on CSGuitars that explained things nicely.
One thing he noted was that a large portion of why a bridge and neck sounds different was where they were placed under the string, and that different pick ups were originally designed to compensate for differences in volume to balance them, and because the string spacing is different so they moved the pole peices to match to help with clarity.
Definitely not a deal breaker for me, swapping EMGs is very easy. For how cheap it is, I'm totally fine doing a little work on it.
From what i've heard the tone definetly varies from pickup types (humbucker, single coil etc.), and there are some differences between brands, but small enough to that you can just filter your way to the sound you want anyway.
But what varies the most seems to be the volume of the guitar signal. Which makes sense, since that is the resulting voltage level of the electromagnets. And the voltage depends on the amount of windings, resistance of the wires and the magnets.
The only time I’ve had a noticeable change in “tone” is from changing out “cheap” pickups to slightly better ones or messing with the coil arrangements, even then that was only really in terms of note clarity, however the biggest change in tone I ever noticed was from doing shielding in my guitar, aside from less buzz I found the higher end was far more distinguishable than before, i was only expecting a decrease in buzz and hum but I was pleasantly surprised by the addition of more clarity!
WOOHOO!!! It’s like a VC bonus video! I like it! Not a bassist but this is why I come back to watch your content week after week.
Still, Thomann need to fix these issues. I like that double cut but if the QC isn’t great… Kind of a disappointment.
Excellent videos, but I definitely think that pickups have a major impact on the sound of your guitar. You need to take into consideration that the distortion is compressing the signal and making it difficult to detect a difference in pickups. I think that a clean signal with no distortion might reveal more of a difference.
Exactly this. The more gain and distortion you run the more you're narrowing the range of pickup tone you can hear as chunks get clipped out of the signal. For stuff like metal output will make the biggest difference as it changes how hard it's hitting your pedals. If you're playing clean through a Fender it's a very different story.
Still just output, vol, and gain, no tone shifting. Get an EQ pedal
@@TOBORtheMighty no, output is not affecting the eq, just comp, vol and gain. Its not an eq pedal
They change volume, gain and feel, but tonally no changes in EQ. Get an eq pedal
@@KelticKabukiGirl Read a bit more carefully. As I said, tonal shifts come when the increased output changes which parts of the signal are clipped.
GLENNN!!!!!
I think (especially after this video) a lot of people would love to see a video on pickups. Keep everything else in the signal chain the same and just swap out a lot of pick ups and see the difference.
I find that different brands of pickups do sound quite different to each other, even for metal playing. Though, the differences seem far less noticeable with different models of the same brand.
I suspect Glenn’s experience in Germany was down to all the pickups on offer being of a similarly high quality (the same issue with him getting the ‘pro’ version of Harley Benton guitars delivered on a bed of swan feathers when they know it is going to be reviewed). In reality, many of us are swapping out cheap pickups installed into otherwise good guitars, and getting an instant and very noticeable improvement in output. Pickups are one of those components at threat of being challenged by cost accountants, especially when private equity owners are involved.
Agreed. I have several guitars with several different pick-ups and they all sound different. Part of that you can argue down to different body styles, but one old Yamaha starter guitar I have, I recently got the pick-ups changed out to Seymore Duncans and there is a MAJOR difference. The Yamaha ones were darker and beefier whereas the Seymore Duncans are thinner with more high end. All guitars are played on the same amp with the same settings, so no one can argue they sound different because of being played through different settings.
Hi, Glenn. I'm generally a scream averse person, but I thoroughly enjoy your work. Thanks for putting yourself out there for me to stumble across.🤘
Hey Glenn, would you consider doing a solid body vs semi-hollow vs full hollow shootout? Obviously no one is reaching for a jazz box to play metal, but since your tonewood videos and Jim Lill's air guitar video, I've wondered how much it actually effects the sound. It may just be the lower vs higher output pickups that tend to be installed in each.
I used to own a off brand 335,when distorted and downtuned for me it has this really punchy low-end.almost like an acoustic distorted in a goodway
I keep trying to get him to review Gretsch anything, this would be a great excuse to pick up one or more.
Merlin pickups and Hathor pickups - another two gems from Polish music market that can upgrade your harley benton for dirt cheap. Worth checking out! Cheers and thanks for all your YT tutorials. You inspired me to try home production and now it's my favourite hobby. Godspeed!
Glenn I tell you, I never had problems with Harley Bentons. I always loved what I received from them. I have many.
Glen,
I've been playing guitar for nearly 60 years and still gig 4-5 nights a week. I couldn't tell if that guitar was hollow or not. There was a difference, however miniscule, when you switched the pickups around. And with the heavier low E on the strings. Just a tad punchier and tighter. Probably something you would feel, more than hear. I bought an HB 35 Plus a while back. It will need a fret level and crown (but still plays and sounds pretty good). It also could use treble bleeds and possibly a no-load tone pot on the neck pick-up (much less expensive way to brighten it up a bit). But considering that I got it shipped with a decent gigbag for $329 I'm very happy with my purchase.
I got an active HB bass for £210, it sounds, plays and looks like a £500 instrument. I recently bought a "travel" sized HB acoustic , mahogany, £109 . Comes with electronics, built in tuner and a decent case, none of which really matter to me - I didn't even know it had electronics etc when I bought it. It plays really nice, sounds really good and most importantly, different from my jumbo acoustics. For the price of a few Ubereats orders it's fantastic
All i got from this is that you eat too much 🤪
which acoustic model would that be?
@@Kaesewicht I dunno off top, it's a travel size , mahogany top, sells for £109 in UK ...ok dammit I'll go look: GS travel E Mahogany
@@ericdpeerik3928 Yes that's true..or maybe just can't be arsed to cook for one after 16 hours work. Plus, UK is a total rip off. I hardly ever eat pizza but I got a Papa John's recently, a medium. It was £16. With service and delivery via Ubereats it came to 22 fucking quid. Pizza was ok but not great and I could have eaten two. I wouldn't pay 22 quid for a pizza in a frickerin restaurant so you see what I mean?
@@luciferpantykrist7570 Agreed, I paid $159 plus $68 shipping for the cheap 7 string and it's way better than I expected at that price, just to buy a replacement neck from stewmac would have cost more than the entire guitar.
The first source that effects your tone is the pickup windings. Your guitar and the pickups, cables, and entire signal chain together form one big LC filter. That is The Tone. The dynamic between capacitance and resistance in that signal chain are where an electric guitar gets its tone.
Changing speakers and mic placement dramatically change the sound that gets recorded through phase filtering and physical interaction of mechanical diaphragms with atmosphere.
81 vs 85 in the bridge makes a bigger difference than the 60 I think, but I agree you can make it all work with a few setting tweaks
Yeah 85's are so bassy it's super obvious I find. But that's just an EQ thing. To me the 60 has always been... sort of an 81, just a little less? I switched my 60 out for an 85 just to get a bigger contrast between the two.
My observation on pickup changes……some people buy new pickups that do provide a substantial change. Some people buy new pickups that are too similar to the old ones to tell a noticeable difference.
What do you say?
Okay, this guitar has turned out to be extra useful. On the one hand Glenn had the experience of finding the pickups were in the 'wrong' order, and then he finds out that the factory and the inspector were right in this case not to care which pickup was in each position.
Not so much a negative for Thomann as a valuable learning experience.
There is a particular case where the pickup wiring would matter. That's for the out of phase thing if you were buying one where the middle switch position is supposed to put the pickups out of phase. If you got one where it was meant to and didn't then that would suck and be a fail.
But this Harley Benton? Not perfect on delivery but still very much better than the crap we used to see for stupid prices back in the day.
Idk I think if you miss something as obvious as a pickup being in the wrong cavity, what the hell else can slip by them? That seems pretty obvious to me, on top of multiple strikes with loose truss rods. Think of it like this, not only did the ASSEMBLER fuck up, but the INSPECTOR did too. That's two points where something very obvious should have been caught. They weren't. How are you supposed to trust that all 24 frets are level? That the neck is straight? That the nut is slotted properly? You can't. It's all a big gamble. Trust me, I got an awful one to show for it.
Zup Glenn, old friend. The guitars are checked by the quality service on failures, they do a basic setup, clean and tune the instrument.
If the instrument is supremely faulty, it won't make it to the store. Maybe those get repaired and sold as b-stock with 30 days money-back and 36 months warranty.
Regarding the pickups: those are done in the factory.
For the money you get a super bad ass instrument. I wish I would have something like this 22 years ago, when I started.
My first guitars were in a worse quality back in the day, plus if you have any sort of issue with your instrument within the warranty, the company does almost everything to fix this issue.
EMGs cost 78€ each, this makes 156€ is total, the whole guitar costs 399€. This is a hell of a great deal.
I'd be curious to hear an A/B between the factory Harley Benton electronics and a full upgrade of all the internal electronics. I suspect that might matter more than the pickup swap
no, the electronics are wires and wires conduct electricity. nothing else
@@thejusticeization Potentiometers have different tolerances, I have replaced Alpha mini pots with full size CTS pots in many guitars, the volume sweep has a different taper depending on the style used as well as the action of the pot can be fast or slow, cheaper pots can crackle and buzz when you turn them and rust quicker etc. Even a full size Alpha potentiometer can have a variable between a few k be it a 250k pot being only 246k if you test it or even 254k. Some swear by no pots at all and use direct wiring to the output jack. There are more than just wires.
I have just ordered a CTS to replace the cheap mini alpha pot in my HB 7 string, I don't think it will make a tonal difference except with volume swells, but it will last longer and not rust as easily.
@@myopicautisticmetal9035 yeah they will probably last longer and I agree with the taper, what i meant was there won't be much change in tone. I also have full size premium pots on all my guitars
speaking of swapping pickups, I have always wanted to be able to swap pickups myself. i know it isn't hard but have always been a tad weary of messing something up! think you could whip up a pickup swapping tutorial??
The second snippet sounds muddier and a bit brighter in top end, I would presume those are the traits for the neck pick-up whereas first take has more mids in it and the tone is cleaner, sounds like a bridge designed pick-up to me. And yes Glenn, there is a difference :) it's not huge, but I could hear it.
I could hear it too, the EQ was different, but the pickups had the same kind of grit to them, I guess because hey both are EMGs.
If memory serves, one of the EMG pickup pairings (might be the 81/60) were chosen to try and balance the volume between the two while otherwise maintaining a very similar minimal tone that's more affected by position than pickup's influence. So... they're supposed to not have much difference in this case. And a lot of people find EMG aren't that distinct to begin with - "sterile" is a common description.
Right! There is less amplitude in sound created by the bridge.
When manufacturing pickups, it's a common practice to add more or fewer windings to match the volume of pickups AT THE SAME STRING HEIGHT. That part I believe is important because you want to have the pickups a different height based on how powerful the magnetic field is.
Glenn, cool vid. Have you had much experience using Dimarzio or Seymour Duncan pickups? I have used them as well as some other brands and have had good luck with them. And in my experience, replacement pickups do effect your tone significantly enough to warrant buying them. Some guitars I own have had some shitty pickups that came with them, so I replaced them and didn't regret it one bit. Not all pickups are created equal.
This video reminds me of an interview I read with Keith Richards years ago where he was talking about the fact that even though he loved his setup of a Fender Tele into a Vox AC30, you could hand him any guitar and any amp and he'll be able to dial in his tone within 5 minutes.
I think the differences between higher quality pickups are fairly minor. You might have a higher output or a slightly different EQ sweep, but for the most part, they kind of run together when put back to back. Go look at any of the hundreds of comparison videos online for passive Seymour Duncan pickups. They're great sounding pickups but with few exceptions where a certain set might stand out from the rest of the pack, they all kind of run together in a high gain setting. And the few differences there are can be totally negated just by tweaking your EQ, moving your mic, using different speakers in your cab, or playing through a different amp.
I’ve guitar teched professionally on tour with bands and worked for a major guitar company. I totally agree that tone wood is total boomer legend, but pickups can make a huge difference. That being said I’m not personally a fan of active pickups. I’ve never tried fishmans but all the emg’s I’ve owned and installed in others guitars have been underwhelming. I also 100% agree that speakers make a huge difference in your sound, but next to speakers I’d say pickups and strings are the other major factors…and your ability to actually play of course lol
Tonewood....sure it's a thing, IN ACOUSTIC INSTRUMENTS!!!! As a drummer, yes wood makes a difference, as a classical guitar player with a hollow body and no amplification yes it makes a difference, a solid piece of wood with electronics in it, doesn't matter one bit. Wake the fuck up people!
Next thing you will tell us is that we have to practice. Too much truth, it burns! ;)
@@ericstearns170 100%
My dad was a Silent Generation, on the subject of Boomer myth, Dad told me that Tone wood was just a term used by Luthier's to describe woods that are best suited for Instrument making, That's it. It never meant magical wood that gives more tone or why do Saxophone's work, he went on to say xylophone's aren't made of sapwood, they're made of Rosewoods because they're better suited for the musical tones they produce. Metallophone's are not made of wood yet they also produce tones when hit with a stick. it's just a fact that the term Tone wood was not invented by Baby Boomers, they just misunderstood.
Been gone from your channel and youtube in general for a while. Binging some of your latest after resubscribing... i am not disappointed.
Glenn watching you test the tone while playing all the classic Judas Priest makes me realize they are the greatest metal band of all time and I need to listen to them more!
Love your channel. Just want to say that as you put out there that you are a self-proclaimed beginner -> intermediate guitar player I would pay attention to statements you are making now. After 30 years of playing I can say there is a (not huge) but BIG difference in pickups. As someone else commented, the "output" of the pickup, the guitar and the setup.... make for some very distinguishable differences. I say "setup" because every pickup has a set distance 'string to pickup' for proper delivery of sound. That could be something else you discuss with your viewers on how to get the most out of their pickups.
I've been appreciating affordable guitars a lot more lately. My 2002 ltd ec-100 (which is around the same price point as most HBs) still gets good results.
Just got mine in the mail in white and the emgs are in the correct placement. And I've set it up and feels great so far
I've definitely had some terrible stock pick ups on cheaper guitars (I'm broke so the 300-500 AUD range is usually what I go for) but I 100% agree that clarity and noise Floor wise, new pick ups make a huge difference, however when it comes to actual tone, I agree with you. they don't change the tone very much if at all. Maybe some are higher output than others but to my ears as a Mediocre rhythm guitarist at best, I believe pickups arent going to do that much for you tone. The Speaker/ cab IR you use is gunna change that. (fucking obviously).
Yp i had a esp mh201 with Duncan designed pickups years ago, I installed a zack Wylde emg set and it was night and day improvement
I agree with you in some cases for sure. But recently I swapped out a no-name brand humbucker in a Vester (Jackson soloist copy) and threw in a Dimarzio Super 3, and holy shit balls it brought it to life. I’ve found much less difference between a SD JB and a SD Custom5, but going from real cheap pickups to a decent brand seems to make a huge difference. Best $100 AUD I spent on a cheap guitar.
I can definitely agree that pickups have cleaner/dirtier characteristics and can affect the sound in both good and bad ways. I have my Strat with Seymour Duncan Hotrails and Coolrails. I have the Ibanez Jem with Dimarzio Evolutions. These are two completely different pickups though. The Evolutions in the Ibanez to me have more of a dirtier sound compared to the Hotrails. They are set down pretty low, nearly flucs with the pick guard and they're still dirty.. My video of my song Funky Nights is using both guitars with the same distortion settings on both. Eventually I'd love to put hotrails in my Ibanez but I don't want to mess with anything just yet, but the hotrails definitely have more clarity. Love your show Glen. Never stop entertaining us!
I'd be interested to see cheap vs expensive pickups. Or say an Expensive Dimarzio vs a cheaper yet comparitive imitative version
what I have noticed is the ease being able to get squeals , but not so much a tone difference
Hey Glenn! Big fan of your channel!
Just to bring my own experience to the HB topic: I bought a HB Multiscale-7 3 weeks ago, as watching your channel, and looking all over internet, I got confident that HB was actually doing great stuff for a decent price. When I received the guitar, I was pretty happy: looks great, great paint job, locking tuners, truss rod pretty much where it should be, intonation also pretty much OK, BUT...looking at the neck, I could see how the string were not parallel to the borders of the neck :(
I first thought that they mounted the bridge wrong, too much on the left, but then I thought of something else: I loosened the neck screws and yes, the neck had a bit of headroom into the neck pocket. Adjusting it completely to the right of the neck pocket made it perfectly straight and aligned with the strings. Yes, there is maybe 1 milimeter gap between the body and the left border of the neck, but if you don't know it, you would not see it.
Still, I think this is intolerable that this hasn't been picked up and fixed by QC..also, pretty much every screw came loose (tuners', jack, rear plate, even the bridge's).
I still think though that, now that I fixed it, it is a killer axe and plays very well for the price I had to pay (300€ + shipping to Spain), but they do have to improve QC.
Man. You do all the best work on RUclips. Ive been pickup shopping for like 2 months debating what tone differences really matter. And I’m sure there are subtle things that hardly matter but screw it. I’m just gonna get the best bang for my buck. The John Petrucci dream catcher seems like a great pickup and it’s not nearly as pricey as shipping a Bare Knuckle brand over the sea. Cheers brother, all the love in the world!
I was looking at 7 string pickups recently, everything I am interested in was $100 give or take 99 cents. I looked at low price pickups and found a ceramic Wilkinson humbucker for 7 for $22 on amazon. Needless to say I am glad I took a chance because I don't want an Evolution Dimarzio anymore and saved myself about $80! Since then I replaced the cheapo single coils in my strat with a set of the Wilkinson hot rails humbuckers similar to the Dimarzio versions, only $50 for a set of 3 and they sound great!
The difference pickups make are mostly heard when playing alone and at normal volume levels. In a band setting, recording with someone that knows what he's doing or just raising the dB on the amp will stop making that much of a difference. But they do act as set EQ filters and some push some frequencies more than others and play better with some amps than others. On a personal level, I've never managed to make two guitars sound the same with the same pickups, in the same tuning using the same strings and even trying to match the heights.
I think pickups matter more with clean-low gain tones. Clarity is a huge issue with cheap pickups on a clean tone
I mean, if you didn't notice the difference before its because the EMG 60 is a 85 but with a ceramic magnet instead of AlNiCo V, the same magnet a 81 have.
On pickup switches my experience is changing a generic cheap pickup to a brand one does make a difference in clarity (just realized you said the same thing as Im writing lol)
But in brand pickups, the difference is only noticeable when changing from ceramic to AlNiCo, but it doesn't make it "better", it's just different.
Generic to brand pickup: Step up (improvement)
Brand pickups with different magnets: Step to the side (you are in a different spot but its not necessarily better)
Brand pickups with the same magnet: 360° turn (yep, you just end up in the same place)
Btw, thanks Glenn for the awesome content as always!
I took my Ibanez RG and installed Dime bag Darrel pick ups - With a Seymour Duncan blues Humbucker in the middle . When you are not running a fully " full distorted " amp setting - you hear a difference . My Ibanez, my telecaster, my Hamer, my Jackson , and my Epiphone les Paul all have different tones coming out of the same setting on my Helix . Same thing with my Marshall amp too. My favorite guitar always seems to be the Jackson - it has a sustaineack in it too. You should feature one of those , great for metal tones. Ron
Thanks again Glenn. I gave up on this guitar after retuning it due to pup order and getting a replacement that actually had correct order but signal only came out occasionally so back to shop and for good. Also some lazy checker of course did not bother in checking electronics since besides arriving with messed electronics and with a dent, there was no 9v included so quite certain no one checked if it worked, just visual check. Great channel G
There *is* a small change in tone between the SIT's and the strings that came on the guitar - but it's so subtle it could probably just be the difference between brand-new strings and strings that have some playing time on them.
And as for color, yeah, black shows EVERYTHING! The gold color offered on the original Les Pauls is actually pretty decent at hiding fingerprints; my PRS is a similar shade of gold.
One more anecdotal piece for the pickup pile: recently bought a guitar with a hot rail in the bridge position that I swapped out for a Lace Sensor Blue. The difference was night and day. The Lace is much more dynamic and has more of that "bell" quality that Strats are renowned for. From my experience, I'm convinced that the strength and most importantly the WIDTH of the magnetic field dictate the tonal response of pickups.
I had the same experience with an older Rhoads V, the EMGs and of course the whole pots and wiring set up really made a great replacement. Also recently replaced my Strat stock (non stagered) single coils with Tex-Mex (neck and middle) and Seymore Duncan Hot-rail with coil tap (bridge) and MoJo Tone wiring and pots, HUGE difference in every 5 position selection. Of course the Hot-Rail in humbucker mode sounded great, but the coil tapped to single sounded great also, totally different. I think the MoJo tone pots and wiring may have been a huge factor in in the overall difference. Looking forward to some actual scientific testing.
Hey Glenn, I bought an HB Amorok. Complete disaster. The pots scratched against the body because the holes were crooked. The top of the headstock was dented due to poor packaging, but it played well with a very low action. I sent it back and bought a second one. This one was even worse, one side of the flame top was completely imperceptible and the jack had a loose connection. The third guitar I ordered was relatively ok. I live in Germany, so it's not that big of a problem. Well, The top isn't perfect yet and it buzzes no matter how high the string action is or what truss rod setting. I ended up keeping it because it looks good on my wall and maybe I will get it right one day...
If you have dirt cheap pickups, it really does matter if you upgrade to something better. As you say, it really cleans up the signal, and you could possibly clean that up later in the chain, but not having tons of unwanted sounds is a much better starting point. Pickups deffo matter to some extent.
I've got many different guitars hanging on my wall and decided to do a comparison. I just noodled around some random rhythm and lead stuff and recorded it one after another in my DAW only the bridge position. A LTD Arrow 1000 with EMG 81 in the bridge, a 1995 Gibson Explorer with a changed Seymour Duncan SH-6, a japanese made 1993 Squier Strat with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rail in the bridge and a LTD Eclipse 1000 with Fishman Fluence Classic. It's fun to play the DAW Track and to randomly click somewhere in the DAW timeline because even with these complete different guitars you can't hear a difference. The SH-6 peaks out a bit in output but not by ear. That impressed me very hard because I feel a huge difference when I play these guitars. Especially with the strat I felt much less heavy sounding.
Glenn, as usual, you arbitrarily CRUSH any other YT reviewer for this type of music, the sound a lot of us are looking to achieve, and you run the absolute gamut when it comes to super-expensive gear, to the stuff Joe n' Janie Shmoe has to make their decisions upon. You, Sir are a one-man institution (and your "backing band-mates" are fucking STELLAR absolutely RIP.
PS "'PAINKILLER' is Glenn's 'WONDERWALL'." FUCKING HA! Brilliant!
Glen You're a fucking legend
and one of the few honest people on this site
NEVER change what you do
love your show
Ty!
From what I’ve been learning, the difference between the 2 pickups in a typical set like this is volume output, not tone. The bridge pickup needs a bit more volume than the neck.
Soon as I heard you say pickups didn’t matter, I had to go to the comments. They didn’t disappoint. Oh the butthurt is real. I would’ve argued against that a few years ago, but I came to that realization myself a while back after getting a cheap Jackson off of a friend and thinking wow I’m really gonna upgrade this with some Duncan Invaders. Spent over $300, got everything swapped out and talk about an anticlimactic slap in the face. The pickups were worth more than the guitar and for what? Sounded exactly the same to me and my buddies who were all convinced it would be so much better. They couldn’t tell the audio clips apart either. I’ve even found a great RUclips video with blind shootouts between a bunch of different pick ups. Just numbered audio clips. I listen to that video probably a dozen times during a night shift and I kept picking my favorite. That number changed every time. My conclusion at least was the output rating would change the sound more than the brand/model. As long as it’s quality you should be able to clear up the signal just like you said. Although I will confess, I’ve definitely changed pick ups just for looks sometimes. What can I say, gold emgs are sick looking
Watched this video yesterday. Came back to write this. I bought a HB SC 550 plus (Active pickups) from Thomann in march this year.
From the start the guitar had set up issues but its fixable. So I let this slide. Few months later the pick selector (bridge position) had some contact issues. I fixed it with some electronic cleaner spray. From what i understood in youtude video, this happen maybe twice a year on les paul style guitar. But this happens every 2-3 weeks. But a quick spray and its gone. Mind you, from where Im from (Mauritius), that guitar isnt exactly cheap. At least for me. Despite these issues, i like this guitar. Yesterday, it played just fine. Today, had some time to practise before heading work, its making little to no sound!! I change the battery, still nothing. I check my signal chain with my yamaha ST, everything is fine. I think the battery connector is faulty. Now Im pissed!!!
About pickups: the major difference I have found, try a 2.6 harmonic on humbuckers, then try a 2.6 harmonic on single coils. That is very real. Also had n3 noiseless single coil pickups and never liked them. Switched to standard old single coils, massive difference..... that being said, it was mostly signal response and more top end....but! I also changed all the pots, caps and wiring. I didn't hear any difference between the two EMG's at all 🤘
Great show, Glenn, thanks for all the hard work you're putting into educating us.
About the "pickup doesn't matter" thing - I've seen Jim Lill's video about guitar tone and, at some point, he swaps the stock pickup of the guitar he built with a Seymour Duncan and the difference was night and day. The pickups may not matter if you change between EMGs and Fishmans, or SDs and DiMarzios, but I think it does matter when you replace your stock no-name pickup for a more expensive one.
My guess for the pickups "tonal difference" is the output differences. Neck pickups are wound slightly less hotter than its matched bridge. Since the neck pup catches more frequencies, than a bridge. But 2 pickups in a matched set like that, would be constructed similar to each other. Thus the only reason there'd be a shift, would be the output levels. Although they're usually not that far off from each other. Adjusting the heights, if they're in the "wrong" position would help balance the outputs. ie: lower the neck or raise the bridge pups. Remember back in the day, Fender would produce Strat pickups, and wind them as similar as they could. Just to keep up with their demand. Then pick whichever they grabbed first for all 3 positions. Those are some of the holy grail tones people crave today, but back then it was just what ya got.
I do believe pickups directly effect the tone but to be honest no matter which one you use you can get the same sound with correct adjustments on your amp and cab+mic
I can't tell which is which but did hear a little difference between the two. Totally agree that the change isn't massive which is handy cos I currently have 81/81 and have been debating trying 81/85 now I am thinking it's not worth the effort or expense. Thanks Glen!
Well, there surely was a difference in tone in the video! Also I've heard a lot of people say great things about the 85, so...quite likely it will be better than 81 in neck position, but how much better is up yours 💁♂ Depends on ur monetary situation and playing style what is best for you... Never heard of an 81/81 combo before though, lol.
I, too, recently was victim to their "quality control" and made a video on the MB-5 bass guitar that I bought. It's made me feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one that has had issues. I'm still awaiting a resolution after sending the guitar back to Thomann.
14:27 THANK YOU!!!! I can't believe this is still a debate.
I've had one of these for a few years and can tell you one thing for certain. Playing them unplugged sounds amazing and the intonation can be second to none, if set up properly with the right strings or gauge. HOWEVER, the big caveat is.. they sound like total utter generic crap when you record metal with them. I've tried everything six ways from sunday to make a mix sound half way decent with the thing. Maybe I just haven't found the right pickup/amp/cab combo for it yet. I know for certain I definitely wouldn't use EMG though. Tried it, not happening. Totally lifeless. Again though, unplugged it sounds like a dream.. flawless intonation with the right strings and gauge.
I'd say the biggest difference in pickups happens when you swap out cheap stock pickups for quality ones from any major brand. But between the major brands I think it just becomes a preference thing and they all meet a certain quality level so the differences become negligible. Speaking from experience comparing stock Jackson pickups in my entry-level Dinky to the SD Blackouts in my Schecter and the difference in clarity is night and day. And no, you can't EQ the muddiness out of the stock pickups using the amp's tone controls because I've tried. 😂
My opinion on the blind test, for reference I’m listening through a set of AirPods: First clip was 81, second was 60. First clip sounded a little “clearer” to me, second sounded a little “warm”. Regardless of which one is which, I prefer the sound of the first clip. Entire time though all I could think of was if I was playing through my EVH 5150iii and was getting the sound of the second clip, I’d bump the treble and/or presence a little bit and I’d be happy.
I heard a pretty clear difference when the pickups were switched from being incorrect, in the first round of riffs it was very noticably clearer and more defined, perhaps more midrange created this. It was nothing dramatic though and it sounded just fine both ways but it should of course have been the correct way. I couldnt notice any difference in sound on the different strings.
I'm so happy that you mention the pickup situation, cause that's been probably the second biggest headache I've had in my studio when recording clients (the first one is Bass and Guitar players refusing to use fresh strings) because a pickup is just magnets with copper wire. And just like the xlr cables (or any cable for that matter), we only need those that don't induce ground noise and have a decent output. Tone is almost irrelevant when it comes to pickups and musicians still don't understand how they actually work, bring their shitty guitar with no setup, and complain that the pickups are not good enough. Keep up the amazing job and I'm really interesting in that pickup shootout! Cheers from Union III, Iraq. 🪖💣
I think that second riff of Lucretia is EMG 81, because it has a bit more gain than first riff, being first riff EMG 60... I might be wrong, but I guess that first take pickup (EMG 60) is a bit more "bass focused". In conclusion, I don't think it changes much in terms of tone, but it may have a difference in playing style, making it more easy to play riffs with a emg 81 and focusing on details on emg 60.
Having owned one of these for a while... I'm now gonna have to go check which way round mine are!
The biggest difference between pickups is output. The last time I changed pickups was in a HB Fusion 2 with DiMarzio, mainly because I had them anyway and I didn't like the chrome covered pickups on the Fusion.
I don't know which pickup was which, but the second one definitely sounds brighter and more defined. It makes the riffs sound more brutal. Even if it is the "wrong" pickup, I'd still put it into the bridge position because it gets me closer to the sound I want to achieve without having to mess with treble and presence controls.
My reference headphones broke last week but even with the cheapo gaming headset I agree that the second one sounds brighter and a little more defined. It would likely work better in a mix but it's certainly nog a big difference. Any I've found that almost any instrument ran through enough distorsion sounds like a guitar :)
Glen, I’m mad and need recommendations. I bought a new guitar and immediately ripped out the stock pickups before ever playing it, because internet. I bought a $300 set of boutique pickups that were basically copies of the stock pickups I just ripped out. However, they were designed to cut through a full band mix in both live and recording environments, but they sounded “flubby and ice-picky” on my Line 6 Spider while playing alone in my bedroom. I obviously need to buy new pickups. I want something that sounds sweet, lush, buttery, extremely hot, but not too warm. I’m hungry. It needs to be bright with a nice low end that’s neither muddy nor tight. The upper central bottom 33rd percentile mids have to be both pronounced and scooped. The high end…I don’t know what that is, but the pickups need to nail both Slayer and Eric Johnson tones while I’m playing Smoke on the Water. Definitely no active pickups, although something with an onboard preamp would be fine as long as it’s in the vintage PAF range with a combo Alnico 3/ Ceramic magnet blend and wound above 19K. Something unpotted but doesn’t feedback would be great. Sooooo, Lollars?
I personally have a guitar with an EMG 60 in the bridge position. On purpose. At the time EMG had demos of all their pickups in both neck and bridge positions with various amps. The 60 in the bridge was crunchier than an 81, so that what's I bought. 10+ years later and I still love it.
I think the second pass of Painkiller was the 60. Just to take a guess. Sounded slightly SLIGHY beefier. I would think that maybe the neck pickup would have more body response.
With a lot of distortion I think you are totally right. You are losing so much of the signal to clipping that it would be really tough to hear a discernible difference. Playing clean may be a little different, but I don’t think pickups are the magic tone contributor they are made out to be (assuming there isn’t something wrong with the pickup they are replacing). I honestly love the “crappy” ceramic magnet pickups in my old Mexican strat. It continues to amaze me how superstitious and crazy guitarists are about some really weird crap. You even have people trying to say that old style cloth shielded wire makes a difference in tone.
I think you are right about pickups affecting EQ that much. I would say that the main difference with pickups is output gain, I like pickups with lots of gain and don't enjoy playing lower gain pickups. You can change EQ on your amp or pedal setup.
Glen rocks!! I love watching you’re reviews and videos. Keep up the awesome work! Love the fact that you call out big corporations like Gibson and other large companies. Would love to see a video on the Fusion 3 from HB.
Pickups make a difference in tone, clarity, and feel. I usually get guitars in pairs, with both being identical other than the pickups I swap in. Guitar 1 getting Fishman Fluence Moderns and guitar 2 getting either an EMG 57/66 set or whatever passives I'm currently curious about. I use the Fishman Moderns on my main guitars as they have the EMG 81/85 sound, but there's a very different feel to them that I really like. The EMG 57/66 set is my favorite pickup set, they sound and feel like a really hot Gibson 490R/498T set, much warmer sounding and more passive feeling than the 81/85/60 pickups. Because the guitars are identical other than pickups, I can hear and feel the shifts in tone/feel in real time as I put one guitar down and pick up the other. Obviously this is all on the player's end and gets lost in a recording where feel doesn't matter and slight shifts in tone or output can be changed by whoever is mixing. No audience member or listener is going to be like "Yep, this guy is using an EMG 57 in the bridge, I can tell by his tone."
Anyways, as for correcting the positing of the 81 and 60 and it not making much of a difference, that's because they're both very similar in design and use ceramic magnets. If the pairing was 81/85, you would have heard a significant difference as the 85 is an alnico v and should be warmer and rounder sounding compared to the cold ice picky sound of the 81s and 60s.
I think also for beginner's if you buy a guitar online. Take it to a repair guy at your local music store. If they're competent they should be able to catch setup issues like this and fix them. You can always do some research and find out where those places are. Even guitar center will have a repair guy, though I'm not sure how trustworthy they are. Or, ask the person you're taking lessons from. They might know how to setup or they'll be able to recommend you a place to take it.