Haha it isn't that serious, but it IS kinda fun. Yes, I think the guy spreads whack information regularly and claims to be "helping people". Yes, I think he's a dork that deserves to be bullied like it's 1989. But, I'm not mad. I'm kinda flattered that an old video I did back in college is somehow OATH, and the standard by which he measures whatever "science" he's doing over there. There's no myth to bust here, though. The video I made way back then was a college project that I turned in for a B+ grade. It was done over the course of several days, and I can be the first to tell you that it's not flawless. In fact, I had to rush to complete it back then. So sorry if it isn't 100% accurate, guys! But there is no conspiracy to any of this, and the drama is just a result of ME leaning into Glenn. I'm the one who turned up the heat on him. He finally gave me a valid reason to make fun of him directly, that's all :) The guy is hyper aggressive, and I'm just matching his freak. I made a video a long time ago that has helped and will continue to help thousands of people to be happy choosing guitar pickups, no matter how imperfect it might be. That's what matters to me. It serves as a guide to help people. He tried to insinuate that it was somehow falsified, because you know, tin foil hats and all that. Fun fact- I got points knocked off that video in college because all the peer reviews said they sounded too similar to each other. Imagine that! Maybe if I had skewed the results, I would have gotten a better grade on it. Cheers dude!
I'm going to keep it real. It's about time that someone with a big name stood up to him. He's been making absolutely ridiculous claims for years and people treat everything he says as gospel. The pickup video he made was especially ridiculous is that you could hear clear differences between some of the pickups and he just pretended they didn't exist. The thing that really pisses me off is that it's one thing to be opinionated about gear and have strong opinions. I have strong opinions and even some that might piss people off. It's another thing to make it all personal as if people who have different opinions on gear are somehow "deluded" or in some big conspiracy with the guitar industry. For instance. I hate Floyd Roses. I have my reasons. I do not think that people that play Floyd Roses are "delusional" or "lying to you". That's the That's the real negative impact he has on gear discussions. He's basically a mid 00's forum flame war veteran who brought that same energy to youtube.
Dude you sold me the Invaders and the TB-5 back in the day and this little devices totally changed the sound of my guitars so, thx so much, those videos are still amazing
Let's pause it 1:25. Wrong, wrong and wrong. I'm not a Glen fanboy but get it right. He NEVER said pickups, amps, etc don't make any difference. He simply has shown in his videos, evidence is important, that especially pickups when using a good amount of gain don't make as big a difference as most of us thought. And certainly NOT as much as the pickup companies tell you in their ads. Swapping out pickups myself, I completely agree with him. The claims that most pickups manufacturers are making are a ton of exaggerated BS.
I'm not a Glenn Fricker fanboy, far from it, but I've watched a lot of his videos. He never said the pickup doesn't change the tones at all, he says the change is minimal within a mix, and the speaker makes a much bigger difference. And he is mostly right, on that specific thing. That said, he's also talking about high gain recording. If the player is playing clean, or solo, the pickup can make quite a big difference in what the listener hears. You're misrepresenting his views in your video.
@@theironsheik6322 My friend, you're entitled to your opinion, and I won't argue about something that is subjective. If you don't like his work, that's fine by me. I dislike some of his mixes too. Like I said, I'm not a fanboy. He's said and done many things I dislike and disagree with.
@@donbishop6994 I think his demos sound just fine. I just don't care about "how it sounds in the mix" because there is no one way to mix either. I don't know why people use that metric.
@@theironsheik6322 Because what a guitar sounds like in the room when someone is practicing alone, doesn't sound the same as when the amp has a mic on it and it's in a mix. Things in the room can seriously affect what we hear in the room.
@@donbishop6994 And justice for all by Metallica complete obliterates that entire argument. "the mix" uh yeah actually bro theres a reason every guitar has sounded different on every album. It wasn't just speakers.
Nice projection, sir. Just know, that when you do decide to set some goals for yourself, you'll have a support system and people rooting for you. Take care.
Now that’s a bull. Glen’s mixes recently have been sounding fantastic everywhere: in car, on stereo, on headphones, and darn it! even on my shitty phone speakers. The man knows what he’s doing. Those drums are absolute ferocious: punchy, with plenty of bottom end, and don’t even start me talking bout that bass tone he’s got. I’ve been mixin for 5 years now, and I can never get a bass tone quite like his. Brother, I don’t know what you been smokin, ya better zip it before makin a fool outa yourself.
Glenn was very respectful and did not say Keith was wrong or a lier. He just simply said in his test with hot swapping pickups he couldn't tell a difference and he would like to know that setup that Keith used. He complimented Keith's guitar playing and didn't say anything negative.
@@RyanWright Maybe Keith didn't watch Glenn's video? I'm not buddies with either of them but appreciate the content they provide. Find Glenn's sense of humor a bit too much at times so I just move on .
@@RyanWright Stupid comment mate.... Are all Glenns minions 12 year old children ? Glenn spends most of j=his time screaming and calling people stupid and you're whinging about what Keith said, gross hypocrisy...!
Pickups with High gain amps. Glen said humbuckers don't make enough of a difference with high gain metal as long as they are made correctly. He has said that for clean guitar it does make a difference. He is not wrong.
The biggest point Glenn is trying to make is there are a lot of musicians out there that think they have to spend a shit load of money on big name guitars, pickups, amps and pedals to get a certain tone when sometimes you find out, after spending said money, that the speakers, which are what is spewing the actual sound, are junk. I don't care how much you paid for your guitar or what pickups you installed. If your speakers suck, it all sucks. Change the speakers first. You might save thousands. That is what Glenn is pushing. Helping uneducated musicians not waste money.
Ironically enough. Glenn made a video years ago about upgrading a cheap Legator 7 string. And highlighted just how much of a difference upgrading the stock pickups to fishman fluences made. “The big one for me has got to be the fishman fluence pickups. This guitar has gone from sounding pretty good, to holy crap! If you guys notice in the A/B comparisons especially when the guitars are solo’d up, they’re clearer, more top end, there’s just more bite, and far more aggressive for metal tones. I gotta start looking into putting fishmans in my other guitars, I am that impressed.”
Glenn's channel is mostly, if not all about recording. So, I think Glenn's point is more that pickups don't make as big of a difference in the context of a mix in a full recording. I definitely know that pickups do make a tonal and feel difference, so I agree that they do matter. But I can also see how Glenn's point might be valid as well, my 5150 iii has a boat load of gain regardless of if my guitar signal is pummeling the input with a 16k Duncan Invader/Distortion or my 70s Gibson ES-335 with 7.5k T Tops. I don't see a need to adjust the gain dial when changing guitars because I still have enough gain from the amp. And I could see in the context of a full mix not being able to tell the difference between my Les ]aul with a Duncan Distortion and the ES335 with the t tops in a high gain mix.
Pretty sure theres not any drama, glenn in the viewers comments episode where someobe asked about it, he was very respectful of keith and his video so idk where the drama comes in 🤔
Fwiw he doesn't make the sample packs, he just sells them. I know the guys who made them, and they basically don't abide to Glenn's production style at all lol.
I think he has been quite open about changing his mind once he learned that some of his favorite records used samples. This isn’t religion, it makes sense to change your mind when new information is available 🤷🏼♂️
Glenn has never said that pickups don’t matter. It’s only that in high gain guitar sounds, the pickups don’t affect the tone as you think. They affect the amplitude of output. The tone can be achieved by dialing the EQ. Of course different pickups sound different, but you don’t need 300€ pickups to get a killer tone. You can get the tone you want with the pickups you have. And this does not apply to low gain/clean setups.
Now I think Glenn would have been right on the money to say that spending hundreds on pickups is not always the solution to problems and other factors should be looked at, but saying they don't matter is not a great take.
I think the truth is right in the middle between Keith and Glenn, I love them both and learned a lot from both over the years, especially Glenn. Glenn shifting the discussion towards speakers has indeed been a very positive change as far as the culture around gear goes, because speakers are in fact such an important factor of the guitar tone, but he's doing such a disservice by going so extreme as to diminish all the other things that make up guitar tone. Pickup wise we all know, but even amp wise he claims all tube amps are a variation on the same theme (and only brings up the 5150, Soldano and Rectifier as an example), and even claims the 5150 and Dual Rectifier are the exact same amp... by dialing them to what fits "the rules of mixing" (which is kinda hypocritical as his channel has always been about going against the status quo, even as far as tearing into other engineers for recording with a click). I love the 2012 test Keith did but the 2015 and extended range tests in hindsight do seem more like an advertisement for Seymour Duncan as the results have been exaggerated in the opposite direction, which in hindsight makes sense as he worked for Seymour Duncan. That's not something I'd knock Keith for, but rather Seymour Duncan. As far as pickup demos go I trust Ola the most honestly. He did a test like Keith's back in the day with Seymour Duncan pickups and the results really make sense, there were differences between them all but the only one that really jumped out as radically different was the active Blackout. He did that again with a few tests of 1 riff 10 guitars and again the biggest differences were between singles vs humbuckers and actives vs passives, but there were still distinguishable differences between all the pickups in the video
Honestly, I just think pickups are inherently untrustworthy as beings of wire and magnetism. You could have the same pickup in the bridge and neck and in each position they'll sound completely different just because of where they're picking up the string vibrations. Pickup a few mm closer to the bridge than usual? Slightly different sound. Slightly farther from the strings? Slightly different sound. There's too many easy to cock up variables that go into pickup tone. I'd personally rather just stick to changing speakers and mics and adjusting a 10 band EQ than start changing pickups, especially since I'm Canadian and sets of the bigger name pickup brands can and will cost more than swapping the speakers. Beyond that, if people have the money and decide they want to swap pickups because they liked the way they sounded on the guitar they tried in the store, even if the difference was entirely perceived and not actually that big, or even real, more power to them. The internet isn't their mom and they can do what they want with their money. If playing through those seymour duncans at the store inspired them to play more, then, in my opinion, that's really all that matters at the end of the day. I'm glad Glen is around to show just how much of a difference the speakers make since, for poorer guitarists like me, it's super helpful to know about cheaper upgrades that are available. Same with Ola and the "Will It Chug?" playlist showing that you can get some amazing gear for relatively cheap. I know nothing about Keith, though. Well, besides his signature schecter being WAY out of budget :\/
What is wrong with wanting scientific evidence instead of manufacturer claims? Glen has analyzed the output of pickups before with graphs and has shown and proven that there is generally a slight variance in the midrange (which, of course, goes away when compressed, which is what is happening when you overdrive a tube with a higher gain than its headroom can handle) He has also proven that different pickups produce higher output levels than others, meaning you might need a clean boost pedal to get the same level of gain out of a lower gain amplifier. In short, he has said that if you don't like the sound you hear, try a different sound before trying to refine the sound. Also, amp circuitry meters, brand names do not. He also tested gold strings and proved they make a difference. If you can get the same effect as $250 pickups with a $25 pedal, why waste your money?
what glenn should be saying is that everything matters, most importantly the speakers, the pickups and the strings. everything else including the way the resonance holds through the guitar is determined by how good the guitar is built and what kind of materials is used and could be accounted for after the first few. he could also equally say that nothing matters in the context of the mix because everything is going to be exaggerated anyway
Nah man Glenn is right on the grand perspective pickups don't really matter, I mean you could cause use a 10band eq and get close Also from a mixing standpoint nobody's will relay notice it afterwards. But as a player pickups can make a huge deal..I mean pay more money and then have the guitar sound as you want it to sound without any extra hassle
If you are playing clean they do but metal guitar players with high gain dont see as much of a difference, where output is really what matters. It also depends on how bad the stock pickups in your guitar are. I swapped out the bridge pickup in an Ibanez RG for a friend and he called me and said he could barely tell the difference especially when playing distorted. This is the problem with binary thinking and I like Glenn he has some great advice when it comes to recording but he gets carried away.
That is a wildly general statement. What pickups? What was in the guitar in the first place? What kind of music/playing? Were the previous pickups made correctly?
Yep, I have 3 identical guitars with 3 completely different pickups, the difference distorted or not is quite big, I have to change amp settings between all 3 to get the sound i like, and they still sound vastly different. One of the biggest problems is with this whole subject is that everyone hears sound differently, this barely ever gets discussed. I see people all over his comments asking what key a song is or what tuning is being used and I can work that out in a couple of seconds, most of his viewers simply can't. My mate records me, I hear harmonic overtones that he just can't hear, he plays guitar and sings, we all hear things differently.... I'm an ear player of over 40 years and I've NEVER owned a tuner, I do everything by ear, I don't find that special but it surprises a lot of people. I used to tune my mates guitar for him over the phone, he plugged it into his amp and turned it up so I could hear it, and I'd tell him when each string was in tune, he loved it and thought it was great, It's just how I do things, nothing special to me...
Ah, so that’s why RUclips recommended the Keith Merrow video to me! Makes sense. I recently upgraded my first pickup-from a Tone Zone to a Suhr SSH+-and while the tonal difference isn’t night and day, it’s definitely smoother and easier to dial in without battling harsh or annoying frequencies. The improvement was enough for me to order a set of Lundgren M6's for my somewhat neglected AZ, and wow, it plays like a completely different instrument now. When I've already spent two grand or more on a guitar, an extra two to three hundred isn't the end of the world if it makes me enjoy the instrument again.
I saw a video where a guy took a Duncan JB and swapped between five different magnet types. Same guitar, same pickup, same amp, same player. You 100% could hear the difference every swap. Some were very dramatic but all changed the sound.
@@lostinpa-dadenduro7555 Checked it out, thanks! I really liked that Alnico 8 JB he had over there, I should pronbably put an Alternative 8 on some of my guitars :D
You can fake frequency responses by using EQ matching. I own 5 Ibanez RG 7 strings all with different pickups and they all sound different enough that I need to eq my modeler patches to eliminate and compensate for the different tones.
@@shredenvain7 so why no one has made the same test and proved Glenn wrong? Isn't that the point? To replicate the experiment Glenn did and prove him wrong?
@@zeneixi Just go look at the science of loud channel it's full out videos dedicated to how pickups work and even how to make your own. Go watch Keith's video or go watch one of the many andertons videos where a blind folded Rob Chapman can name either the brand or type of pickups in a guitar just from hearing them. Who the hell wants to waste hours making a video to prove the one guy on RUclips who believes pickups do nothing wrong! It's also just common sense. The output of a pickup along with its EQ characteristics can push the front of your amp like a tube screamer of its high output. If it's low output and bass heavy it can make a high gain beast sound weak and tubby. Do you not own more than one guitar?
@@shredenvain7 so, pickups are a religion and only magical thinking is the mindset of guitar players. No measurements, no graphics, no testing, nothing. Wow. Well, I guess I don't own more than a guitar because I chose to go to college and not believe in what guitar pickup shamans preach.
@@shredenvain7it's funny that you mention the science of loud channel, because glen made a video together with him, testing pickups. 🤷🏼♂️ maybe watch that.
Personally, I subscribe to the idea that pickups do make enough of a difference to be worth experimenting with depending on what you're looking for. That said, my understanding of Glenn's argument in his videos isn't that pickups don't matter, rather that they just aren't the most important part of the signal chain that results in your guitar tone, and you can compensate for variances in pickup output and EQ curve elsewhere in the signal chain for less money than the cost of a new aftermarket pickip...he honestly isn't wrong about that. Personally, I find it easier to get as much of the sound that I want from the source instrument itself and then tweak as needed in post production. In other words, I'm a pickup swapper. But I do get where Glenn is coming from. His approach is a little too obnoxious and patronizing for my tastes, but the thrust of what he is saying does have merit. Also, while I'm not as old as Glenn myself, I do find Keith's ageism to be off-putting, and resorting to insults cheapens his argument.
I work as a tech and have done that one way or another for 35 years. Pickups do indeed make a difference but of all the upgrades you can make speakers do make the most difference. He's not wrong on speakers but he is very wrong on pickups. Strings, bridges, the nut and to the smallest level woods make a difference too. Take multiple people's advice and use your ears. You'll find your sound.
Glenn Fricker is literally the Chris-chan of heavy metal. Nothing he says should be given any weight, ever. The thing about Keith is, he's never bullied anyone in the industry who didn't deserve it.
Glenn makes fun of bass players because a bass pickup swap will blow his theory out of the water. If pickups didn't matter all basses would sound the same, however, if you have passive versus active, on bass, there is a big difference. The science behind pickups do not help Glenn either. Pickups will affect your strings. The stronger the magnet, the tighter the response.
yeah I never heard him mention anything about different types of bass pickups or active vs passive, only new strings and his Element bass plugin (which is just a worse version of Neural DSP Parallax). Even with the same preset on his Element plugin his Jazz and his Dingwall would sound different from each other, not to mention all the other basses out there lol
@@sinakaedwards2009 And about that last point, that's a very interesting conclusion. I know for sure that stronger magnets make the pickup louder and that Dimarzio for example puts way more emphasis on the magnets to determine output rather than DC resistance.
@@Mr.Goldbar I really base the tighter response part on theory, but the stronger the magnet the more they pull on strings. I'm not an expert on guitars for sure, I play bass, however, there is a big difference between a Thunderbird and a P bass.
@@sinakaedwards2009 thunderbird and P bass pickups are constructionally super different, I'd love to hear the difference between different strengths of magnets on the same P pickup for example :) I do predict it's gonna be similar to adjusting the pickup higher or lower, higher does give more output and high end from my experience both on guitar and on bass at the expense of a little bit of the natural sustain. The thing with Dimarzio is that they put such strong magnets in their high output pickups and even vice verse, they have patents that both increase and decrease magnetic pull, the Virtual Vintage thing where they hide tiny little pole pieces inside the bobbins between the ones you see, and the Airbucker thing where they found a way to somehow leave more space between the magnet and the pole pieces to simulate a weakening aged magnet. They have 11K DC pickups that have the same output as 16K DC pickups from other companies and even some of their other pickups, and the higher the DC resistance the less high end frequencies the pickup will have, so that's why I instantly thought of them when I read your comment :)
This is true (though it also doesn't mean the opposite, that they aren't). Someone being loud has nothing to do with them being right or wrong. However, it is indeed a strategy to cut the conversation short by being rude, to drive others away from responding.
I've watched Glenn's videos, and to be fair he does point out that he never said that pickups make no difference, he says they make a miniscule difference, and when being recorded in a high gain situation and through a microphone the difference is even less intelligible, I don't know that I agree with that but I'm also not a professional sound engineer, but I do know the three electric guitars I have, one is the KM7 FR-S from schecter, with the Seymour Duncan Nazgul in the bridge, the other is a Ernie Ball Music Man majesty, with a DiMarzio Illuminator in the bridge in the third is a Epiphone mkh Les Paul Custom and it has emgs, and I am playing through a Fender Mustang V2 head into the 412 cabinet that comes with it, and I can definitely tell the difference between those three pickups, can I prove it scientifically? No, but as a visually impaired person who has relied on my ears for my entire life I know what I hear when I'm sitting in front of the amplifier and again I am no sound engineer so if I were to record that amplifier and listen back using the three different guitars maybe I would not hear a difference.
yeah what many of the "scientific" camp like Glenn forget is that senses are very individual. Some people are naturally born with some senses weakened, enhanced or more sensitive.
@@Durkhead Yes but change the sound means it sounds different in the first place. Glenn's actual point is that speakers have the largest effect on your sound. He is right but to say all pickups sound the same with distortion is ludicrous. The output of the pickup is really important and the method of winding the coils literally determines the EQ shape of the pickup. The magnet type effects both the output and it can act as a high pass and low pass filter. Glenn actually claims to not touch the EQ in his comparison. What he does is he level matches the Direct signal of the various pickups so they have equal volume but it literally changes the dynamics of the pickups in his tests. Hence why he claims they don't sound different
@@shredenvain7 In my opinion, unless the pickups are very noisy or microphoned, it is not worth the investment to change them, since by manipulating the equalization or, in the digital case, changing between response impulses, you can achieve very similar results.
@@Superman-pn1rx I believe in as little manipulation beyond the constant parts of my rig. If one guitar requires further manipulation than what I have for other guitars then something's wrong and should get replaced
Glenn didn't Said that Pickups doesn't matter, he Said that they don't matter that much/give you The tone shift they Promise, and that The investiment is not worth it in is oppinion
Been playing high gain for twenty years. Own everything from tube amps, combos, to modellers to every ndsp plugin to Gibson usa , custom shop to Harley Benton to squire... Pickups matter and make a difference. If you disagree, thats your right. We can agree to disagree.
@@MickH60 yeah I don't think he even calls himself a producer, he's an engineer and it's totally different. There are opposite cases aswell, back in the day the engineer, the producer and the arranger were totally different people working together, only in the last 15-20 or so years it became a one person's job.
I sold a design to S7G and have an unfinished prototype of that model I designed. Sadly it never made the light of day, but I still talk to Jim every now and then. Super bummed to see how S7G went down.
I didnt go into this in the video, but I was a MASSIVE Ola and Keith Fan back in the day (still am) and I actually messaged Jim. He got back to me like 3 months later, after I had gotten my first 7 string, about getting a guitar and his prices were about to go up. I kinda ignored the email at the time but I am SOOO glad I didnt send him any money. Sorry about your proto.
Fun fact: Glenn never said that speakers are the ONLY thing that matters. The most important part of your rig to focus on? Yeah, especially since just moving your mic a few millimeters can drastically change your tone. The problem isn't Glenn. It's the people who both hate him and love him that seem to hear only what they want to hear.
Yeah the thing about Glenn is, I get his point, he's not completely wrong, but he's pushing so much to drive his point home that he's making the part where he is not 100% right the center of attention. Sure, in the hierarchy of what makes a drastic difference in a high gain recorded sound, speakers/impulses are #1, while pickups are a bit more subtle. But pickups and strings are still the actual source of your sound, and what's that old saying for recording, crap in -> crap out? Or else why would he bother ranting about bass players not changing strings 😅 What I think he's going for with this though, is that on a limited budget the difference between pickups isn't proportional to the amount of money you'll pay. Heck, even just retail prices for pickups aren't 1:1 with quality. But the way he tries to push people's buttons is stripping away some validity from his arguments 🤷♂️
What's funny is that he did admit that using newer strings does have a different and better tone than strings that are older and need to be changed so he's a hypocrite here
@@putontheseglasses8809 microphones are eseentially a reverse speaker which pickup acoustic energy, pickups only pickup electric (edit i meant magnetic*) energy, i would have assumed youd have done some researcch but clearly not…
The difference is Glen EQ adjusts after every pickup swap to prove that with EQ everything can sound pretty much the same. However, if you were to leave the EQ the same for each pickup test you would notice those differences much more clearly. I think Glen needs to do a better job at clarifying that in his tests, he’s right that with EQ you can make things sound very similar, but he’s not being up front about that being done in his pickup tests.
"PICK UPS DON'T MATTER, PICK UPS DON'T MATTER" but he never said that now did he?? (I could be wrong word for word) but the conclusion that was made up by his experiments is "YOU ALMOST CANNOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE OF HUMBUCKERS TO OTHER HUMBUCKERS (In the context of metal tones), that's quite different from what everyone is going on about claiming that he said "pick ups don't matter" I believe he never said that., there was even a blind test on his channel showcasing the different guitar pickups if they are distinguishable from one to another, and yet almost NO BODY was able to match which guitar/brand was to its appropriate sound, I mean if hum bucker pick ups make such a huge difference (as everyone is claiming) and have their own distinguishable tone then how come almost no one was able to tell which guitar is which?. the thing is though almost everyone disagrees and say yes the wood makes a HUGE difference, the paint makes a HUGE difference, the pickups (from one hum bucker to another)makes a HUGE difference and yet NEVER has a tone chart or graph comparing this claim. Not even the manufacturers' themselves present comparisons. perhaps people's ego also makes the greatest contribution to the argument. I am not here to argue , I am quire neutral when it comes to the topic and I enjoy multiple guitars and multiple set ups and gear as much as the next guy but its just that I think people are putting words into other people's mouths just to feed and conform their own ego. hey its the internet after all 😇
He didn't say Pups don't matter. He simply suggests (and largely proves) that in the context of a metal mix and high gain tones, they particular pickup you are using (not switching to single coils or anything like that) have a minimal difference in the tone compared to switching cabs or speakers. But people like to falsely represent what people say to match their own biases and opinions just to drum up fake drama.
@@RyanWright exactly and he is going to do The same test as Keith did, changing and resoldering Pickups. But in Glenn's video that is mentioned here he says at about 2:30 that Pickups do make a difference, altough is not that signifficant.
A guitar is a combination of its parts. The importance placed on pickups is the biggest issue. The difference in pickups is small and, generally, not the night and day difference that the marketing makes it out to be. I've spent a lot of money and time swapping pickups and parts, and there are pickups i tend to always go back to over and over (Sh2 Jazz and Cool Rails). My advice to the kid starting out is to buy a better amp before you spend time and money on pickups. Changing pickups should be one of the last things to change to really fine tune your sound if you think its necessary.
The contradiction of pickups not mattering in a high-gain context yet Keith's video showing the slight yet noticeable difference the various SD bridge buckers to people who don't have trained ears (me) just hurts my brain. I don't have a real take on the drama, but I did want to express how I feel about that paradox.
"slightly, yet noticable" for 300 bucks a set, while the same money get's you 2 high quality 12" speakers that will change your sound not "slightly" but massively. glens videos are all about cost to performance. he never said pickups don't matter, they are just not worth it, if you're on a budget.
@@TheWolvesCurse sometimes I don't want that huge difference if I'm satisfied with everything else in my rig. Nobody should be discouraged from investing how much they see as right for the tiny details.
@@TheWolvesCurse I read it and it is in fact right, too bad Glenn didn't say it though. Granted I'm fortunately not on very tight budgets most of the time, but with tight budgets and with different priorities you might have to settle with the 95% result.
Bro i have this strat mij and the pickups sound like an ice pick stabbing you in the face. Even my wife and daughter always commented " is it supposed to sound like that?" short story long. I put a JB and 2 single scooped singles and the difference is day and no ice pick to you temple.
My take on Glenn is that he is saying in heavy metal,to the listener,in a mix pickups don’t matter, he sort of has a point, but as a guitar player myself they absolutely matter to the player and there is a difference.
Do you know who agrees Glenn's view on pickups? Pickup maker Dylan Talks Tone. He reviewed the video and admits the tonal difference on the pickups is negligible. Glenn has done multiple full mixed with swapped pickups at undisclosed points and no one has been able to identify where the pickups are swapped. Glenn never says they don't make a difference. He says the difference is small and with gain, in a full mix that difference is nonexistent.
So I feel like Glenn is out to shock people more than inform people. His point is quite valid, in that anything later in the chain will affect the sound more than things earlier in the chain. And differences in pickups tonally, can be EQ'ed in posted as well. Nothing wrong with that. But what Glenn is missing, is that not everyone is looking at the finished, recorded product. It's about the feel, the feel in the room, how it sounds next to the amp etc. The dynamics of the pickups, the clarity, the output, the support you get from them, which frequencies push the pre-amp and like you said, how easy they can make it to get that tone you want. He's (badly) pushing the vision of a producer/mixer to a crowd of players. Even if put eloquently will always be a clash of visions, let alone if put poorly
This is why I stopped listening to Glenn's opinions and advice. Maybe it's click bait, but I'm not sure about that. he seems very passionate. If he do believe what he says, it proves, at least to me, that he really does not know much about sound. And I don't care about how experienced he says he is, or his background. Not at all. Amps, pickups, strings, speakers. Everything makes a difference. Experienced guitarist knows that. And I really couldn't care less about his opinions when it comes to that. He just makes me laugh. :-)
Pickups are just magnets that serve as base EQ (the windings around the magnets). Put an EQ between the guitar and the amp and your x pickup will sound like any y pickup. Nothing special about whatever the pickup one has in their instrument and quite pointless to swap pickups for some infinite tone-chasing black hole of money. With high gain it's even less and more trivial variance in sound. Of course aftermarket OEM-s will say anything to increase their sales, but nobody can defy physics.
Glenn is more Clown than anything else. He tells people their ears arent hearing what they know they are. I have swapped pickups in everything but a couple of Gibsons. Absolutely things like Pickups can make a huge sonic difference. I replace the Epiphone Pro Bucker with a DiMarzio Super Distortion and the sonic difference was night and day. Same with speaker. I Replaced the Crap Celestion Rocket 50 with a Celestion Vintage 30 and again Night and Day difference in tone. For the record Glenn doesnt play very well and his tones he pushes are nothing that blows my skirt up. Ymmv.
Very true, his playing is elementary and he's never had a tone that dropped my jaw. The Vulvodynia homies have some incredible tone, don't know what gear they use, don't really care. I am hyper-specific about my tone and the feel of pickups, but context matters and a wide range of stuff that doesn't sound good on its own works perfectly fine in a mix and vice-versa. I think Glenn's pickup doesn't matter video is massive clownery. Not to say Glenn hasn't offered good advice before, he has, but the pickups not mattering is just horseshit. I fucking hate DiMarzios and always replace them LOL.
Well, first of all, Glenn is a production & recording engineer first and a guitar player a distant second. He never markets himself as a guitar player and he makes more than enough self deprecating comments about his guitar playing, I don't even know why you guys brought it up. His guitar playing skills are not relevant at all to the discussion being had here. Second, his guitar playing is easily decent enough for him to demonstrate the point(s) he is trying to make, whether right or wring, so again, I dunno why that was brought up, unless it was just to try and insult the guy. Is he a virtuoso? Does that matter? No. Finally, yes, Glenn is a bit of a windbag at times, and at times he may not be staying in his lane, but at the end of the day, I really feel Glenn is trying to help guitar players spend their money as wisely and as frugally as possible, because we all know we (guitar players) like to throw our money around needlessly.
@@klauswigsmiththis is like the dumbest shit. To say whether a pickup don’t matter you have to be a decent guitar player with a specific preference in terms of tone and playability. You will then have your reference points at least. It is conclusively proven that the pickups do sound and play different, you have to be really deaf or stupid to say otherwise. As regards protecting the guitar players money, there is nothing wrong in trying gear such as pickups and selling them if you dont like them. So what he could do is to check whether the description of the specific pickup on the manufacturers site is valid. Those are cliches and misleading indeed most times. But to do this you have to try stuff, be a decent guitar player and have preferences. Glenn does not qualify. Instead this moron affects the market by degrading the whole class of products, which restricts the natural movement of inventory. He promotes ignorance and insults guitar players for the sake of hype, thats what he does. I still don’t get why people consume this shit
I know what my experience is. I've changed pickups in all of my guitars. There is a difference at the lower, cheaper end of the scale. My Yamaha AES was dramatically altered by it. The stock pups were mushy and not articulate. I never understood this argument.
I'm not a fan of Glenn Fricker but he never said that pickups made zero difference. His point was that when playing metal through a high gain amp, the thing that makes "The Most" difference is the speaker. He admits that pickups and amps give you a slight difference in tone but speakers can change your tone drastically. Obviously some pickups are hotter than others and some amps have more gain or EQ than others but put 4 Jenson speakers in your cabinet, then replace them with Green Backs or Texas Heats and let me know what you hear.
KM is a great guitar player but a pretty shit human. This dude Keith will argue and get nasty about anything or anyone that disagrees with him. Killer guitar player man I just wish the guy could ignore the comments lol
Glenn is insufferable, can’t stand his personality and energy, whether it’s a persona for RUclips or that’s who he really is. FYI, as someone who’s played multiple amps, cabs, pedals, etc, changing the pickups on an old Strat with some Bareknuckles was one of the biggest tonal and sonic changes I’ve ever experienced with guitar.
I was gonna write a giant novel/rant detailing a first hand experience of mine where a pickup change fixed the tone of a guitar so much that I decided not to sell it, but instead I'll just say that maybe, in a way, I'm strangely happy that Glenn is pedaling his bullshit to a bunch of idiots that think he's right. It serves a function of gatekeeping good tone for the real ones. Honestly I haven't heard a mix of his, or tone of his in any video that made me stick around and not click off and find a video that sounded better.
Nobody has said pickups all sound exactly the same. The reality is pickups of the same type largely sound the same in most instances. I have seen that myself over the years. I have a pile of guitars here. If I plug in various humbucker guitars to the same amp? Gained up they largely sound very close to each other. Even from cheap to very expensive. This has been done in a million tests now on RUclips as well and shown to be the case, but I have heard it myself with my own pile of guitars and being into recording and producing a lot. It isn't just Glenn tho, ML Sound Labs did their own test, 10 guitars, and if you listen to the recordings - they sound very close to each other. Not perfectly identical, but close. What Glenn is trying to drill into people's heads is that if you aren't loaded with money, there are far better ways to sound better than spending the little money you have on new pickups.
Glenn's point is that in the context of a high gain mix, your pickups will have VERY little effect. Which is true. What pickups will affect in a high gain scenario is the feel of the instrument, and some difference in tone. Another point that needs to be made is if you are swapping pickups, and then claiming the tone improved, there isn't much credence to that unless you did a before and after recording to verify, as your biases and imagination can impact what you think you are hearing. It is important to have some nuance here.
Kinda sucks because I love both of them. I would love if they would get along and do a colab on finding out together by doing the tests together. I never heard Glenn say anything bad about Keith. It would be cool since they both have opposing views on having a discussion and then trying to validate their findings would be huge. I don't think calling him a dork helps....All metal dudes (including myself) are dorks.... how many times have we been insulted for being metal heads.
On Glenn's video, the only time that I hear a difference is when swaps in the P90. I've never cared about tone though, if that's just me I'm fine with that.
Well let me ask this simply. Were Keiths strings the same strings? Did his microphone ever move? Did his amp settings ever change? Were the pickups the exact same size, as in was one wider or taller than another? We do not know Keiths process, and we do know Glenns. One MAJOR issue with your video is you flat out lie about what Glenn said, time stamp and show the video where Glenn says a pickup does not have a sound. You need to do better
Sorry pal, this is fabricated lies. Glen has always clarified that pick-ups do make a difference in tone, except in a high-gain metal context, they will account for a minimal difference. Be sure to fact check your sources next time.
There is a video on RUclips (a little bit older) where Glenn and someone else, I don’t remember who it was, did a review on the Engl Fireball 100. If I remember correctly the other dude played his guitar through the amp first. When it was Glenn’s turn he connected another guitar to the amp, played some riffs and mentioned that his guitar sounds a lot more dark in comparison to the other one. And it did. But I have no clue how it should be even possible that one guitar sounds brighter or darker than another… I mean if all the humbuckers out there sound more or less the same or don’t have any sound by itself at all, that sentence doesn’t make any sense to me. Or was it a different factor than the pickups which caused a darker tone of the guitar? Did he believe in a different tone coming from another tone wood? Doubt it. By the way we are talking about heavily compressed high gain tones coming from that stack. So especially in this case every pickup should sound similar in his nowadays opinion. I’m writing this with respect for Glenn and his content. He has a lot of entertaining and helpful videos on his channel which I enjoy. But on this topic I’m just too skeptical to agree with him.
Install pickup. Strum all your strings at once over and over since that's easy to recreate perfectly, and capture the EQ curve along with the amplitude. Change pickup, and rinse and repeat the process. Do it with multiple pickups and you're have an exact visualisation of what the difference is. Will you see a huge difference? nahh. Will you see small differences? yeah. The real question is whether or not you want to pay $100 extra for 1db cut in the low end between two frequencies. Is A LOT of this in peoples heads? absolutely. In every single album you love, the pickup was about the least important thing in the chain. Like, if anyone thinks changing pickups will have them sound like their favourite album or band, it just won't. Because even if your pickup was exactly the same (it wont be due to factory difference tolerances), the position of it won't be perfectly the same, and so that changes the EQ curve significantly more. The final big thing is in order for any of this to really matter, we'd have to pretend we aren't EQ'ing before and after the amp, in which case all fo this stuff kinda goes out of the window.
this canadian bases his whole living on creating drama and stirring up controversies to get clicks. a huge chunk of every single video of his is him arguing with people and cursing them out for daring to comment on his parasitic content with different opinions. ALL of his videos have clickbait titles and thumbnails. he's the archetypical youtuber that will do everything for a few clicks and subs. he cant play the guitar to save his life yet he has a thousand opinions on the instrument...it's really a sad existence
Of course pickups make a difference, Glenn knows that too. What he is saying that most of the time, they dont make $200 of a difference, for looks obviously get them, but if you expect to get the tone of your dreams from a fresh set you are delusional. The pickups (if we are talking about humbuckers on high gain tones) make up 5% of your tone and contribute more to the feel, while cabs 60-70%. Read beetween the lines.
I personally don't give a fuck about "drama in guitar-RUclips. I think it all comes down to taste. Do as much research as you possibly can and then come up with your own conclusions. Here's mine: Glen is right about speakers. I believe over half of the tone comes from speakers. However, pickups are very impactful on your guitar sound as well. Your amp head is also important. I personally believe the type of tubes can make a difference as well (specifically pre amp tubes). I've tried four different brands and could hear an obvious difference. Mind you, it was not a mind blowing difference, but a difference indeed. What I am trying to say is that there are so many spices in the spice wrack to choose from. Pick your spices to make your personal dish and enjoy the fuck out of it. RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENT!
I mean if you do a lot of post processing you can make a lot of things sound the same lol. But if you're in a room or even just do a non mixed review, the difference is there whether it's small, big or anything noticeable. I always consider pickups more of a fine tuner to your tone and how it responds to your playing.
seems like alot of saltiness with little actual evidence , misrepresenting statements doesn't help your position , i do see alot of fanboy behavior and bootlicking . put up or shut up. id like to see actual testing and frequency response graphs ill wait.. to that end this whole video seems like at its core is motivated by bruised egos rather than proving glenn wrong.
Maybe Mr Fricker is being controversial to get views , nothing is written in Stone in the Music world especially with Guitar , and especially now what with the amount of Gear that's available to every player on every level . I will never forget the first time I saw Jeff Loomis play and Loomis led me to Keith Merrow , I'd been playing Guitar for quite awhile and I'm an old man compared to them and I just couldn't believe what I was seeing watching Jeff Loomis riding lightning speed up and down that 7 string Schector Guitar and his Sweep Picking is the best in the business .
I dont know why Glenn has gone so hard on this, the whole thing is silly. I mean, take your rig right now, and change nothing but the pickups, and try to tell me with a straight face that it doesnt change. This isnt something that requires debate, it is clearly obvious to anyone with ears. Same thing applies to EVERY modular part, to greater or lesser degrees. Thats why we have modular parts. And the thing is - I agree with Glenn that speakers make the MOST difference, and to me that is again plainly obvious and not something that needs to be vetted. And as an OG guitar RUclips punter, if I have to "pick a side" its going to be Keith all f'n day.
I’m glad this popped off because glens videos have been pissing me off for years being someone who followed Kieth and ola back in those early days has experience changing pickups in the same guitar just as you talked about with the bare knuckles I got 20 guitars a couple have the same JB and still don’t sound the same and that’s not even talking about feel. Kind of shows us how little glen knows and most his mixes sound shitty anyway so there’s that lol
I own 5 different guitars all with different pick ups...the only pick up that sounds significantly different than others is the dimebucker...Duncan solar have more less gain and more bass than dimarzio diactivators..and dimarzio have more separation between notes than fishmans...strandberg pickups have a lot of top end and less output..most of that can be evened out with a tiny bit of eq..the rest is all the same shit..but I'll tell you what..Fishman have a great clean tone
You actually just explained that they all sound different and explained why. Respectfully if you don't change EQ and play you could possibly (probably) hear the difference in each or at least 3-4 out of 5. The fact you would use EQ to even them out IS the point. If they sounded the same there would be no need to change anything.
@@carlitosASJ True. However of the one with similar scale lengths it is still sort of the "Anti-Fricker" position because he (and others) will say wood is mostly irrelevant. By the way I'm not arguing with what you lerceive to hear or claiming I have super hearing, but I have I have played guitars with swapped pickups (both singles and hn) and could def. hear a noticeable change.
Coming from a sound engineer/technician does not say much in its favor A pickup is a microphone, so the microphones don't matter either, only what the guru says.
Glen sounds like tom hanks Tom hanks did a movie called a leage of their own where tom hanks has a famous line that he yells THERS NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! thats where the title comes from
Haha it isn't that serious, but it IS kinda fun. Yes, I think the guy spreads whack information regularly and claims to be "helping people". Yes, I think he's a dork that deserves to be bullied like it's 1989. But, I'm not mad. I'm kinda flattered that an old video I did back in college is somehow OATH, and the standard by which he measures whatever "science" he's doing over there.
There's no myth to bust here, though. The video I made way back then was a college project that I turned in for a B+ grade. It was done over the course of several days, and I can be the first to tell you that it's not flawless. In fact, I had to rush to complete it back then. So sorry if it isn't 100% accurate, guys! But there is no conspiracy to any of this, and the drama is just a result of ME leaning into Glenn. I'm the one who turned up the heat on him. He finally gave me a valid reason to make fun of him directly, that's all :) The guy is hyper aggressive, and I'm just matching his freak.
I made a video a long time ago that has helped and will continue to help thousands of people to be happy choosing guitar pickups, no matter how imperfect it might be. That's what matters to me. It serves as a guide to help people. He tried to insinuate that it was somehow falsified, because you know, tin foil hats and all that.
Fun fact- I got points knocked off that video in college because all the peer reviews said they sounded too similar to each other. Imagine that! Maybe if I had skewed the results, I would have gotten a better grade on it.
Cheers dude!
glenn is deff a dumbass
Keith I’ve been Staning you since your Pod XT days. Always great info and inspiring riffs.
I'm going to keep it real. It's about time that someone with a big name stood up to him. He's been making absolutely ridiculous claims for years and people treat everything he says as gospel. The pickup video he made was especially ridiculous is that you could hear clear differences between some of the pickups and he just pretended they didn't exist. The thing that really pisses me off is that it's one thing to be opinionated about gear and have strong opinions. I have strong opinions and even some that might piss people off. It's another thing to make it all personal as if people who have different opinions on gear are somehow "deluded" or in some big conspiracy with the guitar industry. For instance. I hate Floyd Roses. I have my reasons. I do not think that people that play Floyd Roses are "delusional" or "lying to you". That's the That's the real negative impact he has on gear discussions. He's basically a mid 00's forum flame war veteran who brought that same energy to youtube.
Dude you sold me the Invaders and the TB-5 back in the day and this little devices totally changed the sound of my guitars so, thx so much, those videos are still amazing
@@ripwotd i got the invaders to i loe the mid and low push
Let's pause it 1:25. Wrong, wrong and wrong. I'm not a Glen fanboy but get it right. He NEVER said pickups, amps, etc don't make any difference. He simply has shown in his videos, evidence is important, that especially pickups when using a good amount of gain don't make as big a difference as most of us thought. And certainly NOT as much as the pickup companies tell you in their ads. Swapping out pickups myself, I completely agree with him. The claims that most pickups manufacturers are making are a ton of exaggerated BS.
I'm not a Glenn Fricker fanboy, far from it, but I've watched a lot of his videos. He never said the pickup doesn't change the tones at all, he says the change is minimal within a mix, and the speaker makes a much bigger difference. And he is mostly right, on that specific thing. That said, he's also talking about high gain recording. If the player is playing clean, or solo, the pickup can make quite a big difference in what the listener hears. You're misrepresenting his views in your video.
His mixes are doodoo.
@@theironsheik6322 My friend, you're entitled to your opinion, and I won't argue about something that is subjective. If you don't like his work, that's fine by me. I dislike some of his mixes too. Like I said, I'm not a fanboy. He's said and done many things I dislike and disagree with.
@@donbishop6994 I think his demos sound just fine. I just don't care about "how it sounds in the mix" because there is no one way to mix either. I don't know why people use that metric.
@@theironsheik6322 Because what a guitar sounds like in the room when someone is practicing alone, doesn't sound the same as when the amp has a mic on it and it's in a mix. Things in the room can seriously affect what we hear in the room.
@@donbishop6994 And justice for all by Metallica complete obliterates that entire argument. "the mix" uh yeah actually bro theres a reason every guitar has sounded different on every album. It wasn't just speakers.
Glenn Fricker couldn't mix a cake.
Nice projection, sir. Just know, that when you do decide to set some goals for yourself, you'll have a support system and people rooting for you. Take care.
@@stale_. Jeez, someone really melted like a snowflake over someone else's opinion/joke
@@TheToneArchive No, dipshit, it's me saying something fucking nice. Jeez.
Now that’s a bull. Glen’s mixes recently have been sounding fantastic everywhere: in car, on stereo, on headphones, and darn it! even on my shitty phone speakers. The man knows what he’s doing. Those drums are absolute ferocious: punchy, with plenty of bottom end, and don’t even start me talking bout that bass tone he’s got. I’ve been mixin for 5 years now, and I can never get a bass tone quite like his. Brother, I don’t know what you been smokin, ya better zip it before makin a fool outa yourself.
@@TheToneArchive They're all over the comments here, clueless twats that glue themselves to Glenns clickbait drama...
Glenn was very respectful and did not say Keith was wrong or a lier. He just simply said in his test with hot swapping pickups he couldn't tell a difference and he would like to know that setup that Keith used. He complimented Keith's guitar playing and didn't say anything negative.
And Keith decided to come on here and be a salty little punk and cyber bully Glenn. So who is the dbag? Just sayin
@@RyanWright Maybe Keith didn't watch Glenn's video? I'm not buddies with either of them but appreciate the content they provide. Find Glenn's sense of humor a bit too much at times so I just move on .
@@RyanWright Stupid comment mate.... Are all Glenns minions 12 year old children ? Glenn spends most of j=his time screaming and calling people stupid and you're whinging about what Keith said, gross hypocrisy...!
Pickups with High gain amps. Glen said humbuckers don't make enough of a difference with high gain metal as long as they are made correctly. He has said that for clean guitar it does make a difference. He is not wrong.
THANK YOU! Somebody with common sense here, who actually LISTENED to what Glen said.
@@yunamadsimackomen881 No mate, just another misinformed guy that probably lacks the ears to tell the difference... AGAIN, you are wrong....
Glenn saved me a lot of money for sure. As Jim Lill did.
The biggest point Glenn is trying to make is there are a lot of musicians out there that think they have to spend a shit load of money on big name guitars, pickups, amps
and pedals to get a certain tone when sometimes you find out, after spending said money, that the speakers, which are what is spewing the actual sound, are junk.
I don't care how much you paid for your guitar or what pickups you installed. If your speakers suck, it all sucks. Change the speakers first. You might save thousands.
That is what Glenn is pushing. Helping uneducated musicians not waste money.
indeed, change speakers first. But what if you found your favorite speaker and there's still something's not right? :D
Ironically enough. Glenn made a video years ago about upgrading a cheap Legator 7 string. And highlighted just how much of a difference upgrading the stock pickups to fishman fluences made.
“The big one for me has got to be the fishman fluence pickups. This guitar has gone from sounding pretty good, to holy crap! If you guys notice in the A/B comparisons especially when the guitars are solo’d up, they’re clearer, more top end, there’s just more bite, and far more aggressive for metal tones. I gotta start looking into putting fishmans in my other guitars, I am that impressed.”
Glenn's channel is mostly, if not all about recording. So, I think Glenn's point is more that pickups don't make as big of a difference in the context of a mix in a full recording. I definitely know that pickups do make a tonal and feel difference, so I agree that they do matter. But I can also see how Glenn's point might be valid as well, my 5150 iii has a boat load of gain regardless of if my guitar signal is pummeling the input with a 16k Duncan Invader/Distortion or my 70s Gibson ES-335 with 7.5k T Tops. I don't see a need to adjust the gain dial when changing guitars because I still have enough gain from the amp. And I could see in the context of a full mix not being able to tell the difference between my Les ]aul with a Duncan Distortion and the ES335 with the t tops in a high gain mix.
Pretty sure theres not any drama, glenn in the viewers comments episode where someobe asked about it, he was very respectful of keith and his video so idk where the drama comes in 🤔
@@Metaldad87 did you see Keith's response I put in this video from Instagram? Lol
@@LucasLeCompteMusic I did not, I assumed this was a typical stirring the shit when there's not much there video so I haven't watched it yet tbh
@@Metaldad87 I guess you should actually watch videos before commenting on them then, huh?
Glenn is also the guy who said drum samples don’t matter. Then in the next sentence he said “buy my drum samples”.
Glenns opinions are often on par with Billy Corgan saying the color of your guitar changes your tone lmfao
@@calebelliottguitar Hahaha !!
Fwiw he doesn't make the sample packs, he just sells them. I know the guys who made them, and they basically don't abide to Glenn's production style at all lol.
@@luc.musicproducerbe that as it may, slamming production with samples and then selling samples a week later shows zero integrity.
I think he has been quite open about changing his mind once he learned that some of his favorite records used samples. This isn’t religion, it makes sense to change your mind when new information is available 🤷🏼♂️
Glenn has never said that pickups don’t matter. It’s only that in high gain guitar sounds, the pickups don’t affect the tone as you think. They affect the amplitude of output. The tone can be achieved by dialing the EQ. Of course different pickups sound different, but you don’t need 300€ pickups to get a killer tone. You can get the tone you want with the pickups you have. And this does not apply to low gain/clean setups.
Now I think Glenn would have been right on the money to say that spending hundreds on pickups is not always the solution to problems and other factors should be looked at, but saying they don't matter is not a great take.
I think the truth is right in the middle between Keith and Glenn, I love them both and learned a lot from both over the years, especially Glenn.
Glenn shifting the discussion towards speakers has indeed been a very positive change as far as the culture around gear goes, because speakers are in fact such an important factor of the guitar tone, but he's doing such a disservice by going so extreme as to diminish all the other things that make up guitar tone.
Pickup wise we all know, but even amp wise he claims all tube amps are a variation on the same theme (and only brings up the 5150, Soldano and Rectifier as an example), and even claims the 5150 and Dual Rectifier are the exact same amp... by dialing them to what fits "the rules of mixing" (which is kinda hypocritical as his channel has always been about going against the status quo, even as far as tearing into other engineers for recording with a click).
I love the 2012 test Keith did but the 2015 and extended range tests in hindsight do seem more like an advertisement for Seymour Duncan as the results have been exaggerated in the opposite direction, which in hindsight makes sense as he worked for Seymour Duncan. That's not something I'd knock Keith for, but rather Seymour Duncan.
As far as pickup demos go I trust Ola the most honestly. He did a test like Keith's back in the day with Seymour Duncan pickups and the results really make sense, there were differences between them all but the only one that really jumped out as radically different was the active Blackout. He did that again with a few tests of 1 riff 10 guitars and again the biggest differences were between singles vs humbuckers and actives vs passives, but there were still distinguishable differences between all the pickups in the video
Honestly, I just think pickups are inherently untrustworthy as beings of wire and magnetism. You could have the same pickup in the bridge and neck and in each position they'll sound completely different just because of where they're picking up the string vibrations. Pickup a few mm closer to the bridge than usual? Slightly different sound. Slightly farther from the strings? Slightly different sound. There's too many easy to cock up variables that go into pickup tone. I'd personally rather just stick to changing speakers and mics and adjusting a 10 band EQ than start changing pickups, especially since I'm Canadian and sets of the bigger name pickup brands can and will cost more than swapping the speakers.
Beyond that, if people have the money and decide they want to swap pickups because they liked the way they sounded on the guitar they tried in the store, even if the difference was entirely perceived and not actually that big, or even real, more power to them. The internet isn't their mom and they can do what they want with their money. If playing through those seymour duncans at the store inspired them to play more, then, in my opinion, that's really all that matters at the end of the day.
I'm glad Glen is around to show just how much of a difference the speakers make since, for poorer guitarists like me, it's super helpful to know about cheaper upgrades that are available. Same with Ola and the "Will It Chug?" playlist showing that you can get some amazing gear for relatively cheap. I know nothing about Keith, though. Well, besides his signature schecter being WAY out of budget :\/
What is wrong with wanting scientific evidence instead of manufacturer claims?
Glen has analyzed the output of pickups before with graphs and has shown and proven that there is generally a slight variance in the midrange (which, of course, goes away when compressed, which is what is happening when you overdrive a tube with a higher gain than its headroom can handle)
He has also proven that different pickups produce higher output levels than others, meaning you might need a clean boost pedal to get the same level of gain out of a lower gain amplifier.
In short, he has said that if you don't like the sound you hear, try a different sound before trying to refine the sound.
Also, amp circuitry meters, brand names do not. He also tested gold strings and proved they make a difference.
If you can get the same effect as $250 pickups with a $25 pedal, why waste your money?
Gold strings? Like gold plated?
@@BOATIE141 yes sir!
They were Optima Gold strings and the video title was something like "worst guitar strings ever"
at this point the brand doesnt matter when it comes to amps and pickups because they all copy eachother
to answer the last question, maybe I want it built into the guitar?
what glenn should be saying is that everything matters, most importantly the speakers, the pickups and the strings. everything else including the way the resonance holds through the guitar is determined by how good the guitar is built and what kind of materials is used and could be accounted for after the first few. he could also equally say that nothing matters in the context of the mix because everything is going to be exaggerated anyway
Nah man Glenn is right on the grand perspective pickups don't really matter, I mean you could cause use a 10band eq and get close
Also from a mixing standpoint nobody's will relay notice it afterwards. But as a player pickups can make a huge deal..I mean pay more money and then have the guitar sound as you want it to sound without any extra hassle
Pickups absolutely change the sound.
If you are playing clean they do but metal guitar players with high gain dont see as much of a difference, where output is really what matters. It also depends on how bad the stock pickups in your guitar are. I swapped out the bridge pickup in an Ibanez RG for a friend and he called me and said he could barely tell the difference especially when playing distorted. This is the problem with binary thinking and I like Glenn he has some great advice when it comes to recording but he gets carried away.
That is a wildly general statement. What pickups? What was in the guitar in the first place? What kind of music/playing? Were the previous pickups made correctly?
Yep, I have 3 identical guitars with 3 completely different pickups, the difference distorted or not is quite big, I have to change amp settings between all 3 to get the sound i like, and they still sound vastly different. One of the biggest problems is with this whole subject is that everyone hears sound differently, this barely ever gets discussed. I see people all over his comments asking what key a song is or what tuning is being used and I can work that out in a couple of seconds, most of his viewers simply can't. My mate records me, I hear harmonic overtones that he just can't hear, he plays guitar and sings, we all hear things differently.... I'm an ear player of over 40 years and I've NEVER owned a tuner, I do everything by ear, I don't find that special but it surprises a lot of people. I used to tune my mates guitar for him over the phone, he plugged it into his amp and turned it up so I could hear it, and I'd tell him when each string was in tune, he loved it and thought it was great, It's just how I do things, nothing special to me...
I agree with you.
Pickups do matter. Gleen is misleading the youth. If you have been playing awhile. You will know pickups matter 😜
I appreciate the 2012 nostalgia bit man, that was around peak GP/WG era too
Man I miss it so much lol. The days of $1500 JPs.
Ah, so that’s why RUclips recommended the Keith Merrow video to me! Makes sense. I recently upgraded my first pickup-from a Tone Zone to a Suhr SSH+-and while the tonal difference isn’t night and day, it’s definitely smoother and easier to dial in without battling harsh or annoying frequencies. The improvement was enough for me to order a set of Lundgren M6's for my somewhat neglected AZ, and wow, it plays like a completely different instrument now.
When I've already spent two grand or more on a guitar, an extra two to three hundred isn't the end of the world if it makes me enjoy the instrument again.
Exactly! If swapping pickups let's you enjoy the guitar then it's a win!
Keith Merrow's resume and musical output speaks for itself. Glenn is just a youtube gear shill and hasn't produced a noteworthy album in 20+ years.
I saw a video where a guy took a Duncan JB and swapped between five different magnet types. Same guitar, same pickup, same amp, same player. You 100% could hear the difference every swap. Some were very dramatic but all changed the sound.
yo can you link me the video?
@@Mr.Goldbar Can’t post the link but search “can you make the seymour duncan jb better”. Adam Klintworh
@@lostinpa-dadenduro7555 Checked it out, thanks!
I really liked that Alnico 8 JB he had over there, I should pronbably put an Alternative 8 on some of my guitars :D
Keith should prove his point of view with frequency response graphics at least.
You can fake frequency responses by using EQ matching. I own 5 Ibanez RG 7 strings all with different pickups and they all sound different enough that I need to eq my modeler patches to eliminate and compensate for the different tones.
@@shredenvain7 so why no one has made the same test and proved Glenn wrong? Isn't that the point? To replicate the experiment Glenn did and prove him wrong?
@@zeneixi Just go look at the science of loud channel it's full out videos dedicated to how pickups work and even how to make your own. Go watch Keith's video or go watch one of the many andertons videos where a blind folded Rob Chapman can name either the brand or type of pickups in a guitar just from hearing them. Who the hell wants to waste hours making a video to prove the one guy on RUclips who believes pickups do nothing wrong! It's also just common sense. The output of a pickup along with its EQ characteristics can push the front of your amp like a tube screamer of its high output. If it's low output and bass heavy it can make a high gain beast sound weak and tubby. Do you not own more than one guitar?
@@shredenvain7 so, pickups are a religion and only magical thinking is the mindset of guitar players. No measurements, no graphics, no testing, nothing. Wow. Well, I guess I don't own more than a guitar because I chose to go to college and not believe in what guitar pickup shamans preach.
@@shredenvain7it's funny that you mention the science of loud channel, because glen made a video together with him, testing pickups. 🤷🏼♂️ maybe watch that.
Personally, I subscribe to the idea that pickups do make enough of a difference to be worth experimenting with depending on what you're looking for. That said, my understanding of Glenn's argument in his videos isn't that pickups don't matter, rather that they just aren't the most important part of the signal chain that results in your guitar tone, and you can compensate for variances in pickup output and EQ curve elsewhere in the signal chain for less money than the cost of a new aftermarket pickip...he honestly isn't wrong about that. Personally, I find it easier to get as much of the sound that I want from the source instrument itself and then tweak as needed in post production. In other words, I'm a pickup swapper. But I do get where Glenn is coming from. His approach is a little too obnoxious and patronizing for my tastes, but the thrust of what he is saying does have merit. Also, while I'm not as old as Glenn myself, I do find Keith's ageism to be off-putting, and resorting to insults cheapens his argument.
I work as a tech and have done that one way or another for 35 years. Pickups do indeed make a difference but of all the upgrades you can make speakers do make the most difference. He's not wrong on speakers but he is very wrong on pickups. Strings, bridges, the nut and to the smallest level woods make a difference too. Take multiple people's advice and use your ears. You'll find your sound.
This is absolutely stupid. Glenn in fact did not attack Keith.
RUclipsrs do everything to get views
No, the knobs {viewers}from his channel did, they do it all over youtube......
@@MickH60 is he responsible for the actions of his viewers, especially when he even tells them to not attacking someone? I don't think so
Glenn Fricker is literally the Chris-chan of heavy metal. Nothing he says should be given any weight, ever.
The thing about Keith is, he's never bullied anyone in the industry who didn't deserve it.
Glenn makes fun of bass players because a bass pickup swap will blow his theory out of the water. If pickups didn't matter all basses would sound the same, however, if you have passive versus active, on bass, there is a big difference. The science behind pickups do not help Glenn either. Pickups will affect your strings. The stronger the magnet, the tighter the response.
yeah I never heard him mention anything about different types of bass pickups or active vs passive, only new strings and his Element bass plugin (which is just a worse version of Neural DSP Parallax). Even with the same preset on his Element plugin his Jazz and his Dingwall would sound different from each other, not to mention all the other basses out there lol
@@Mr.Goldbar I know one pickup that will kill Glenn's Theories. Sustaniac.
@@sinakaedwards2009 And about that last point, that's a very interesting conclusion. I know for sure that stronger magnets make the pickup louder and that Dimarzio for example puts way more emphasis on the magnets to determine output rather than DC resistance.
@@Mr.Goldbar I really base the tighter response part on theory, but the stronger the magnet the more they pull on strings. I'm not an expert on guitars for sure, I play bass, however, there is a big difference between a Thunderbird and a P bass.
@@sinakaedwards2009 thunderbird and P bass pickups are constructionally super different, I'd love to hear the difference between different strengths of magnets on the same P pickup for example :)
I do predict it's gonna be similar to adjusting the pickup higher or lower, higher does give more output and high end from my experience both on guitar and on bass at the expense of a little bit of the natural sustain.
The thing with Dimarzio is that they put such strong magnets in their high output pickups and even vice verse, they have patents that both increase and decrease magnetic pull, the Virtual Vintage thing where they hide tiny little pole pieces inside the bobbins between the ones you see, and the Airbucker thing where they found a way to somehow leave more space between the magnet and the pole pieces to simulate a weakening aged magnet.
They have 11K DC pickups that have the same output as 16K DC pickups from other companies and even some of their other pickups, and the higher the DC resistance the less high end frequencies the pickup will have, so that's why I instantly thought of them when I read your comment :)
Glenn’s thing is being loud and obnoxious. Those two traits don’t equate to intelligent.
That just reminds me of Spongebob.
Squidward : People talk loud when they wanna sound smart, right?
Plankton : CORRECT
This is true (though it also doesn't mean the opposite, that they aren't). Someone being loud has nothing to do with them being right or wrong. However, it is indeed a strategy to cut the conversation short by being rude, to drive others away from responding.
I've watched Glenn's videos, and to be fair he does point out that he never said that pickups make no difference, he says they make a miniscule difference, and when being recorded in a high gain situation and through a microphone the difference is even less intelligible, I don't know that I agree with that but I'm also not a professional sound engineer, but I do know the three electric guitars I have, one is the KM7 FR-S from schecter, with the Seymour Duncan Nazgul in the bridge, the other is a Ernie Ball Music Man majesty, with a DiMarzio Illuminator in the bridge in the third is a Epiphone mkh Les Paul Custom and it has emgs, and I am playing through a Fender Mustang V2 head into the 412 cabinet that comes with it, and I can definitely tell the difference between those three pickups, can I prove it scientifically? No, but as a visually impaired person who has relied on my ears for my entire life I know what I hear when I'm sitting in front of the amplifier and again I am no sound engineer so if I were to record that amplifier and listen back using the three different guitars maybe I would not hear a difference.
yeah what many of the "scientific" camp like Glenn forget is that senses are very individual. Some people are naturally born with some senses weakened, enhanced or more sensitive.
Glenn literally manipulates the gain staging when he records his guitar pickup comparisons. It's obvious there are differences.
But thats part of his point when your recording you can use an eq to change the sound
@@Durkhead Yes but change the sound means it sounds different in the first place. Glenn's actual point is that speakers have the largest effect on your sound. He is right but to say all pickups sound the same with distortion is ludicrous. The output of the pickup is really important and the method of winding the coils literally determines the EQ shape of the pickup. The magnet type effects both the output and it can act as a high pass and low pass filter. Glenn actually claims to not touch the EQ in his comparison. What he does is he level matches the Direct signal of the various pickups so they have equal volume but it literally changes the dynamics of the pickups in his tests. Hence why he claims they don't sound different
@@shredenvain7 In my opinion, unless the pickups are very noisy or microphoned, it is not worth the investment to change them, since by manipulating the equalization or, in the digital case, changing between response impulses, you can achieve very similar results.
@@Superman-pn1rx I believe in as little manipulation beyond the constant parts of my rig. If one guitar requires further manipulation than what I have for other guitars then something's wrong and should get replaced
Fricker said that theres a such a minuscule difference between pups. He never claimed there NO difference.
I want Nolly to chime in.
Isnt that a drug or somthn?
Glenn didn't Said that Pickups doesn't matter, he Said that they don't matter that much/give you The tone shift they Promise, and that The investiment is not worth it in is oppinion
My ears are very good...I can't tell appart Keith's tone over most other metal guitar players..can't tell if it's active or passive or dimarzio or emg
You "think" your ears are good, I hear the differences easily....
I won't tell between different brands, but I will definitely tell between active and passive.
Glen gave Keith some good words and said good things of him in that video. Sounded like praise haha but hey who knows
Been playing high gain for twenty years. Own everything from tube amps, combos, to modellers to every ndsp plugin to Gibson usa , custom shop to Harley Benton to squire...
Pickups matter and make a difference.
If you disagree, thats your right. We can agree to disagree.
He's saying pickups don't matter . Because he's not that great of a guitar player and pickups can't fix his fingers.
To be fair, Glenn's been very open about not being a good guitar player but a producer that also can play a few chords.
@@rutger4131 He's NOT a producer, he's a mix engineer and an average one at that....
@@MickH60 excuse my typo. The lines between the two are often blurred anyway. Cheers.
@@MickH60 yeah I don't think he even calls himself a producer, he's an engineer and it's totally different. There are opposite cases aswell, back in the day the engineer, the producer and the arranger were totally different people working together, only in the last 15-20 or so years it became a one person's job.
I sold a design to S7G and have an unfinished prototype of that model I designed. Sadly it never made the light of day, but I still talk to Jim every now and then. Super bummed to see how S7G went down.
I didnt go into this in the video, but I was a MASSIVE Ola and Keith Fan back in the day (still am) and I actually messaged Jim. He got back to me like 3 months later, after I had gotten my first 7 string, about getting a guitar and his prices were about to go up. I kinda ignored the email at the time but I am SOOO glad I didnt send him any money. Sorry about your proto.
Fun fact: Glenn never said that speakers are the ONLY thing that matters. The most important part of your rig to focus on? Yeah, especially since just moving your mic a few millimeters can drastically change your tone.
The problem isn't Glenn. It's the people who both hate him and love him that seem to hear only what they want to hear.
Yeah the thing about Glenn is, I get his point, he's not completely wrong, but he's pushing so much to drive his point home that he's making the part where he is not 100% right the center of attention. Sure, in the hierarchy of what makes a drastic difference in a high gain recorded sound, speakers/impulses are #1, while pickups are a bit more subtle. But pickups and strings are still the actual source of your sound, and what's that old saying for recording, crap in -> crap out? Or else why would he bother ranting about bass players not changing strings 😅
What I think he's going for with this though, is that on a limited budget the difference between pickups isn't proportional to the amount of money you'll pay. Heck, even just retail prices for pickups aren't 1:1 with quality. But the way he tries to push people's buttons is stripping away some validity from his arguments 🤷♂️
What's funny is that he did admit that using newer strings does have a different and better tone than strings that are older and need to be changed so he's a hypocrite here
Comparing DI-s is comparing strings and pickups. Comparing the actual sound is comparing the signal chain that comes after the DI.
i don't think anything Glen talks about on his channel applies to live tone.
Is live tone that important, tho? Does the audience care if you use a Black Winter or a Warpig PU?
@@DerSilvano should all decisions be based around other people though?
Pickups sound, response and EQ definitely matters. Glenn is a beginner level guitar hobbyist.
incredibly ignorant comment at best...
@@sirspongadoodle Why do we have so many types of microphones? the tone is in the voice lol.
@@sirspongadoodle You were obviously talking to yourself...?
@@putontheseglasses8809 microphones are eseentially a reverse speaker which pickup acoustic energy, pickups only pickup electric (edit i meant magnetic*) energy, i would have assumed youd have done some researcch but clearly not…
@@MickH60 oh nice one you really got me with all your well thought out response…
The difference is Glen EQ adjusts after every pickup swap to prove that with EQ everything can sound pretty much the same.
However, if you were to leave the EQ the same for each pickup test you would notice those differences much more clearly.
I think Glen needs to do a better job at clarifying that in his tests, he’s right that with EQ you can make things sound very similar, but he’s not being up front about that being done in his pickup tests.
"PICK UPS DON'T MATTER, PICK UPS DON'T MATTER" but he never said that now did he?? (I could be wrong word for word) but the conclusion that was made up by his experiments is "YOU ALMOST CANNOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE OF HUMBUCKERS TO OTHER HUMBUCKERS (In the context of metal tones), that's quite different from what everyone is going on about claiming that he said "pick ups don't matter" I believe he never said that.,
there was even a blind test on his channel showcasing the different guitar pickups if they are distinguishable from one to another, and yet almost NO BODY was able to match which guitar/brand was to its appropriate sound, I mean if hum bucker pick ups make such a huge difference (as everyone is claiming) and have their own distinguishable tone then how come almost no one was able to tell which guitar is which?. the thing is though almost everyone disagrees and say yes the wood makes a HUGE difference, the paint makes a HUGE difference, the pickups (from one hum bucker to another)makes a HUGE difference and yet NEVER has a tone chart or graph comparing this claim. Not even the manufacturers' themselves present comparisons. perhaps people's ego also makes the greatest contribution to the argument.
I am not here to argue , I am quire neutral when it comes to the topic and I enjoy multiple guitars and multiple set ups and gear as much as the next guy but its just that I think people are putting words into other people's mouths just to feed and conform their own ego. hey its the internet after all 😇
Indeed Glenn Fricker Said that there is a difference, but not the tonal shift that it is expected and not worth it in his oppinion.
He didn't say Pups don't matter. He simply suggests (and largely proves) that in the context of a metal mix and high gain tones, they particular pickup you are using (not switching to single coils or anything like that) have a minimal difference in the tone compared to switching cabs or speakers. But people like to falsely represent what people say to match their own biases and opinions just to drum up fake drama.
@@RyanWright exactly and he is going to do The same test as Keith did, changing and resoldering Pickups. But in Glenn's video that is mentioned here he says at about 2:30 that Pickups do make a difference, altough is not that signifficant.
A guitar is a combination of its parts. The importance placed on pickups is the biggest issue. The difference in pickups is small and, generally, not the night and day difference that the marketing makes it out to be.
I've spent a lot of money and time swapping pickups and parts, and there are pickups i tend to always go back to over and over (Sh2 Jazz and Cool Rails). My advice to the kid starting out is to buy a better amp before you spend time and money on pickups. Changing pickups should be one of the last things to change to really fine tune your sound if you think its necessary.
for clean guitar, for metal its honestly just a waste of money, your pick choice will have a bigger impact on tone...
Then why isn’t Glenn using chibson pickups?
Why should he? Whatever comes in the guitar is pretty much good enough
@@DerSilvano to further prove his point
The contradiction of pickups not mattering in a high-gain context yet Keith's video showing the slight yet noticeable difference the various SD bridge buckers to people who don't have trained ears (me) just hurts my brain. I don't have a real take on the drama, but I did want to express how I feel about that paradox.
"slightly, yet noticable" for 300 bucks a set, while the same money get's you 2 high quality 12" speakers that will change your sound not "slightly" but massively. glens videos are all about cost to performance. he never said pickups don't matter, they are just not worth it, if you're on a budget.
@@TheWolvesCurse sometimes I don't want that huge difference if I'm satisfied with everything else in my rig. Nobody should be discouraged from investing how much they see as right for the tiny details.
@@Mr.Goldbar please read the last line of my comment again.
@@TheWolvesCurse I read it and it is in fact right, too bad Glenn didn't say it though.
Granted I'm fortunately not on very tight budgets most of the time, but with tight budgets and with different priorities you might have to settle with the 95% result.
@@Mr.Goldbar he talks about budget in each and every video about gear.
Bro i have this strat mij and the pickups sound like an ice pick stabbing you in the face. Even my wife and daughter always commented " is it supposed to sound like that?" short story long. I put a JB and 2 single scooped singles and the difference is day and no ice pick to you temple.
My take on Glenn is that he is saying in heavy metal,to the listener,in a mix pickups don’t matter, he sort of has a point, but as a guitar player myself they absolutely matter to the player and there is a difference.
Do you know who agrees Glenn's view on pickups? Pickup maker Dylan Talks Tone. He reviewed the video and admits the tonal difference on the pickups is negligible. Glenn has done multiple full mixed with swapped pickups at undisclosed points and no one has been able to identify where the pickups are swapped. Glenn never says they don't make a difference. He says the difference is small and with gain, in a full mix that difference is nonexistent.
So I feel like Glenn is out to shock people more than inform people. His point is quite valid, in that anything later in the chain will affect the sound more than things earlier in the chain. And differences in pickups tonally, can be EQ'ed in posted as well. Nothing wrong with that.
But what Glenn is missing, is that not everyone is looking at the finished, recorded product. It's about the feel, the feel in the room, how it sounds next to the amp etc.
The dynamics of the pickups, the clarity, the output, the support you get from them, which frequencies push the pre-amp and like you said, how easy they can make it to get that tone you want.
He's (badly) pushing the vision of a producer/mixer to a crowd of players. Even if put eloquently will always be a clash of visions, let alone if put poorly
Let them duke it out live on RUclips,....ill watch that action .
GIVE ME ALL THE JUICY RUclips DRAMA!
Guitar youtube in the early 2010 is when our civilization peaked
This is why I stopped listening to Glenn's opinions and advice. Maybe it's click bait, but I'm not sure about that. he seems very passionate. If he do believe what he says, it proves, at least to me, that he really does not know much about sound. And I don't care about how experienced he says he is, or his background. Not at all. Amps, pickups, strings, speakers. Everything makes a difference. Experienced guitarist knows that. And I really couldn't care less about his opinions when it comes to that. He just makes me laugh. :-)
Pickups are just magnets that serve as base EQ (the windings around the magnets). Put an EQ between the guitar and the amp and your x pickup will sound like any y pickup. Nothing special about whatever the pickup one has in their instrument and quite pointless to swap pickups for some infinite tone-chasing black hole of money. With high gain it's even less and more trivial variance in sound.
Of course aftermarket OEM-s will say anything to increase their sales, but nobody can defy physics.
So you think changing the magnets and the size and amount of windings makes no difference ? If that's so, go get some new ears....
@@MickH60 You understood exactly nothing of what I wrote there, buddy.
When you stop listening to his inane nonsense life instantly gets better.
Haha - these flare ups between personalities seem to happen fairly regularly. It's usually beneficial for all parties involved. 🤷♂
Glenn is more Clown than anything else. He tells people their ears arent hearing what they know they are. I have swapped pickups in everything but a couple of Gibsons. Absolutely things like Pickups can make a huge sonic difference. I replace the Epiphone Pro Bucker with a DiMarzio Super Distortion and the sonic difference was night and day. Same with speaker. I Replaced the Crap Celestion Rocket 50 with a Celestion Vintage 30 and again Night and Day difference in tone. For the record Glenn doesnt play very well and his tones he pushes are nothing that blows my skirt up. Ymmv.
Very true, his playing is elementary and he's never had a tone that dropped my jaw.
The Vulvodynia homies have some incredible tone, don't know what gear they use, don't really care.
I am hyper-specific about my tone and the feel of pickups, but context matters and a wide range of stuff that doesn't sound good on its own works perfectly fine in a mix and vice-versa. I think Glenn's pickup doesn't matter video is massive clownery. Not to say Glenn hasn't offered good advice before, he has, but the pickups not mattering is just horseshit. I fucking hate DiMarzios and always replace them LOL.
Well, first of all, Glenn is a production & recording engineer first and a guitar player a distant second. He never markets himself as a guitar player and he makes more than enough self deprecating comments about his guitar playing, I don't even know why you guys brought it up. His guitar playing skills are not relevant at all to the discussion being had here.
Second, his guitar playing is easily decent enough for him to demonstrate the point(s) he is trying to make, whether right or wring, so again, I dunno why that was brought up, unless it was just to try and insult the guy.
Is he a virtuoso? Does that matter? No.
Finally, yes, Glenn is a bit of a windbag at times, and at times he may not be staying in his lane, but at the end of the day, I really feel Glenn is trying to help guitar players spend their money as wisely and as frugally as possible, because we all know we (guitar players) like to throw our money around needlessly.
@@klauswigsmiththis is like the dumbest shit. To say whether a pickup don’t matter you have to be a decent guitar player with a specific preference in terms of tone and playability. You will then have your reference points at least. It is conclusively proven that the pickups do sound and play different, you have to be really deaf or stupid to say otherwise. As regards protecting the guitar players money, there is nothing wrong in trying gear such as pickups and selling them if you dont like them. So what he could do is to check whether the description of the specific pickup on the manufacturers site is valid. Those are cliches and misleading indeed most times. But to do this you have to try stuff, be a decent guitar player and have preferences. Glenn does not qualify. Instead this moron affects the market by degrading the whole class of products, which restricts the natural movement of inventory. He promotes ignorance and insults guitar players for the sake of hype, thats what he does. I still don’t get why people consume this shit
@@klauswigsmithall these musicians easily hear the sutiles between different pickups. Until you put them into a double blind test
Every cared to take Frequency Response graphs? Prolly not
I know what my experience is. I've changed pickups in all of my guitars. There is a difference at the lower, cheaper end of the scale. My Yamaha AES was dramatically altered by it. The stock pups were mushy and not articulate. I never understood this argument.
I'm not a fan of Glenn Fricker but he never said that pickups made zero difference. His point was that when playing metal through a high gain amp, the thing
that makes "The Most" difference is the speaker. He admits that pickups and amps give you a slight difference in tone but speakers can change your tone
drastically. Obviously some pickups are hotter than others and some amps have more gain or EQ than others but put 4 Jenson speakers in your cabinet, then
replace them with Green Backs or Texas Heats and let me know what you hear.
Keith should have taken the high road & simply ignore this BS.
I think he had some sort of outburst during the Strictly7 drama too.
@@theironsheik6322 I can see how it generates views etc but yeah..
Keith is right though Fricker is a hack spreading misinformation.
Yeah Glenn gets carried away and its best to just ignore when people do that.
@@theironsheik6322 The frets fell out of those guitars. If telling people that is an outburst, then yeah, I straight bursted a nut all over that one!
KM is a great guitar player but a pretty shit human. This dude Keith will argue and get nasty about anything or anyone that disagrees with him.
Killer guitar player man I just wish the guy could ignore the comments lol
I call BS on Keith Merrow's video. The differences in sound are greater than what pickups alone would affect.
Uncle Bucas is back baby!
This drama is wild honestly
Glenn didn’t say pickups have zero difference. Just not enough difference to matter when compared to speakers.
People like you just further drama.
Glenn is insufferable, can’t stand his personality and energy, whether it’s a persona for RUclips or that’s who he really is. FYI, as someone who’s played multiple amps, cabs, pedals, etc, changing the pickups on an old Strat with some Bareknuckles was one of the biggest tonal and sonic changes I’ve ever experienced with guitar.
I was gonna write a giant novel/rant detailing a first hand experience of mine where a pickup change fixed the tone of a guitar so much that I decided not to sell it, but instead I'll just say that maybe, in a way, I'm strangely happy that Glenn is pedaling his bullshit to a bunch of idiots that think he's right. It serves a function of gatekeeping good tone for the real ones. Honestly I haven't heard a mix of his, or tone of his in any video that made me stick around and not click off and find a video that sounded better.
Nobody has said pickups all sound exactly the same. The reality is pickups of the same type largely sound the same in most instances. I have seen that myself over the years. I have a pile of guitars here. If I plug in various humbucker guitars to the same amp? Gained up they largely sound very close to each other. Even from cheap to very expensive. This has been done in a million tests now on RUclips as well and shown to be the case, but I have heard it myself with my own pile of guitars and being into recording and producing a lot. It isn't just Glenn tho, ML Sound Labs did their own test, 10 guitars, and if you listen to the recordings - they sound very close to each other. Not perfectly identical, but close.
What Glenn is trying to drill into people's heads is that if you aren't loaded with money, there are far better ways to sound better than spending the little money you have on new pickups.
Glenn's point is that in the context of a high gain mix, your pickups will have VERY little effect. Which is true. What pickups will affect in a high gain scenario is the feel of the instrument, and some difference in tone.
Another point that needs to be made is if you are swapping pickups, and then claiming the tone improved, there isn't much credence to that unless you did a before and after recording to verify, as your biases and imagination can impact what you think you are hearing.
It is important to have some nuance here.
All i learned from this video is that Keith Merrow is an insecure little wussy ( like most guitarists are tbh)
Say it to his face, the internet gives a voice to the gutless, well done....
@@MickH60 oh my, look at Mr though stuff right here, i'm so scared, lmao.
Yeah, just like Keith did towards Glenn, right?
Kinda sucks because I love both of them. I would love if they would get along and do a colab on finding out together by doing the tests together. I never heard Glenn say anything bad about Keith. It would be cool since they both have opposing views on having a discussion and then trying to validate their findings would be huge. I don't think calling him a dork helps....All metal dudes (including myself) are dorks.... how many times have we been insulted for being metal heads.
It's unfortunate Glenn uses his platform to start bizarre drama in the guitar industry...
Dude stick on topic so hard to watch when we hear you rant off ropic
He is not a good RUclipsr
On Glenn's video, the only time that I hear a difference is when swaps in the P90. I've never cared about tone though, if that's just me I'm fine with that.
IMO - Everything matters.
MOSTLY the PLAYER.
My take is what do you YOU have to offer to the argument? Get back to me soon Jerry.
Well let me ask this simply. Were Keiths strings the same strings? Did his microphone ever move? Did his amp settings ever change? Were the pickups the exact same size, as in was one wider or taller than another? We do not know Keiths process, and we do know Glenns. One MAJOR issue with your video is you flat out lie about what Glenn said, time stamp and show the video where Glenn says a pickup does not have a sound. You need to do better
Sorry pal, this is fabricated lies. Glen has always clarified that pick-ups do make a difference in tone, except in a high-gain metal context, they will account for a minimal difference. Be sure to fact check your sources next time.
There is a video on RUclips (a little bit older) where Glenn and someone else, I don’t remember who it was, did a review on the Engl Fireball 100. If I remember correctly the other dude played his guitar through the amp first. When it was Glenn’s turn he connected another guitar to the amp, played some riffs and mentioned that his guitar sounds a lot more dark in comparison to the other one. And it did. But I have no clue how it should be even possible that one guitar sounds brighter or darker than another…
I mean if all the humbuckers out there sound more or less the same or don’t have any sound by itself at all, that sentence doesn’t make any sense to me. Or was it a different factor than the pickups which caused a darker tone of the guitar? Did he believe in a different tone coming from another tone wood? Doubt it.
By the way we are talking about heavily compressed high gain tones coming from that stack. So especially in this case every pickup should sound similar in his nowadays opinion.
I’m writing this with respect for Glenn and his content. He has a lot of entertaining and helpful videos on his channel which I enjoy. But on this topic I’m just too skeptical to agree with him.
Install pickup. Strum all your strings at once over and over since that's easy to recreate perfectly, and capture the EQ curve along with the amplitude. Change pickup, and rinse and repeat the process. Do it with multiple pickups and you're have an exact visualisation of what the difference is. Will you see a huge difference? nahh. Will you see small differences? yeah. The real question is whether or not you want to pay $100 extra for 1db cut in the low end between two frequencies. Is A LOT of this in peoples heads? absolutely.
In every single album you love, the pickup was about the least important thing in the chain. Like, if anyone thinks changing pickups will have them sound like their favourite album or band, it just won't. Because even if your pickup was exactly the same (it wont be due to factory difference tolerances), the position of it won't be perfectly the same, and so that changes the EQ curve significantly more.
The final big thing is in order for any of this to really matter, we'd have to pretend we aren't EQ'ing before and after the amp, in which case all fo this stuff kinda goes out of the window.
this canadian bases his whole living on creating drama and stirring up controversies to get clicks. a huge chunk of every single video of his is him arguing with people and cursing them out for daring to comment on his parasitic content with different opinions. ALL of his videos have clickbait titles and thumbnails. he's the archetypical youtuber that will do everything for a few clicks and subs. he cant play the guitar to save his life yet he has a thousand opinions on the instrument...it's really a sad existence
Of course pickups make a difference, Glenn knows that too. What he is saying that most of the time, they dont make $200 of a difference, for looks obviously get them, but if you expect to get the tone of your dreams from a fresh set you are delusional. The pickups (if we are talking about humbuckers on high gain tones) make up 5% of your tone and contribute more to the feel, while cabs 60-70%. Read beetween the lines.
If you can´t hear the difference between a SH4 "JB" and a SH 6 "Distortion" you better search some help by a doctor.
Glenn is a far f can’t stand him
A contrarian, know it all Canadian, who's actually wrong about most shit he says?
Never heard of it before...
Except, he isn't
I personally don't give a fuck about "drama in guitar-RUclips. I think it all comes down to taste. Do as much research as you possibly can and then come up with your own conclusions. Here's mine: Glen is right about speakers. I believe over half of the tone comes from speakers. However, pickups are very impactful on your guitar sound as well. Your amp head is also important. I personally believe the type of tubes can make a difference as well (specifically pre amp tubes). I've tried four different brands and could hear an obvious difference. Mind you, it was not a mind blowing difference, but a difference indeed. What I am trying to say is that there are so many spices in the spice wrack to choose from. Pick your spices to make your personal dish and enjoy the fuck out of it. RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENT!
I mean if you do a lot of post processing you can make a lot of things sound the same lol. But if you're in a room or even just do a non mixed review, the difference is there whether it's small, big or anything noticeable. I always consider pickups more of a fine tuner to your tone and how it responds to your playing.
seems like alot of saltiness with little actual evidence , misrepresenting statements doesn't help your position , i do see alot of fanboy behavior and bootlicking . put up or shut up. id like to see actual testing and frequency response graphs ill wait.. to that end this whole video seems like at its core is motivated by bruised egos rather than proving glenn wrong.
Maybe Mr Fricker is being controversial to get views , nothing is written in Stone in the Music world especially with Guitar , and especially now what with the amount of Gear that's available to every player on every level . I will never forget the first time I saw Jeff Loomis play and Loomis led me to Keith Merrow , I'd been playing Guitar for quite awhile and I'm an old man compared to them and I just couldn't believe what I was seeing watching Jeff Loomis riding lightning speed up and down that 7 string Schector Guitar and his Sweep Picking is the best in the business .
I dont know why Glenn has gone so hard on this, the whole thing is silly.
I mean, take your rig right now, and change nothing but the pickups, and try to tell me with a straight face that it doesnt change. This isnt something that requires debate, it is clearly obvious to anyone with ears.
Same thing applies to EVERY modular part, to greater or lesser degrees. Thats why we have modular parts.
And the thing is - I agree with Glenn that speakers make the MOST difference, and to me that is again plainly obvious and not something that needs to be vetted.
And as an OG guitar RUclips punter, if I have to "pick a side" its going to be Keith all f'n day.
I’m glad this popped off because glens videos have been pissing me off for years being someone who followed Kieth and ola back in those early days has experience changing pickups in the same guitar just as you talked about with the bare knuckles I got 20 guitars a couple have the same JB and still don’t sound the same and that’s not even talking about feel. Kind of shows us how little glen knows and most his mixes sound shitty anyway so there’s that lol
I own 5 different guitars all with different pick ups...the only pick up that sounds significantly different than others is the dimebucker...Duncan solar have more less gain and more bass than dimarzio diactivators..and dimarzio have more separation between notes than fishmans...strandberg pickups have a lot of top end and less output..most of that can be evened out with a tiny bit of eq..the rest is all the same shit..but I'll tell you what..Fishman have a great clean tone
You actually just explained that they all sound different and explained why. Respectfully if you don't change EQ and play you could possibly (probably) hear the difference in each or at least 3-4 out of 5. The fact you would use EQ to even them out IS the point. If they sounded the same there would be no need to change anything.
@@Barnabus007 they are also diffrguitars..
@@carlitosASJ True. However of the one with similar scale lengths it is still sort of the "Anti-Fricker" position because he (and others) will say wood is mostly irrelevant. By the way I'm not arguing with what you lerceive to hear or claiming I have super hearing, but I have I have played guitars with swapped pickups (both singles and hn) and could def. hear a noticeable change.
Glenn is a sad old man, who seeds rage and hate because he got nothing else to say.
Sounds like you don't listen, or get his points. Or... both
Coming from a sound engineer/technician does not say much in its favor
A pickup is a microphone, so the microphones don't matter either, only what the guru says.
I don't think they work in the same way. I might be wrong though.
Pickups are NOT microphones. The "pickup" a magnetic field.
I like Glenn. He is right about Gibson, I bought a LP Tribute and it's hogwash. I payed like 350 dollars less for a PRS SE and it's way better
Glen sounds like tom hanks
Tom hanks did a movie called a leage of their own where tom hanks has a famous line that he yells THERS NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! thats where the title comes from