CHEAP vs EXPENSIVE Guitar Pickups! - Can You Hear The Difference?
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- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
- In this week's video we compare a set of $15 pickups vs a set of $150 pickups!
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Soli Deo Gloria!
Always making good, useful & genuinely interesting comparisom vids. Keep it up man!!
+All Kinds Thanks man!
Darrell Braun Guitar brother, can you pls make a detailed video of Framus custom master built pantera 'll supreme!!
All kindzz.....
All Kinds here here. Legendary.
Great vid - kind of shocking. Out of interest, what amp/effect set up were you using?
NIce demonstration of the fact that it's always the last 10% of sound costing 90% of the money.
Pretty much guitar industry in a nutshell.
What a great statement. Very much like wine. a $50 bottle of wine is only a little better than a $25 bottle, which is only a little better than a $13 bottle.
Yea, and a good amp is much more important than whatever pickups you have unless they're like the ones on those Amazon no name guitars
@@michael83479 Yes, amp and speaker matter more unless the pickups are truly garbage.
@@michael83479 these pups are only $15 for all 3, can't get much cheap than that and they sound fine
Every time I watch this video... the little voice inside me goes "stop shopping for pickups and practice!"
Exactly
Have you been practicing?
Well said.. I spend 3 hours today to decide how my Bare Knuckle radiator pickups WILL be looking when I'm gonna be having the money to buy them. Lol.. I might as well decide then (when that time comes), and practice my a$$ in the meantime.
@rio .....here’s some wisdom I got - - don’t just practice, but listen to yourself as you play. Sounds kind of stupid to say, but my playing has improved since I started doing that.
And record your self, and actually listen to it. The microphone doesn’t lie.
Great guitarists plays, miserable guitarists buy stuff. That's why I have 7 guitars, 2 amplifiers and 11 pedals.
actually it's absurd that we still pay some hundreds of dollars for a 70yo technology. it's more or less as if you were gonna pay 600$ for a nokia 3310, just because there is a strong brand logo. it's a magnet with some cables around, c'mon! by the way, great video, as always!
@Kurt Cobain it's funny cuz it's kinda true... In the end it's all a synergy between the pickups, Amp and even the cables... And obviously SKILL !!!
To be honest, there is actually a difference between both. I switched my oem pickups on my yamaha eg112c with the lace sensor pickups, and to be honest, the sound was really different. But yeah, depends
If you just play yes but if you're recording no
Lol your logic
@@nocapmajor O my girlfriend! When the design even has an entirely different name, how on earth could you NOT hear a difference?! Are you kidding? A standup guitar player?
I spent years replacing pickups on MIM Strat and a made in Indonesia Squire Strat. After a lot of money being spent on Seymour Duncan and Dimarzio, I went back to the stock pickups and realize they were the best sounding pickups of all. A Friend of mine did the same thing with his. Live and learn. The grass is not always greener on the other side. Its just a different shade of green.
I have a cheap 15 year old Squire that has amazing sounding pickups! I want all my Strats to sound like it! Go figure!
You mean, "its just a whiter shade of pale"
Well said
I’m a custom guitar builder. I use $40 Wilkinson ceramics as standard equipment in all my builds. I’ve yet to have someone complain about the sound. It’s all a scam.
Exactly. Anyone who understands a pickup and how easily and cheaply they're made, understands the absolute rip offs that are out there.
There are definitely good and bad sounding pickups. I just don’t think cost is a factor that dictates sound. I also think that the minute differences between them can be overcome with your amp. Output is most important. So is single coil vs Humbucker. Buy pickup type and with with output based on the type of music you play.
Yep. I'm very happy with my the stock pickups on my Les Paul, Jackson and Kramer Baretta.
Hey man how do I stop all the buzzing on my strings?
@@domdraper3221 noise gate, humbucker, or hot rail single coil.
Pretty damn good for 15 bux
For real..
Vince Brown the creators of this pick ups also sell Floyd Rose style bridges for 80$! They’re officially licensed
@@forbiddensun9524 you probably get what you pay for on the floyd rose bridges, would risk it haha
Yeah, the extras cost for expensive pickups gave me ability to hear the fret buzz :)
This is the beauty of the internet today. 25 years ago, looking through catalogs and listening to guitar salesmen, you'd be inundated with so much marketing garbage. Tonewoods, "vintage voiced" pickups, resonance and sustain (which.... lol--if the body is resonating a lot it means it's absorbing a lot of the vibration, which means less sustain) etc. almost mean absolutely nothing, and even if there were any discernible difference, you'd have to be playing alone in a room and listening extremely carefully to really notice anything. But A/B tests of pickups, woods, expensive and cheap pedals, etc. just proves that much of what goes on in the industry is pure BS marketing, or differences that are so negligible that there are massively diminished returns after surpassing certain price points for specific items (pickups, pedals, amps, etc.).
So true
Totally agree with you! That is the same issue with guitar’s body. Plenty of electric instruments today are made without body (just the skeleton) and they sound as well as if they have been made with an extremely exotic Brazilian wood or something else!
With amps is other story, but I agree with your comment.
well said
Sorry diese828, that's a big myth that the body will "take away" resonance through "absorption". The word "resonance" MEANS "the intensification and enriching of a musical tone by supplementary vibration". This supplementary vibration includes feedback from the guitar body itself which is recycled (not absorbed) through the neck, body and strings. And while "tone wood" is a myth (mostly), chambers and cavities in the wood also impart changes to tone and sustain through the pickups. Again via sympathetic vibration (resonance), certain frequencies are emphasized, while others are not, causing those frequencies to recycle back to the strings. If this were not the case certain guitars - notably ES175 and other hollow bodies - would not have the well known feedback issues at high volumes. This is extra vibration coming from speakers and resonating in the hollows causing the strings to vibrate out of control. But it doesn't happen nearly as easily on solid bodies due to less chambers for resonance. If you think you can get good sustain by suspending strings between unconnected points in space, good luck with that. You will "lose" the same amount of vibration into the ethers (or whatever) that would otherwise get fed back into the loop of the strings via a resonant body. If you have ever owned a hollow/semi-hollow or neck-through instrument you would likely know this from experience.
When you have resonances you also have anti resonances where your tone disappear. An extreme example is an almost disappearing note on a well known popular bass guitar. diesel828 is not suggesting unsupported floating strings. On the contrary you will have a natural frequency at zero Hz and no tones. In an electric guitar we want the opposite. We want infinite stiff supports for the pickups to work without mechanical filtering. That is not possible and the electric guitar is a compromise. Normally the first natural frequency of a solid body guitar is determined by the neck and body to neck connection. The next natural frequency may be determined by the body to neck connection and the following natural frequencies are influenced by mass density and stiffness of the solid body. This is not the full explanation but just a rough overview.
The secret is 500$ amp
Edit : wow I got 100 likes but I'm a *small youtuber 😢😥
Manoj kumar 1000$ m8
3000
@@williemurray2523 yeah ✌
According to my ears the difference between the $15 ones and the $150 ones is $135.
Thanks Darrell, I own a Squier Strat and the neck is the best on any guitar I have played & it sounds great, all stock.
Ray Ross what squier model do u have?
Macief, a standard model, was $300.00 Can. 2 years ago, maybe I got lucky, but it is a very good guitar.
I have the same experience, Squier necks are generally really good.
agree man! I had a cheap of the cheap affinity HSS, and I do play only in neck. (via DI)
affinity or bulllet?
The real question is: During a Live setting would you be able to tell if the guitarist was playing on $5 pickups or $150 pickups? I wouldn't.
mindblown
unless they were feeding back like crazy
Depends on the trousers. (See: The Rutles)
they feel different
@@jannatinkarlen8702 I haven't noticed.
It's long overdue, and I know this is an old video, but I really owe you and this video and need to give you my thanks. I bought an old, massively screwed up squier bullet from a work buddy for $20, just to mess with and kinda customize and rebuild. Took me four hours late into the night, using almost every tool I own (filing and sanding the frets and neck edges, opening out the headstock holes for the tuners, which I replaced, soldering in a new loaded pickguard, resoldering the input jack, e.t.c.), about $60 or so in parts (the loaded pickguard and tuners), and a lot of sweat, but it's now a sweet strat (which I affectionately call my ratocaster) and is easily my favorite guitar in my collection, and is pretty much always my go-to now. I went straight to guitar fetish for my loaded pickguard based on this video. So once again, my lovely ratocaster and I give you our thanks.
I have put many of those Guitarfetish $15 Strat pickup sets in my project Strats. It started when I was bought an MIM Strat body(unloaded) and I wanted to try to keep my costs down. I saw the $15 GF pickups and I thought, as you said, Darrell, for $15, if I don't like them, I can get different pickups and replace them. Well... I installed them and when I tested them out, I was blown away that a $15 set of Strat pickups can sound so good. I started buying two sets at a time just to have ready for another project. It became really hard to justify paying $150 for a set of pickups when I can use these $15 pickups. I found it hard to justify $70 and $80 sets, too.
Yes, if you are a professional musician with an amazing ear and can hear really subtle differences, then I can see paying whatever it takes to get the sound you are looking for,
but if you do not have that rare ability, and most of us don't, these $15 pickups are excellent.
Now, just to clarify, as I see in the comments many people making this mistake. These are NOT GFS pickups. These are clearance section pickups on the Guitarfetish web site. They don't come with screws or height adjustment springs. They are not packaged in any way. They arrive wrapped in thin foam-like paper. But they are excellent pickups.
BTW, Guitarfetish also has a set of Tele pickups in the clearance section that are just as good. They are $20 but worth every penny.
Fantastic video. Thank you for making as close to an empirical comparison as possible. In a live gig setting, even the most exquisitely refined ear could not possibly discern a difference. Even in a careful, delicate studio recording, it would impossible to hear any difference if the guitar were mixed in with drums, vocals, or any other instruments. The only remote possibility of hearing a difference is in a side-by-side solo comparison, which is what you gave us. Again, thank you for approaching the subject with wisdom, sanity, good ears, and excellent chops!
+Evan Hansen Thanks Evan!
I'm glad you enjoyed the comparison ☺
4:34 Darrell's bandmates: Hey man amazing tone on that solo!
Darrell: Thanks! That's a Fender custom shop pickup, especially on the harmonics in the beginning you could just hear how they flew off the strings, the string definition...JK, I recorded it with the cheapest pickups ever made!
+John John 😄😄😄👍
Seeing as to how simple of a design a single coil guitar pickup is, I see this as more a comparison between ceramic pickups and alnico. I personally prefer alnico, it's easier to dull the tone down than to try to add chime/clarity to the slightly duller ceramic pups. And this will be true throughout any price range. And as I mentioned earlier, a single coil pickup is a simple design, so as long as you do your homework and are able to figure out as many details about a particular pickup you're looking at (number of winds, alnico or ceramic, and what the output reads on a multimeter) you are pretty safe just finding the best deal. Obviously there are some factors which are less noticable to the ear but are more just the sentimentality of it, like handwound pickups from a particular maker (i.e. Abigal or something), in which case, yeah, you're going to have to pay a premium for that, and if that's what you're into then in my eyes you got just as good of a deal as anyone else getting any other pickup at any other price range. It's your money, your preference, and at the end of the day YOUR guitar tone.
I'm listening through a good quality headphone amp, using high end well broken in headphones and, understanding that the audio has been compressed at least twice (once from video editing and once from RUclips), I honestly couldn't tell much difference until you got to the pos 1 comparison. I was surprised, great video!
Great comparison. The Fenders sounded better to me, but certainly not ten times better.
The Fenders did sound a little better but not enough to pay for imo. BTW, most impressive to me is that you can remember--and play--the same riffs twice in a row. I forget a good riff as soon as I play it.
Lucky he recorded the first time already he played it. Of course, no doubt, the musical memory of a pro, what he is in fact :)
I actually usually not remember how to play, but remember the sound - then the playing of it comes in a moment, I don't know how it happens, probably a connection with my guitar :D
Gee Mac72 YEAH. Definitely
yup. you pay for the name. But be glad its not Gibson prices. They're the Apple Iphone's of the guitar world. They're better..............but not really
I forget where my guitar is after I've played it.
What you tell me is “Cheap is not always bad”
Thanks man!!
Amazing how close the two sets are for a ten fold difference in price! I preferred the clarity of the Fender, but I could not justify the price difference. Just goes to show why even budget guitars sound so good these days. I have a Squier Standard Strat that I love the sound of (through the right amp). It was bought used for an absolute bargain price, so testing out other reasonably priced pick ups is a future option.
That demo caused me to make my first order from GFS! I ordered the overwound set to drive my tube amp a bit more since I don’t use many effects. In fact, I ordered several items from them while I was at it...nearly a whole Strat remodel coming up! Nice playing by the way...believe it or not, you are the only person I subscribe to on here.
+Jeffrey Freel Awesome!
Let me know what the overwound set sounds like!
Thanks so much for subscribing to the channel ☺
Will do!
Update...I’ve been using the overwound set for about three weeks now and I have to say that they are a definite upgrade in tone! I absolutely love the sound of ceramic magnets. They seem to provide very nice harmonics while keeping the sound tighter than alnicos. They also provide such a rounded and warm sound. That said, these also are very snappy while running clean through a tweed style amp sim. These really shine with a bit of drive. I’ve never played so much in my life since I’ve gone to these pickups. My calluses actually keep breaking open! Lol! They are so versatile. Clean sounds great and overdriven really gets my blood pumping. Pinch harmonics are a breeze! The pole pieces are vintage staggered, which I know you aren’t a fan of, but the sound is very balanced. I’m using these pups in a swamp ash SX Hawk I bought from rondo music and I have to say that you can’t get more guitar for the money. With the upgrades I’ve done I’m still in it for under $200 and it plays and sounds amazing!! My favorite guitar I’ve owned was a G&L Legacy USA in swamp ash with a Mary Kaye finish and a tinted Birdseye maple neck but it wasn’t $2000 better than this guitar. I’d recommend these pickups at $100 let alone at $15!!
If you're going to sit around in a quiet room with your tube amp listening to sparkles get the expensive pickups, for everything else get the gfs ones :)
There's the wisdom. The difference in sound exists and it is noticeable but not significant in most real usage situations.
but we like to do both man :D You see that shredder screamo lead guitarist with a 7 string tuned to drop z with 3 fuzz pedals going into his marshall stack .. and you know at home late at night he hits the clear channel bypasses everything , maxes reverb and chorus and strums :D (and denies the hell out of it)
They are NOT GFS pickups.
What a true canuck. you give Canadians a good name in my book
+Nicholas Rogers 😄 Thanks man!
Nicholas Rogers ya I love the shirt. I am Canadian but don't those nice lumberjack shirts...
Nicholas Rogers yeah, but what aboot those Leafs ay?
@Eddie Bjørnsen I'm from Michigan, near the Canadian border. Detroit/ Windsor. Grew up with Canadian TV and radio channels, and Hockey Night in Canada. I think people from each city feel related...i doubt Canadians would admit that, but before Canada went socialist, i felt almost more Canadian at times...That was then however. The leftists ruined Canada.
@Eddie Bjørnsen Sweden is even worse. Better stop feeling guilty, or your race and culture will be wiped out, and soon. You leftists sure get triggered easily.
Dawg when you said the second solo was the fender pickups I was about to puke
I don't understand people saying that they can't notice the difference between the two sets of pickups... For me the difference is just absurd. Great video man! Cheers.
I have been buying the guitar fetish $15 pickups for the past several years putting them in a squire bullet, standard squire strat and other strat copy guitars and i think they sound very good! The original single coil pickups in my squire standard were too bright and thin sounding and when i put the G.F. pickups in the squire it sounded less harsh and thin with a nice rounder tone!
I would recommend anyone doing a project upgrade for a cheaper strat style guitar to buy these pickups,at $15+shipping you cannot beat these pickups for this price!
I guessed cheap on the second test and you still made me doubt my judgement based on the pinch harmonics comment. Nice one.
+Ishan Kapse 😄 Sorry about that!!
No need to apologize. I had a good chuckle over it.
Fender PU's at 10 times the price sure didn't sound 10 times better!
realjumper thats like a custom shop lp for $5000 isnt 10x better than a good epi lp,
I agree 100%
Love this video for being so real world in its tones. I don’t understand when builders or retailers dial in a thin, weak tone that no one EVER records a song with, selects the middle pup, and plays the same “funky” strumming pattern so you can hear the pups. No one hears that and then records a beautiful solo with it. You dialed in realistic and great tones, which is what pups actually “sound like.” Through good headphones I think they sound great, both of them, and believe that we could find a bunch of popular songs where the musicians use expensive pups but dial in the sound of these inexpensive ones. The difference was more apparent with OD, but you are a very good player so they both sounded great!
The funniest thing about most markets is that people tend to thing more price = more quality, which is horrifically UNTRUE! More price really only means there's a more prolific name stamped on it. This couldn't be more evident with Apple products!
As for pickups, I've noticed through my quest to find the perfect PJ setup for my wrecked eBay Ibanez project, that a pickup is a pickup, unless you start messing with the actual physical properties (like Duncan Quarter Pounds with the HUGE magnets in them)......
Spotted the cheapo in the bridge, but the neck one sounded good, I thought.
Fraser McFadyen he needed to lower the pickup a few hairs and there would be little to no difference. Lower pickup= more clarity.
Fraser McFadyen That bridge was a little harsh I thought but I was listening through the speakers. GFS is almost always going to be hotter for anything other than metal and hard rock pickups. The budget pickup guys need to differentiate their product somehow and that's an easy and a smart way to do it. Unless you are playing some very specific kinds of music then they are fine for anyone on a budget or just budget minded. I have one of their Surf 90's for under $40 shipped. A unique pickup that I really enjoy. A surfy single coil with a smidge of P90 crunch. Very versatile. That's where I think the real differences are. Unique takes on vintage pickups. Otherwise the ingredients are mostly the same and the tones will be too.
@RT, Those are not GFS pickups. They are Guitarfetish Clearance section pickups. But they are excellent pickups.
me too
Same here. When you hit the higher notes, I definitely heard tinny sound on the bridge pickup. Still, I can't think of a better way to spend $5. Those are probably more impressive than the pickups on my '88 Japanese Strat.
Those cheap pups actually have a completely viable tone! They're pretty damn good. ESPECIALLY for the price.
+PokéGamer5000 Absolutely 👍☺
No nonsense;informative;straightahead; and so refreshingly free from vulgarity, expletives and innuendo! Keep it up!!
+B.J. Taylor Thanks man!
I'm a picky gear snob, and I was blown away. Pickups are a relatively primitive technology: 42 gauge copper wire wrapped 7,500 times and then potted in wax. It's hard to understand how a manufacturer could make a better sounding overall pickup than a competitor.
This tells me that Fender pickups are way overpriced.
Waaaaaaaaaaay overpriced.
Well, this is a free world. If you want them, maybe you need saving money for a while. It never hurts having no debts and have some patience. For 15 bucks you got 3 pickups you can use meanwhile. You might even consider replacing those 6 "bolts" by alnico magnets. Again, in this you still got your freedom. So has Fender, by the way. Take it or leave it, perhaps?
@@voornaam3191 he knows he's just saying price to performance doesn't stack in fenders favour
@@voornaam3191 you went through all that and you had no idea what he was saying how about shut up and listen next time and pay attention
Fender? Lol, how about Lollar, Suhr, and the likes
Fender did sound better, but not 10x better. Not even twice as good.
Russell Ives I agree with you man
In the neck and middle they were VERY close. The bridge and in 2 and 4 the tone was very noticeable. The Fender pickups had a little more quack in 2 and 4. I would probably hate the bridge in the GFS set. But the other 2 were really not bad, and for $15 a set, I could buy a different bridge pickup and still have some change left over.
how would you tell something sounds 9x or 10x better than something else? quality assurance, materials and brand name make it worth more, not just the sound itself.
José Henrique It's all subjective, but for the most part I disagree. Quality assurance, maybe. Materials, why pay more for same result? Brand name, why on earth does anyone pay for a brand? Its just a name, it doesn't effect the sound.
He should tried them in clean though, with distorsion/od and delay everything sounds good
The cheap ones sound better to my ears!
What a surprise! thanks for the video Darrel!
@Everything the opposite
@Everything is actually the contrary Cheap purchase justify themselves..... very expensive need to be justified by quality of results which they dont!!!;-)
@Everything ....said noone ever....
Slightly darker tone not as much treble they seem decent personally especially for the price
guitar demo on youtube without 7 pedals, processors and DAW challenge: IMPOSSIBLE
Really interesting how there's a predominant 340Hz tone with the Fender pickups, but the GFS pickups are more "frequency flat".
An interesting experiment would be to take the GFS pickups and either replace the bar magnet with AlNiCo5 bar of the same gauss value, swap for the same gauss value AlNiCo5 as the Fender pickups, or swap the ceramic magnet with a lower gauss ceramic magnet to change the output strength.
I personally preferred the GFS pickup sound as it sounded "balanced" more than the Fender pickups that had that predominant 340Hz tone that I want to EQ out.
Thanks again for a terrific video, Darrell!!!!!
Seems to me that the smartest thing to buy to cover ALL your bases is simply an 8-band graphic EQ pedal.
Put that as the first thing your guitar is plugged into and you can create at least 50 different pickup sounds.
😎👍👍
Haha... I somewhat did this with Metalzone when I was a teenager and cannot afford any additional pedals... it oddly nailed almost all types of distortion from different band just by mixing the Boss GE7 equalizer with the inbuilt EQ of the MT2.
You cannot EQ yourself out of everything, then life had been very easy.
This is a great video. Very helpful as I am 15 and am redoing a guitar. And looking for pick ups on a budget.
You really shouldn't consider redoing a guitar until you are at least 16
@@journeyfortwo5211 you replied to a 1 year old comment. By now he IS 16 lol
@@howsurcows Whoops, then that makes all the difference
Get any pickups with low prices, at the end of the day what matter the most is how comfortable your guitar and how skillful you are in playing them...
The $15 pickups sound hella good for sure, especially compared to $150 competition. The more expensive ones do sound a little... wider? Like they have a little more presence overall. It's a pretty slim difference though, in terms of comparing the actual sound. Once you got them in a mix with other music/effects, you'd probably never even notice it.
Tell it to all members of the band - go cheap... Go cheap with the recording process as well... They won't notice... No one will notice.
It's all in your head lol
I mean, like, they LITERALLY sounded exactly the same to me! Obviously there's going to be certain nuances that can't be accurately portrayed through RUclips but DAMN I'm blown away. They definitely don't sound $135 better that's for sure! Awesome video :)
Props for even keeping the strings. About the difference i've expected, if they're not built differently i'd just keep the stock ones on a strat. Higher gain from ceramic magnets is a bonus, with something like big muff it'll be deliciously crunchy.
Cool comparisons! can't beat that deal from GFS
+lando27music ☺👍
Not GFS pickups! Guitarfetish Web Site clearance sections pickups. They are different. Damn good pickups, though.
GFS are pretty slick. I have a rail for Tele bridge and their '52 tele neck pickup. The '52 is really, really pristine.
Listening this as a non - musician, I think in live situations the pick ups used would not matter since the venue alters the sound of the guitar & amplifier anyway. As long as the chords and solos are in the right place and if you dig the band, having a good time can be possible.
it sounds like the cheapest have more body but the Strats have more crystals
I like the little overtone trick you did. I hadn't realized that was a thing. But then, I never got much into guitars until a couple years ago. I just used them to write songs. And then Boom! I have 2 electric Basses, 2 electric 6 strings, one electric 12 string and 4 acoustics. That's what happens when you retire...you get to do what you always wanted to do. (I just remembered the 2 Mandolins and 1 Viola.) (Oh...2 Keyboards. Damn! Plus, I discovered DAW's...Life is good.)
I preferred the cheap neck pup and the expensive bridge. The middle, I didn't have a real preference. Either way, what a great value for 15 bucks! Thanks again for another great video. It is nice to have someone dispelling all the myths and hype that have been plaguing the music world for decades and making honest comparisons.
I like the cheap pickups best. Made that guitar sound more "Fender". I base my opinion in being a professional guitarist for many years and having owned mutiple strats and played 100's of gigs with a strat.
Very interesting! Pickups are just wire wounded around magnets. A magnetic field from Alnico or Ceramic is The same, what only changes is is strength. Don't be fooled, guitar is a simple instrument, no need to cost the price of a car...
I rebuild/build/ customize guitars and can tell you that certain things the cheaper ones are just that, cheaper and the sounds or feel or durability is reflected by their price. I would say the biggest non electrical item where cheapness can be detected is in the tuners. A cheap set of regular tuners can be easily detected because a lot of the time they do not hold tune, slip, are difficult to turn, fall apart or the ratio is not as advertised. Of course this varies from one manufacturer to another. I put a nice $80 set of Sperzel locking tuners on a Gretsch and I put a set of cheapo ($20?) locking tuners on another guitar - I detect no differences at all. I installed a regular set of tuners on a Fender and could immediately feel that they were cheap and they would constantly cause the guitar to fall out of tune.
Wood can be a HUGE issue as well. Not everyone's Maple is the same. Moisture content is the biggest factor. A lot of times purchasers are looking for a great deal from the wood supplier and as such they will take wood that may not have been dried as well as it should have been. I used to work in a saw mill and there was two people who purchased wood from us to build instruments with. One guy was really picky and another was not, yet both sold their guitars for about the same price.
As far as Pickups go - I have new and old, cheap and expensive and again it comes down to the manufacturer. I installed a set of cheap double humbuckers on an off brand Les Paul, while they sound decent they do not hold up as well when compared to the set of DiMarzios or Deymour Duncans in my other Les Paul's. I purchased another set of cheapo's from a different manufacturer and, while still not quite as good as the expensive boys, they were much better. Pots are not all the same! I have a 2017 Gibson Firebird with cheap Korean pots in it and both of them are terrible and in need of replacement. I purchased several sets of cheapos off of Amazon that are just as good as the CTS ones that are the usually great pots. Again, Manufacturers!
Yes
it's not that simple when you talk to luthier, crafter, musician
For 150$ it's a good start to make nice sounding music. heck, even I've seen expensive boutique made Pick Up that cost less than 100$. It feels warm inside, very nice xD
@@carloswendel.7 Getting a good sound out of a guitar has far more to do with the player's brain and hands than the pickups. Give David Gilmour an Affinity Strat with a good setup and he'll make it sound like a million bucks. 95% of players need to worry more about their skills and technique for better tone than they do their pickups. And as far as gear, pickups are way down the list of priorities anyway. All I can do is laugh when I see guys debating on whether they should get Duncan pickups or Fralin pickups when their amp is a Peavey Vypyr.
Michael Anderson i thought you were about to trash me at millenials but then i realized its true i do use pedals so in the end the sound wont sound like what the pickups make
The better test is between humbuckers. One of the best open secrets with alnico high output HB 4 and 5 magnets is the sweep you get in your guitar volume vs low output alnico HB's w 2 and 3 magnets. The difference in tone on your guitar volume between 3, 5, 7 to maxed with high output HB's w alnico 4 & 5 magnets is stunning versus lower output HB's w 2 & 3 magnets. High output w 4 & 5 magnets can be noisy for rock / metal but w/ wax pots they're perfect.
Hey Darrell, I heard this comparison with my Beyerdynamics DT 990 Pro headphones and i must say i can´t hear any different between the cheap or expansive pickups !! It´s amazing !!! thanks for the test !
I'm shocked by these results. Honestly, if you were playing with a band, I don't think there would be any discernible difference. I've got a project I'm working on that I had planned to buy expensive pups for, but you just saved me money.
+John Wilks Glad to help ☺
Just found you recently, looking at cheap guitar videos, killing some time. I built solid body electric guitars for about ten years, and to be honest, although I never put in pickups from the GFS Clearance Section, I did use a lot of GFS pickups, to great success. Yes, the more expensive pickups in this video have a hair more chime, and maybe just a hair better note definition, but to be honest, save for in the studio, this is pretty much irrelevant. When on stage or practicing, most of this would be lost in crowd noise, amp noise, and white background noise.
And truth be told, in today's digital realm, MP3 players, cutting off about 20% of the digital "digits" to save space would probably kill off any tiny bit of extra chime you're getting from the more expensive pickups. Back in the analog days, these would be better. Now, just more money...
Overall, now not building guitars but still active in repairing all kinds of stringed instruments in SE Tennessee, I always tell my customers that unless they have a real need to spend huge amounts of money on pickups, they will find that there are numerous pickup companies out there that build great pickups for small amounts of money. GuitarHeads, GFS, the list is long and wide.
And one of my personal favorites, now gone, was a bass I built for a guy in Kentucky years ago, and I put in a huge pickup I found off Amazon for $15. When I got it, it weighed one pound! Who builds a bass pickup that weighs one pound?! And it sounded great! He loved the guitar, but the pickup company disappeared off Amazon a few months later. Oh well! Thanks for a great video!
I love these videos comparing cheap vs brand name. Been trying to tell people for years that the gear is such a minimal difference that it's mostly in the hands. Only real difference is the impact certain brands have on your wallet.
I've been subscribed for a while but this is the first time I have watched this one. Your playing is always great but those harmonics on this one were so good. Oh, the pickup comparison was great too.
I agree that the Fender pickups were a little better, but the difference doesn't justify the enormous difference in price. There is far too much voodoo in talk about pickups: this kind of test exposes the reality, which is that you pay a hefty premium for the 'right' pickups.
One point I would make is that it's rare to hear cheap pickups on a good guitar, played through a good quality signal chain. Few players ever get to hear what a cheap pickup can do when it isn't handicapped by the cheap woods and parts of a cheap guitar, and blind A/B tests are difficult to arrange - which is one of the reasons why videos like this are a real service. It's in the interests of high-end, premium-cost pickup manufacturers to exaggerate the qualities of their pickups.
Another issue is that many of the differences between pickups that are audible in a clean comparison audition of the guitar in isolation are greatly reduced when any kind of distortion is added, and the guitar is heard in a mix or a band situation. Others can be eliminated with careful use of compression and EQ. Laboratory tests only show so much.
I think players should pay some attention to the core tone of a pickup - what it sounds like clean, with flat EQ - but it's easy to pick up obvious flaws like dull top end, poor bass definition, or excessive noise. Beyond that, it's a maytter of personal taste and the style of music you play, and the law of diminishing returns sets in fast.
+Paul B Good points 👍
Awesome vid, mate! Do another one with the cheapest set of Humbuckers!
+Joe Redfield ☺👍
Those cheap pups are insanely awesome. Oh wait................. you're playing so it really doesn't matter what pups are in that guitar. :-)
The cheapies might be an easier 'tell' are lower gains.
+JohnnyG 😄 Thanks Johnny!!
This is such a well done video. Informative and impartial, really demonstrates how the pups differ.
Second time I've watched this, 2 years later. Even more impressed with both content and style. PS I own a slick sl57 from guitar fetish, great guitar .
As always, 90% of tone is from the most important part of the guitar... the fingers playing it.
Not really, the fingers provide the clarity but the gear is what affects the tone. Still tho Darrel's a great guitar player.
I maintain that most of the tone comes from the player. Darrell gets better tone out of bargain pickups than I do from my amazing guitars because he is a far superior player than me. Focus on technique before gear.
+Jay Moreau Thanks man! You are too kind!
I agree that you should definitely focus on technique before gear but I guess what you mean by tone needs to be more specific. For example, by time I mean the sound the guitar makes regardless of who plays it, the raw sound of the guitar and pickups. Darrel, since he's such an amazing player, can make anything sound godly because of the technique he uses, not the tone he achieves. And regardless, the amp that he's running the guitar through plays a large role anyways in shaping the sound.
I feel pickups often are highly overrated and other gear related factors left out. However that still doesn't stop me from buying super expensive ones. I feel the difference I "feel" is more of a placebo effect than any real tangible effect. Anyhow that's just my 2 cents on that.
That tapping harmonic thing is one of the coolest techniques I've never seen before.
Also this makes me feel a lot better about my little Crate Electra strat copy that I put a cheap aftermarket pickup set in. There's not a ton of audible difference here.
I have a pair of $11.50 Chinese made Jazz bass pickups in my handcrafted bass. It sounds like an angry piano. What is more important is to use 500k pots instead of 250k pots. Also a .022uf Orange Drop cap rather than the usual stock .047uf cap. This simple wiring upgrade saves you lots of money and makes any cheap pickup sound amazing.
Expensive pickups are better, but not in 10 times. If you have a lot of money, you could buy more expensive pickups, but you can't buy fingers or ears to play better or hear better.
Thanks for author for clear English, I'm from Russia, and my English is bad, but your speech very clear and understandable, thanks!
Actually, I like cheap bridge pickup more, it sounded a bit beefier.
All I can hear is Gomer Pyle "Surprise Surprise Surprise" Lol
Great video Darrell and great eye!
Peace!
+Godof thedesecrated 😄👍
I think both pickup have their own characteristics. The cheap one has more bass and less treble. So, it's a bit muddier. Especially when you use fuzz. The expensive one has more treble. And it sounds clearer in any position.
In the end, this simple test makes me question my own taste. Why I prefer buying branded pickup than a cheap one. Is it because the pickup itself is nice or I just following other people, who say that brand is nice ?
+Rendy Andrian Good question for all of us to answer👍
A good friend of mine owns a Rondo Music 'Telecaster'.
The neck pickup is one of the most bluesy, most 'Fendery' sounding pickups I've ever heard.
Cost of guitar: $50.00 brand-new.
That's insane man
What a great, objective video. I'm making my first guitar from scratch and AGONIZED over the pickups. I'll totally sent you the end results when we are done. It's coming along SO much better than I thought possible.
Cool!
I hope the project comes together nicely!
2:55 thanx
Yes I can! Especially in the clean settings. I totally agree that the cheap pups are pretty close. There's offbrand Hot Rails out there for 15 bucks too that Rock!
Good one with messing with our minds at first. Thx man.
😀👍
The clarity really is the difference. The cheapos sounded muddy, and not quite as bright. With that said, if you weren't playing back to back, I'd think they sound just fine. I get why folks chase a particular sound, I do it too! ...but honestly, unless you just like spendin' money, or a DIY nerd (like me), don't go nuts spending for pickup changes just because "it might make the guitar nicer" - Do it if you're specifically looking for a particular tonal quality.
Thanks bro, I have been watching your videos long time ago, and you make RUclips a really good place to be
Might be smart to buy those $15 ones for beginners to learn how to swap pickups on a strat.
+Charles Campbell Totally 👍
my thoughts exactly.
x1K
Dude, for that price I can't hear the difference - lol... no, really, these are awesome and the price it's the best part, probably I change the pickups of my old Squire '92 (Korean) for these pickups :)
Great review, Best.
whats the name of pickup? how can i buy these cheap pickups?
May I have some detail please..
brand & how to buy that pickup?
Thanks..
Those cheap pickups he bought at guitarfetish on clearance
Nooo don't. The old Squier pickups are way better than that $15 pickup. Early Korean Squiers are sometimes better than a MIM strat.
Absolutely hear a difference especially with good inear monitors. Much more detail and color with your Fender pickups vs the 5$ ones.
Another great upload, man those cheap pickups are amazing just goes to show that sometimes cheap doesn't mean cheap.Most likely there are those brand snobs who think a fender/gibson guitar is better than a squire/epiphone guitar and are willing to pay the extra cash to own one and they think the same when talking about pickups you know the ones, they buy the named $150 pickups because their 10 times better than the unbranded $15 ones.
I’ve had very good luck with a couple different sets of GFS pickups.
It's odd. While the Fender pickups were definitely not 10 times better, I would pay 10 times more for how much better they were. If that makes any sense whatsoever!
Michael Anderson your math is a little suspect! He said he payed $14.95 for three cheap pickups. 10 x $14.95 = $149.50. As shocking as it may be for you, yes, I would pay $150 for good, quality pickups!
It makes complete sense. It’s an economic concept called the law of diminishing returns.
I love this, I love your (Darrel's) work. I had a positive experience in some cases changing electronics, its hard to know how much energy a player should put into working on guitars. I guess it depends on the person (and the guitar) but good to imagine it is not important at all!
I watched a lot of videos on RUclips on this topic and you are the only one who said my opinion! I've been playing electric guitar and listening to electric guitar music for a few years now and still can't hear the difference in pickups.
Because of this video, I ended up buying a set of each...the vintage and the hotter, higher output. Put the vintage set in an old Squire from early 80's and the hotter set in a Strat kit I built. Love em both! To me, in my opinion, they sound great! Throw in some effects on a good tube amp and I don't really think there's a lot of difference to expensive pickups. I'm happy...all that matters!
This is why I leave whatever was in it alone until it breaks. I figured I bought the guitar for what it felt, played, sounded & looked like.I'm no expert by any means, just experience with what I have. Maybe because I'm too lazy to take the guitar apart and solder wires. Learned a long time ago screws don't take to being loosened, removed & re-tightened for unnecessary/imaginary issues. If it isn't broken don't fix what isn't broken.
Amazing video as always Darrell! Notification squad where yah at?? 🤘🎸😄
+Ian Gonzalez 😀😀😀
Why does both of them sound so similar?
because theyre magnets with wire wrapped around them. as a lot of people will tell you, the major difference in most pups is the name and the price tag. theres only so much better you can make the component parts, so flashy packaging, artist endorsement and advertising is how the likes of EMG, SD etc sell you $5 worth of copper and plastic for $50 a time.
Wow. Thanks. I've been gathering parts to fix up an old Fender Squier series Wayne's World strat that spent too many years in a house with two chain smokers now that I have the funds to finally take guitar lessons and buy an amp. I've been flipping back and forth about spending $200.00 on Seymour Duncan pickups but this video just convinced me to spend $15.00 on no name Chinese pickups. I like the slightly junky sound they have. It's perfect. I bet if I bought a pair of pickup covers from an expensive set off of eBay and put them on the cheap pickups no one would question the sound.
Although the expensive pickups are just a tad brighter, punchier and clearer, I don’t think it would justify the price difference.... at least not for beginners and working-class musicians. I would guess that with the expensive ones, you’re paying for 1) brand-name 2) R&D 3) (hopefully) good customer service. The cheap knock-off simply reverse-engineer the good ones to the best of those abilities using (more than likely) inferior materials to the expensive ones. With all that being said, this was a MUCH closer conclusion to the comparison than I think most of us (including me) expected. Great video!
Really interesting and I thought the cheap pickups were sensational for the price and I'd have no issue with using them. But where can I buy them? I didn't see a link. Many thanks for all your hard work.
+Greg Wallis Hi!
I said in the video. Guitar fetish website > clearance > pickups.
Darrell Braun Guitar Sorry! Many thanks for a reply.
+Greg Wallis Anytime ☺
The reality is, pick ups should never be 150 bucks.
All reviews should be done this way.
You can definitely hear that the ceramics mud up a chord ever so slightly, and the alnico pups have a more glassy and defined tone.
You said it best darrell ..... there is little to no diffrence in pickups most of the time other then brand name & of course pricing of it. Have had quite a few gfs sets ... like the JHX hendrix inspired set come close to the cs 69's. Also the humbuckers as well like the fat pats are simular to gibby's own burstbucker kinda things. Also dragonfire makes some cheap but great sets of pups as well I had there vintager humbuckers that actually sounded better then the gfs fat pats i had previously.
great video !! have a good one !!
+terrybear Thanks! You too ☺
that's just not true man. Go play an ibby with infinity's in it. You'll be "blah". Then go play something with a dimebag or a nazgul or sentient in it. You'll be blown away. That doesnt mean all brand name pickups are good or that all nonames are bad.. i have some brilliant nonames. But theres a huge difference. And those GFS's are either clones or you bought their clearance which are literally high end pickups. Those gfs's you have are just high qc chinese versions of great brand name pickups.
The cheap pickups sounded good. I'm pretty sure most people could have those in their guitar for a lifetime and find them quite serviceable. When compared to the Fender pickups, they lack a bit of body and clarity, but the difference isn't anywhere near what the price delta would suggest.
That said, I'm not totally surprised by this. I've swapped a lot of pickups in in the last 30 years, for both myself and other people. There have been some standout cheap "stock" pickups that in my opinion sounded better than the more expensive ones that were replacing them.
I personally bought an Agile AL3000 Les Paul copy back in 2003 ($370 US). I had a set of EMG pickups sitting here waiting on the guitar to arrive. The stock no-name pickups that were in the guitar itself were actually fantastic. They sounded so good I actually kept the stock pickups in that guitar for about 4 months before finally making the swap for EMG. In the end, I play metal, and EMG gets me the tone I want. But damn, those cheap pickups sounded amazing. I ended up selling them, but regretted doing so. Not long after selling them, I got a late 70s Greco SG copy that had some horrid pickups. Those cheap Agile ones would have been perfect for that guitar.
The question is what makes a guitars tone, if say the amplifier is exactly the same. Is it how new the strings are? is it pickup height? is it action, is it wood types? is it wiring quality? or is it the pickups? is it the string gauge? is it the strings type is it the tuning? yea i know its all of them but it would be useful to know which is most important when you want clarity and sustain and low noise or hum on high gain amps...
I read the comments while listening so I didn´t get any idea which was which. And to be honest, I didn´t hear any quality difference at all. They both sound great to me. In my opinion it proves that guitarsound is overrated. The sound depends in 90% on the player.
Lesson taken out of this:
-Go Practice, your pickups won't save you
-Save those 150$ for a more expensive guitar, cause paying +100$ for a little tiny tweak that you can only hear it while playing in ur room by yourself is pretty useless