Pickup cover color and being superficial

**mr quick** · 10-11-2019, 03:50 PM

Hello all, I've ordered some new humbuckers for my ES from a local winder. It's my first pickup swap and I like to think that it's permanent. He asked me if I wanted gold, chrome, or black covers -- and I kind of landed on the black covers, until he told me he was out of black covers and that it'd mean waiting a week or two longer on my pickups. So, I've learned of myself that I am superficial and care about how my guitar looks after all... I've bene bragging to my mates about my blemished and scarred ES and how disinterested I am in how it presents, but here I am, choosing to wait up to two weeks longer for black covers for my new humbuckers... Guess I'm a gear snob! Have any of you lot any stories to tell on this subject?

**D.G.** · 10-11-2019, 04:15 PM

I put gold pups instead of silver into my blue Godin Montreal even though the rest of the guitar has silver hardware cause I liked the contrast. I paid extra for 'em.I didn't buy a Fralin Steel Pole for my Tele neck pickup for years until he offered them with the cut-out cover.I've avoided 175's types because I don't like the sharp cutaway. I recently picked up a Comins GCS-16, not because I really needed it -- I have several guitars that perform perfectly adequately -- but because I liked the width of the upper bout, the shoulders, and the shape of the f-holes.Just a few of many, many decisions that've been based on looks instead of anything else.

**lammie200** · 10-11-2019, 05:23 PM

I bought a replacement mini humbucker ring for my ES-390 because the neck pick up ring slants more severely than the guitar top slants. Kinda looks a bit odd to me. The pick up itself is flat and parallel to the strings. The cover is not. I found a ring on Reverb that stated that it had a flat bottom and even showed a diagram of a flat side. When it arrived it was exactly the same as the one I had. I guess that I could try to sand the bottom flat, but I also am trying not to let it bother me and just keep it the way it is.

**marcwhy** · 10-11-2019, 05:48 PM

Hey Mr. Q,
Nothing wrong with having an aesthetically pleasing instrument! If black looks nice with the guitar colors, then get black, even if you have to wait a bit longer.
And send us pics when they're installed!

**Jimmy Mack** · 10-11-2019, 05:55 PM

I need the absolute best looking knobs on my electrics. Usually it's the older Gibson reflector knobs with the mirror look - hate the spun aluminum version they put out now!

**icr** · 10-11-2019, 06:03 PM

I had this Ibanez with dual Dimarzio PAF pickups and played it that way for about 20 years. About ten years ago I re-did the guitar and put on pickup covers, keeping the same Dimarzios. This was a huge improvement in tone. The bare pickups were just too hot.

**icr** · 10-11-2019, 06:06 PM

Ibanez before and after pickup covers.

**mr quick** · 10-11-2019, 07:05 PM

Uh oh, I'm beginning to think I might opt for chromes instead - god help me!

**jameslovestal** · 10-11-2019, 07:41 PM

Last weekend I got into a discussion with a relative about 'looks'. It started out with him asking about cars; I don't him I didn't care for cars and that I viewed a car as only getting me-from-point-a-to-point-b. I could care less what a car looked like. He knew I was a guitarist so he asked about guitars: Well I told him I also didn't care what guitars looked like,,,, it was function that mattered to me. He called BS, and said something like 'you would take a crappy looking guitar over a Fender Stat,,, BS": Well I just laugh and reminded him I was a jazz guitarist and don't like playing a Stat much,,,,so yea, if the crappy looking guitar was a hollow body,,, yea, I would take that over a Stat!".Another relative was listening and just laughed telling the guy to give-it-up and accept what I was saying; looks aren't important to me. Now this other relative did say that 'all things being equal,,, you would pick the one that looked better to you,,, right?'. I said DUH!

**citizenk74** · 10-11-2019, 08:37 PM

I changed the black mounting rings on my '69 LP Custom to creme rings. I like the look.I also hang red fuzzy dice from my mirror. Really snazzes up the Rav 4.

**cosmic gumbo** · 10-12-2019, 02:08 AM

I put skull knobs on my pots to to impress the chicks.....

**vinlander** · 10-12-2019, 08:50 AM

Look can be important, its a personal thing.
I like when the pickup cover matches the rest of the hardware on my instruments.
When I built my Franken tele with spare parts, I only had a gold covered Gibson 490R from an older project, but the rest of the hardware was black so no way I would let it gold.
I had the cover refinished in black only to remove it later on.
I had experienced too much muddiness because I had wrongly over shielded the whole instrument including the pickup cavity.
Now shielding is gone and after trying without a pickup cover for a while, I settled on a black plastic because I did not want to jeopardise the tone or have the pickup exposed.

**entresz** · 10-14-2019, 12:55 AM

Looks matter -- the only humbucker that I really love the sound of is the Bill Lawrence L-90. Unfortunately I'm not crazy on the way they look, I wish there was an option for a chrome/nickel/gold cover or something so that it would look less 'modern' in a more vintage style instrument.

My favourite looking pickups are the Charlie Christian pickup and Dearmond Dynasonics - they, apart from sounding great, look fantastic too.

**JaxJaxon** · 10-14-2019, 01:59 PM

For me I have found that using a metal cover over a pickup diminishes its sound clarity some. Plastic covers don't effect it that way. So My Humbuckers are left with out covers.

**mr quick** · 10-30-2019, 06:08 PM

Well, it took a bit longer than expected but they are finally ready!

I'm picking them up tomorrow and hope that my tech has the time to put them in before the weekend

Glad I waited for black, I think they'll look really special on this guitar! I thought some more about it while thinking about going for the chromes for instant gratification, but I reached the conclusion that I do want them to -look- as special as they hopefully are... I want people to have a visual clue that something's "up" with this guitar!

All I know about them so far is that they're potted Alnico II and 7.8k / 8k output for n/b respectively, so pretty much specced like slightly hotter 57 classics. Can't wait to hear how they sound in my guitar! wish me luck

**Doug B** · 10-30-2019, 08:15 PM

Does this relative know about relic Strats?

Originally Posted by jameslovestal

Last weekend I got into a discussion with a relative about 'looks'. It started out with him asking about cars; I don't him I didn't care for cars and that I viewed a car as only getting me-from-point-a-to-point-b. I could care less what a car looked like. He knew I was a guitarist so he asked about guitars: Well I told him I also didn't care what guitars looked like,,,, it was function that mattered to me. He called BS, and said something like 'you would take a crappy looking guitar over a Fender Stat,,, BS": Well I just laugh and reminded him I was a jazz guitarist and don't like playing a Stat much,,,,so yea, if the crappy looking guitar was a hollow body,,, yea, I would take that over a Stat!".Another relative was listening and just laughed telling the guy to give-it-up and accept what I was saying; looks aren't important to me. Now this other relative did say that 'all things being equal,,, you would pick the one that looked better to you,,, right?'. I said DUH!

**Phil59** · 10-30-2019, 10:29 PM

Originally Posted by mr quick

Hello all, I've ordered some new humbuckers for my ES from a local winder. It's my first pickup swap and I like to think that it's permanent. He asked me if I wanted gold, chrome, or black covers -- and I kind of landed on the black covers, until he told me he was out of black covers and that it'd mean waiting a week or two longer on my pickups. So, I've learned of myself that I am superficial and care about how my guitar looks after all... I've bene bragging to my mates about my blemished and scarred ES and how disinterested I am in how it presents, but here I am, choosing to wait up to two weeks longer for black covers for my new humbuckers... Guess I'm a gear snob! Have any of you lot any stories to tell on this subject?

Archtops with white pickup covers. Truly ugly, in my opinion. I have looked at some, played a few and liked them otherwise. But I can't get past that.

**oldane** · 10-31-2019, 02:50 AM

Apart from the looks, black covers are often plastic while plated covers are metal. Metal shields the pickup while plastic doesn't. According to Seth Lower, even different metal plating (say chrome vs. nickel) shields to a different degree. The shielding takes the top off the high frequencies (which is why some people remove their metal covers). The difference is not great and it in most instances it can be levelled by use of the tone controls/eq on the guitar and/or amp.

Sendt fra min SM-T810 med Tapatalk

**50Hz** · 10-31-2019, 07:53 PM

I mean, I changed the pick guards on 2 of my 3 Fenders. I feel like it's ok to enjoy how a guitar looks, how it feels and plays is obviously much more important though.

**BBGuitar** · 11-01-2019, 01:23 PM

Gold covers gives you that golden tone.
Silver that silvery tone.
Black that dark sound
White brighter than silver
Crome that classic tone like the front end of a old buick
No covers that pure uncolored tone.

Tubes give a warm tone.

For the humorless THIS IS A JOKE.

**mr quick** · 11-05-2019, 08:05 AM

They're being soldered as we speak...

Very glad again that I held out for the black covers. They are matte metal and look great against the sunburst body. We're safing it with the 4-lead electronics for now and going split on volume and phase on tone. 500k pots should also be an upgrade from gibson's 300k. I have a rehearsal later today where I'll get to play this guitar, but it's mainly pop and rock - aside from Weather Report's "a remark you made", so excited!