In-Set Humbucking Pickups

[jumpnblues]

Anyone had the opportunity to audition a number of in-set humbuckers on your electric archtop? Please compare and contrast. My Eastman AR580CE with Seymour Duncan Jazz pickup sounds beautiful. Perfect balance top to bottom. Nice, fat, midrange, with punchy upper mids, but not too much bass. Just right. Anyone know how the SD Jazz pickup compares to the S.D. Seth Lover? I've not had a guitar with the Seth Lovers. Other humbuckers I'm curious about include the Lollar Imperials, Burstbuckers, DiMarzios, among others.

[charleyrich99]

I have Lindy Frailin pure PAFs inset on an archtop and I really like them.

[sgosnell]

I've had lots of pickups in lots of guitars over the decades. All I know is to try a pickup in a guitar. Different guitars seem to sound better with different pickups, and individual examples of the same brand/model pickup can sound different in the same guitar. I hesitate to make broad generalizations, but as a broad generalization, I like SD Benedetto pickups, especially the A6. I'm not a big fan of underwound or lower output pickups. But lots of people like them. You're looking to go down a very deep rabbit hole. Leave a trail of breadcrumbs.

[blille]

Anyone had the opportunity to audition a number of in-set humbuckers on your electric archtop? Please compare and contrast. My Eastman AR580CE with Seymour Duncan Jazz pickup sounds beautiful. Perfect balance top to bottom. Nice, fat, midrange, with punchy upper mids, but not too much bass. Just right. Anyone know how the SD Jazz pickup compares to the S.D. Seth Lover? I've not had a guitar with the Seth Lovers. Other humbuckers I'm curious about include the Lollar Imperials, Burstbuckers, DiMarzios, among others.

Interesting. The Jazz is a very nice pickup but scooped. I would not say it’s fat or midrange. The Seth will be warmer but with a lot of clarity.

Here’s a comparison between Seth and lollar imperials.

Edit: I was thinking that if the OP thinks the SD Jazz is fat, maybe anything else will be muddy with his particular guitar and gear. If the very knowledgeable folks at Eastman chose the Jazz over the Seth Lover, they likely had a reason. That would limit the list IMHO to pickups with and A5 magnet like the SD 59, and likely rule out the warmest like (my favorite) SD A2Pro.

[jazzkritter]

Fair notice #1: Its not that YMMV…. Its Your Milage Will Vary!)))
Fair notice #2: i am a Ibanez/Fralin fan

Now, individual hearing and perception make theae comparisons just opinion fencing, as we all bring our preconceived notions of jazz guitar sound wirh us.
BUT it s a lot of fun!!!

i ran through the following on an all maple Ibanez PM299, a very fine guitar stocked with an Ibanez Silent 58 (potted Super 58). The guitar was too acoustic sounding for me, not enough thunk.

(Least favored first)
-Silent 58 - bright, thin, no sense of touch sensitivity
-SD Jazz - would be better on solid bodies
-Benedetto A6 - too clean
-DM 36th Anniversary - lacked touch sensitivity, generic tone
-SD AntiquityBenedetto A6 - lacked touch sensitivity, generic tone
-Gibson stamped serial number - good old reliable, with the typical Hibson sound. Love it or hate it.
-Super 58 reqlly good pup, good touch, great sound, not enough thunk. And simply not as good as the next two.
-Fralin Pure PAF - wow! Great sound, a tad bright, very close to the winner.

And my winner is:
-Fralin Modern PAF. Talked at length with Lindy anout this (he is a seriously great guy!).He called the Modern vs Pure choice one of personal preference. Modern was his reco.
Major wow. It makes me feel like im ‘playing the pickup’. Great touch sensitivity, digging in or laying off its response is pleasing. Sounds watm, even, yet clear. Chords are differentiated i thiught better than any other.

Im pretty traditional in my desire for thunk and warmth. The Modern has that but in a more ‘modern’ (sorry) sense. It takes thunk and combines it with a clarity thats quite nice but not as extreme as i hear in Gibsons.

So ive put Moderns in the neck of the PM, AF200, My ratty AF151, and am talking to Lindy about a custom nexk mount for my GB10.
Pure PAFs in neck and bridge of an AG95 for a great fusion sound.

Last point (I promise)). The Modern does not beat the stock Super 58 in my LGB300. Go figure. Silent 58s deaerve their rep!

it got expansive but i had a ball with this!
And no, my L5 stays stock)))

have fun and trust your own ears!

jk

[marcwhy]

I've had lots of pickups in lots of guitars over the decades. All I know is to try a pickup in a guitar. Different guitars seem to sound better with different pickups, and individual examples of the same brand/model pickup can sound different in the same guitar. I hesitate to make broad generalizations, but as a broad generalization, I like SD Benedetto pickups, especially the A6. I'm not a big fan of underwound or lower output pickups. But lots of people like them. You're looking to go down a very deep rabbit hole. Leave a trail of breadcrumbs.

Yep, all this (although I do like underwound pickups!)!

I'm curious, @jumpn, your current setup sounds "beautiful," you said, so are you just having a hypothetical discussion here (which is fun!), or are you interested in swapping pickups for something else (which is down the rabbit hole)?

Pickups and amps are great ways to alter a sound/tone/vibe on any guitar, so I like playing with them! For the sake of hypothetical discussion here, grab some nice humbucker-sized P-90s and call it quits! [I like BareKnuckles, but there are others!]

Enjoy the chase!

[jumpnblues]

Yep...hypothetical.

[Cunamara]

Well, the Seymour Duncan Jazz pickup is not usually considered a first choice pickup for jazz because it is fairly scooped and tends to be rather bright. To some ears that makes it sound thin. It is usually paired with the Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge, usually through a not particularly clean amp for a rock or blue stone.

However, every rule of thumb is wrong at times. If that pickup sounds great in your guitar, then it sounds great in your guitar. All of the recommendations that I would make might very well sound woolly and muddy to you by comparison.

[Hammertone]

I replaced the Throbak PAFs in my Heritage GE-TCES with a set of Fralin Modern PAFs that I had sitting around. The Fralins were a bit hotter, but sounded pretty much the same to me - any minor differences were easily eliminated by slightly moving the knobs on the guitar and the amp. Knobs - go figure!!! I sold the Throbaks for a big bag of money.

[Spook410]

Armstrong 12 pole does everything pretty well. Use one daily and have never been unhappy with it. IMHO better acoustic definition than a standard humbucker.

Also, various iterations of a Gibson 50-something humbucker are warm and nice. If they're well made and stick to the formula. Most of us use these in various guitars and they are a known quantity for a warm, full sound.

Fine.

My favorite pickup remains the Seymour Duncan P-Rail. You switch between P90, single coil, serial rails, and parallel rails. The latter two being iterations of a humbucker. Each position has it's own unique sound and each position sounds good. Only downside is you have to be good with a soldering iron to get the push pull pots set up to control the thing.

[JohanAbrandt]

Jazz is a low output wax potted alnico 5, medium bass, low mids, very high treble

Seth lover is low output un potted alnico 2, medium bass, low mids, high treble

Seth lovers is my favorite neck humbucker in a semi or solid, great dynamics and with perfect presence. The jazz is good as well, but then again I generally put my amps on mids and nothing but mids, so scooped or no scooped pickup, there will be mids

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

As has been said already, tread cautiously if what you have sounds beautiful and has perfect balance. You’re more likely to make yourself unhappy than happier.

I’ve had a pair of Lace Alumitone humbuckers in one guitar for almost a year now and love them for general use. Mine are 7s built to the same specs as Benson’s custom 6s, which he apparently uses in some of his Ibanezes. Gabriel (the sales mgr at Lace) says he uses them a lot, although I can’t find any documentation of this. They do get modestly dark and thunky with serious EQ, but I like them almost flat on guitar and amp. Most of my experience with them is in my Tele 7, but they seem to sound similar in any body design.

In my gigging archtop, I’ve converted to the Benedetto B pickup (the 7, which is the 7 string version of the B6) and find it to be perfect for me in my laminated 16” Ibanez AF207. It’s old school jazzy but with a little wood, and the string balance is outstanding from 1 to 7. I think it sounds mighty nice. Djangobooks has them in stock. But as I said at the start, if you’re that happy now I’d strongly consider leaving well enough alone.

Here’s the B7 in my laminated 16” Ibanez with fresh JS113s and a Chrome 0.075 7th string, recorded staight into my DAI (which has an excellent preamp and captures the instrument almost exactly as it sounds through my Blu 6 or my SBUS through a Toob 10). This was part of a comparison between new and year old sets of JS posted last year - ignore the playing and listen to the tone:



PS: Yes, the Benedettos are “high output”. But this is done only to lower their resonant frequencies, and the 1/4” or so of epoxy in the casing keeps the magnets from getting too close to the strings and takes away any semblance of harshness or shrillness.

[citizenk74]

Well, the Seymour Duncan Jazz pickup is not usually considered a first choice pickup for jazz because it is fairly scooped and tends to be rather bright. To some ears that makes it sound thin. It is usually paired with the Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge, usually through a not particularly clean amp for a rock or blue stone.

However, every rule of thumb is wrong at times. If that pickup sounds great in your guitar, then it sounds great in your guitar. All of the recommendations that I would make might very well sound woolly and muddy to you by comparison.

I had this pairing in an Epihone Les Paul and it was great in that setting. Would undoubtedly be different in an archtop, but I would be willing to try if someone else is doing the wire work.

[Jimmy blue note]

Over the years, my tastes have changed a lot, kind of moving from the warm classic horn like sound of a Gibson PAF, which captured my sensibilities early on (classic jazz sound) to the Duncan Jazz which I prefer now ON MOST OF MY GUITARS. It's kind of a move from the Wes type warmth to the pianistic clarity of Jim Hall's sound (his guitar was fitted with a Guild pickup which, combined with his Jimmy D'A laminate gave him a distinct acoustic quality largely from the clear attack-read as:relatively trebly).

Now I'll say SO much depends on your own ear, hands, technique (I'm a fingerstyle player looking for a more acoustic envelope), strings, wood on your instrument (laminates bring out trebles in the attack transients as a generalization, solid woods, especially in a broken in voiced hand carved top can give you a warm rounder and rich sound coming through the pickup) so you have to blend what goes INTO the pickup and think of the pickup as a filter in many ways.

I do hear a lot of criticism of the SD Jazz as being trebly or harsh. I'll admit that it was not my first choice when I started out decades ago, but, I don't know, as I became a better player and the quality of the individual note response changed in my playing, I came to love the warm clarity of the jazz, but I also find I need to work harder to get the best from that pickup but it does reward me in ways others don't.

Try them out if you can. There's something that nobody can tell you: That's how a pickup makes you feel as you play it. That's a quality that's felt more than heard. If you're a good player and can feel the nuance in an instrument, a pickup match can bring out something in you that makes you play better. When you play better, you sound better and you find the hidden qualities in your instrument that help you make better music.
Nobody can tell you how that happens, but if you keep an open mind and open ears, you'll recognize it.

[jazzkritter]

JBN said: “That's how a pickup makes you feel as you play it. That's a quality that's felt more than heard. If you're a good player and can feel the nuance in an instrument, a pickup match can bring out something in you that makes you play better.”

Thank you JBN….I tried to say that in my pup comparison, calling it response to touch. However JBN is spot on as usual with a better nuanced description than I can do. Just as the sound of a pickup is intensely personal and is contingent on what pre conceived notions of jazz sound we’re locked into, I think the feel is too. And TBH if you are not feeling the touch difference between pickups, you need to be paying more attention. (I’m Bordering on nasty, yes, but very true. Guitarists, from my teaching experience back in the Paleolithic era, seem to get more focused on mechanics not intuition.). That gets us into the whole ‘are guitarists really musicians question’, that’s not my circus, nor my monkey and my dog don’t race.

I have to think it’s not just finger style vs plectrum. Im sure you all know from classical study the nearly unlimited range of choice in attack, angle, nail strength, length, smoothing. So all that must come into play, on steel too, right?
And then plectrums: I read how many of you search out various brands, sizes, thicknesses. (Ive been stuck on a standard Fender Heavy all my days))). Yea except for the very few Manny’s picks I have left which I guard with my life. Picks have a lot to do with how any one pickup sounds.

Pickup choice is intensely personal due to many factors. Pre-conception (ooops))) jazz tastes, your guitar your ears genetic make up, your amp, lack of amp, fingers, pick, strings, attack on and on. Maybe your sun sign too.What works for me or anyone else probably is not going to make you happy. Just like in cars, new clothes, Vodka, wines: you try before you buy.

I believe you can go through a protocol to develop the touch feel. It requires IMHO constant diligent repetition of some assortment of C/M, solo lines, comping. But the same over and over, trying to sense not hear what your right hand is telling you. Pick or finger hard, soft, play with it. But keep the comparison the same elements. And… please listen to some classical recordings by picking one piece and then hearing it played by different musicians. That is an incredible education on touch, feeling and nuance. My recommendation are the Bach unaccompanied violin Sonatas. (And yea I stole that idea from a college prof.)

Fun? Hell yea!

[citizenk74]

Over the years, my tastes have changed a lot, kind of moving from the warm classic horn like sound of a Gibson PAF, which captured my sensibilities early on (classic jazz sound) to the Duncan Jazz which I prefer now ON MOST OF MY GUITARS. It's kind of a move from the Wes type warmth to the pianistic clarity of Jim Hall's sound (his guitar was fitted with a Guild pickup which, combined with his Jimmy D'A laminate gave him a distinct acoustic quality largely from the clear attack-read as:relatively trebly).

Now I'll say SO much depends on your own ear, hands, technique (I'm a fingerstyle player looking for a more acoustic envelope), strings, wood on your instrument (laminates bring out trebles in the attack transients as a generalization, solid woods, especially in a broken in voiced hand carved top can give you a warm rounder and rich sound coming through the pickup) so you have to blend what goes INTO the pickup and think of the pickup as a filter in many ways.

I do hear a lot of criticism of the SD Jazz as being trebly or harsh. I'll admit that it was not my first choice when I started out decades but, I don't know, as I became a better player and the quality of the individual note response changed in my playing, I came to love the warm clarity of the jazz, but I also find I need to work harder to get the best from that pickup but it does reward me in ways others don't.

Try them out if you can. There's something that nobody can tell you: That's how a pickup makes you feel as you play it. That's a quality that's felt more than heard. If you're a good player and can feel the nuance in an instrument, a pickup match can bring out something in you that makes you play better. When you play better, you sound better and you find the hidden qualities in your instrument that help you make better music.
Nobody can tell you how that happens, but if you keep an open mind and open ears, you'll recognize it.

Fingers vs pick is night and day. As a flesh-mostly fingerstyle player, switching to a pick increases the treble response dramatically. "Fingers - the other tone controls..."

[s11141827]

I replaced the stock Pickup on my Eastman AR804CE Archtop Acoustic-Electric Guitar w/ a Railhammer Pickup (it's a Chrome Plated Chisel Humbucker for the Neck Position) so that I could get away w/ using Lighter Gauge Strings (In my case Thomastik JS110 Flatwounds w/ Brass Plated Trebles) for easier playability w/o sacrificing loss of tone & volume. The Bass Strings run over the Rails to give them more Clarity & the Treble Strings go over these Larger Sized Pole Pieces to make them louder & mellower sounding.

[jorgemg1984]

Another possibly relevant factor is the amp being used - a scooped blackface or a mid-heavy "jazz amp" will make pickups sound different, too. More scooped pickups might benefit from a "jazz amp" and more mid-heavy pickups might benefit from a scooped blackface.