Seth Lovers, Schallers, and acoustic psychology

[Marty Grass]

PAFs are to many the gold standard of humbuckers until they weren't. There was a time when a very large number of them were taken to the dump by Gibson because they were no longer the it pickup. Hundreds of sets were junked.

Heritage installed Schallers in their guitars their early years, probably at least in part due to some discount in buying in bulk, including tailpieces and bridges. I have heard strong opinions against the pickups and many softer ones for them. I personally think they are quite good in archtops, nice enough that I wouldn't swap them out. Gibson 57s are also impressive IMO.

My problem with unpotted pickups is the clicking. I've never been disciplined enough to remedy that.

Anyway, here is a video with comparable guitars comparing the SD Seth Lover to the Schaller. I like the Schaller sound in this video. It's interesting to me that I like the sound more because it sounds less acoustic and fuller with a sparkle. See what you think.

I read the numerous comments to the video on YouTube. There is no consistency. Humans!!

[wintermoon]

"There was a time when a very large number of them were taken to the dump by Gibson because they were no longer the it pickup. Hundreds of sets were junked."

I know you said Pete Moreno told you that as he was there but I'm still not buying it (no offense to him or you).
60 yrs is a long time to remember things, I've encountered countless stories from old timers that just aren't true. There's zero reason for them to toss perfectly good humbucking pickups at that point as they never stopped using them. Guitar companies are famous for using whatever they have, Leo Fender in particular.
Now if it was P90s I could understand as they phased them out but not humbuckers.

[Skip Ellis]

Back in the late 70's/early 80's when I had my retail store, I once got a small barrel full of Gibson cast off parts from a friend who had a connection with a now world famous acoustic guitar builder who either got them directly from Gibson's repair shop or from an employee there. Back in the day, if you returned your '59 burst (before they were ridiculous) or other model to the factory with an electronic problem, they ripped out the entire wiring harness, threw it in the scrap bin and replaced it. In that barrel were hundreds of PAF humbuckers - most with one bad coil; we rewound some of them and put them in guitars for some of the local guys and sold a few. There were also a multitude of stop tailpieces, bridges, JS & L-5 tailpieces, and even some weird Epiphone control plates with a bunch of push button switches as well as tons of Varitone switches from 355s. To Gibson, these were junk and I got lucky to be on the receiving end. When I sold my store in '84, I left them there and the guy who bought me out went broke after a couple years and trucked it all to the local dump along with four gallons of Gretsch Super Chet red alcohol stain that I got from the Lily chemical company. So, somewhere, in the local landfill, buried beneath 35+ years of garbage is a veritable gold mine of vintage Gibson and Epiphone parts. The only thing I kept was a single L5 tailpiece that I had re-plated and used on a Heritage Golden Eagle that I bought on Ebay and rebuilt. Sure wish I had kept some of that stuff along with the '59 'burst that I sold for $800 - good money back then.

[wintermoon]

Back in the late 70's/early 80's when I had my retail store, I once got a small barrel full of Gibson cast off parts from a friend who had a connection with a now world famous acoustic guitar builder who either got them directly from Gibson's repair shop or from an employee there. Back in the day, if you returned your '59 burst (before they were ridiculous) or other model to the factory with an electronic problem, they ripped out the entire wiring harness, threw it in the scrap bin and replaced it. In that barrel were hundreds of PAF humbuckers - most with one bad coil; we rewound some of them and put them in guitars for some of the local guys and sold a few. There were also a multitude of stop tailpieces, bridges, JS & L-5 tailpieces, and even some weird Epiphone control plates with a bunch of push button switches as well as tons of Varitone switches from 355s. To Gibson, these were junk and I got lucky to be on the receiving end. When I sold my store in '84, I left them there and the guy who bought me out went broke after a couple years and trucked it all to the local dump along with four gallons of Gretsch Super Chet red alcohol stain that I got from the Lily chemical company. So, somewhere, in the local landfill, buried beneath 35+ years of garbage is a veritable gold mine of vintage Gibson and Epiphone parts. The only thing I kept was a single L5 tailpiece that I had re-plated and used on a Heritage Golden Eagle that I bought on Ebay and rebuilt. Sure wish I had kept some of that stuff along with the '59 'burst that I sold for $800 - good money back then.

Yeah, no guitar company is going to re-use old faulty parts. That's not cost effective. But I doubt anyone's throwing away new parts that are part of current production. I'd love to be proven wrong in this case, the true answer would be really interesting.

[Jimmy Mack]

Back to Marty's endeavor.... both guitars sound great! I guess you are responsible !!!

If a player wants a more P90 (brighter) flavor, the SL's sound great for that while being humbucking. Clear and articulate. When you played octaves with your thumb, these p/ups responded, tones jumping out. When you did the same with the Schallers, the presence was missing.
On the chordal passages with melody, the Schallers were warm, fat and juicy, just great.
So with so much quality of tone from each, could one possibly just EQ things to get the best of both? Curious because on my L5 CES, I could not EQ things the way I wanted to hear, so I installed SD SL's and new 500K pots. I am very happy with the results over the stock p/ups, and i feel that with the extra sonic input from these p/ups, I can roll the dials any which way and still get beautiful tone. I tried some SD 59's too - very nice sounding p/ups in my L5.

[Hammertone]

"There was a time when a very large number of them were taken to the dump by Gibson because they were no longer the it pickup. Hundreds of sets were junked."
I know you said Pete Moreno told you that as he was there but I'm still not buying it (no offense to him or you). 60 yrs is a long time to remember things, I've encountered countless stories from old timers that just aren't true. There's zero reason for them to toss perfectly good humbucking pickups at that point as they never stopped using them. Guitar companies are famous for using whatever they have, Leo Fender in particular. Now if it was P90s I could understand as they phased them out but not humbuckers.

Yeah, not buying it either. Gibson continued to use P-90 pickups throughout the 1960s as well. If it happened, it was most likely used parts removed from guitars in for repair/service.