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Are you a pickup swapper?


How often do you change pickups?  

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Guest galejt
Been known to drop Rio Gandes in a few guitars, peppered with the occasional Voodoo Gregwind..........

I'm curious about the Voodoo Gregwind.........

Nice. Especially in an FM or an old Sunburst.

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I started playing cheap import guitars a few years back. Most of them have terible sounding pickups and the guitars themselves don't sound so go, so you really need to switch them to get good sound. So, I became a pickup swapper. I now play Hamer USA guitars. My Artist had Duncan 59's in it. They have to go. I put Duncan Antiquity Humbuckers in it and it sounds twice as good. With a good guitar, even the cheaper Duncan's sound good. But not nearly as nice as Duncan Antiquities, WCR Crossroads or Lollar Imperials which are my Humbuckers of choice. I love the Phat Cats in my Newport. I have had other P90 type pickups that have a more vintage sound, but the Phat Cats just have their own little thing going on that I like. They will stay. When someone decides to sell me a Special with a big fat neck, it will definately get Lollar P90's in it.

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:D

I agree with the covered pickups needin to come out... everytime... only thing i leave in are the p90s.... othern that rip em out stick X2Ns in there... gotta have the tone jones..... or a double bucker.... or an Invader... all depends on the body... mix and match... tones the most important quality in an instrument... you can PLAY anything but if it sounds like shit its junk and makes ya look like an amature.... but we all have what we like.... me ... i hate tin can guitar sound... you want lipstick buy Dan Electro...

Sir Douglas

Proud owner of 29 Guitars 23 are Hamers

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  • 5 months later...

for the most part, I'm happy with the EMG P/J combo on all the 4 strings I own; except the fretless frankenjazz which has dimarzio j's with series/parallel wired to the push/pull pots I have as volume controls....I love the pickups and the switching but I'm dissatisfied with the taper of the pots, but can't seem to find an alternative....btw it also has a EMG PA-2 preamp to bring the output levels up to the 4 string's active pickups + exb tone control. On my 12 string basses I have L=500 OBL's but not the hottest variant, I've tried the high output version in a B12-A and Chap 12 I've since sold, but they seemed to muddy. the stock EMG's on the 12 string basses hurt my ears, and I don't like them at all.... currently my only dillemna (damn that looks so wrong but I'm too lazy to spellcheck it!) is on my doubleneck....I like the EMG's on the 4 string but the EMG's on the 8 string side seem a little screechy or strident if you will ... I'm debating swapping them but for as much as I'm willing to strap on that heavy s.o.b. I'm not sure if I should bother.

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Yes, but a slow, methodical one. I'm becoming an advocate of trying different pickups to suit a players style and amplification.

I just did an inventory and of all the guitars/basses that I've owned, only five have escaped the soldering iron. Of those, only my Carvin bass and my new Hamer Special remain original in the pickup department. The Special sounds OK, but I'm not sure if the (stock)P90's are for me. The guitar is so nice that there's no way I'd get rid of it, so a pickup swap is in the works. I want a humbucker in the bridge and so far I see that Duncan, Dimarzio, Rio, and GFS(?) make a drop in replacement. Decisions, decisions... ;)

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I've spent a fortune over the years for what IMO has been minimal results. Can I hear the difference??? yes, but not enough to justify the expense and time. I found I waste too much of the little time I have looking for the "tone" vs. playing. For me if the guitar doesn't have the sound I'm looking for stock it it won't have it with new pickups either. I do replace for defective pickups or microphonics that can't be eliminated. I have a LP Special that someone swapped out the bridge P-100 for Fralin and but put a Duncan Custom in the neck. I swapped the Custom for a vintage P-90 in order to get the balance right. These are the only cicumstances I do swaps for anymore

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Very rarely. To be honest, I don't know how you guys - excepting the professional techs - ever found the time to become so well informed about pickups and tone. I can barely find time to keep my playing in shape, and half the time I'm playing on dead strings because I have to choose between practicing and restringing.

The thing that's always confounded me in learning about pickups is that there are so many variables involved in a guitars tone. No two guitars sound alike, even with identical electronics, so unless I set a month aside to solder a bunch of pickups into the same guitar and listen *very* critically, I'll never really know what I like.

Anyway, I'm probably better off being ignorant. One more expensive hobby I don't need...

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I've swapped pickups twice...once, a JB for a Dimarzio Steve's Special, and again in my buddies crappy Ibanez, I put a V8 in it to replace whatever stock garbage it had. Both were drastic improvements for what I wanted the guitars to do, and I'm thinking about buying some more pickups just to mess around with changing them out.

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  • 9 months later...

If I'm going to spend $2000 for a guitar I assume that those pickups are matched to that body. I'm not going to touch it.

But I am thinking of buying a used Sunburst archtop and swapping pickups on it to see what sounds I can make (if my wife lets me spend a few more hundred on guitars and things).

...wistfully objective data would be useful.

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I just saw this post and had to laugh. I just got done telling my wife I think my Cali needs new pickups :D She said I should because I have bad tone. What a ball buster. I think I may have spent more money on pickups than guitars!

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I have duncan'ed every electric axe I have.

My first Seymour Duncan pickup was a Hot Rails bridge model that I put in my black Fender strat in 1986. I still have it in there to this day, and it still sounds great. I have been 100% satisfied with the quality and sound of Duncans ever since, and have swapped out every guitar I have with their pickups.

I've put a lot of Gibbo and DiMarzio (Hamer Slammer) pickups on ebay over the years.

Some of my Hamers came with Duncans already:

DSC01489.jpg

..and had no need to switch. In some cases, I put the same pickups in the same positions, depending on body/neck woods, bridge, etc. I've tried other pickups like DiMarzio and OBL (osama bin laden) :D models, and they are good, too. However, for my rig and my playing style, Duncans fit best for me, and I need a degree of consistency across my instruments in order to keep my rig sounding right. Seymour Duncans are the ones that provide it.

For me.

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Quite a bit....I'm a gear junky. Once I find what I like, I pretty much stay with it. I love Bardens, and it's so great having a single coil sound with no buzz.

Even if I don't change the pickups, I'll do some rewiring or push/pull pots to split or parallel humbuckers.

My Hamer Sunburst , my G&L Skyhawk, and my Les Paul Standard are absolutely stock but everthing else has been tweaked or replaced.

Over the years I've had DiMarzio's and Duncan's of most varieties and some Fralin's. I have not had any experience with Rio Grande's or Lollar's or some other booteek pickups but hear good things about some of them. So someday maybe I'll try some.

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I never used to change a thing on guitars, but I popped a Rio into a 70s Tele about 10 years ago in an effort to cut down the microphonic squealing and now I don't have a problem swapping pickups if it improves the guitar's sound. For almost 20 years before that though, I thought that doing that was heresy. I'm wiser now.

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I have no problem swapping pickups, most of mine have non stock pups in them. Rios, Voodoos, some that I woulnd myself.... My Huber has Haussels in it like stock, except Haussel wound them to my specs for me.(Not that I'm a big shot or anything, I just had particular specs!!)

Rarely does a company use versatile enough pickups to satisfy every ear, like restaurants rarely get all the spices right. That's why you see ketchup, steak sauce and other condiments readily at hand.

Removing typical pickups from typical guitars does not hurt the value, but down the road, having the stock pickups can make a huge difference in the value of a guitar, whether they are in the case or hooked up.

Do what works for YOU, you are the ultimate judge.

Oh, and buy your pickups from ME, so I can feed my kids. LOL

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Sometimes - Just did it for the 1st time 2 months ago. Swapped out SD Pearly Gates (bridge) in my LP copy for a WCR Fillmore. Grand improvement! Sounds like an LP should. The SD's never impressed me, kind of bland....

Now I've gone and swapped out both p/u's on another guitar with equally satisfying results. This after not having done so before in 30 years of playing.

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I've been caught up in pickup swapping alot over the last couple of years. Not necessarily out of unhappiness with what was in there, but I wanted to experiment and see what styles, brand, and makes seemed to fit me best.

That said, I still haven't touched the stock Duncans in my new Hamers. Will I in the future? Probably.....but if I never had the means to do so I could definately be happy with the stock Duncans.

My overall experience has been good with Duncan/Dimarzio, but the boutique makers like Bareknuckle, WCR, Wolfetone, _insert your favorite here_, has been that they do have an edge on most production model Duncan/Dimarzio offerings. It might only be a slight percentage better, but after I came to that realization its hard to sit there and not wonder if I could make my guitars sound just that much better with a pickup swap, even if it will only be a small change for the better.

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Any Hamer with a JB in the bridge I would probably switch

it right away.

Any old Hamer I would lay hands on that

for some reason has swapped pickups I would go a long way

to find original Dimarzio´s to put back in.

Other than that most Hamer's are fine

with the pickups they have.

I'll take those JBs, I love them. Why don't you like them they sound good to my ears in a special. Guess my ears are shot according to most people.

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