Pickup comparison with soundfiles

[Guido]

Hello HOC Members!

 

I just posted this link in the "If I wanted a 1959 Les Paul..." thread.

But I think many others would be interested too.

It is from a German guitar magazine from 2005.

The reference pickup is a '62 PAF which sounds IMO awesome.

The winner of the comparison was the Dommenget Set.

Dommenget, Häussel, Kloppmann and Rockinger are German pickup manufacturers.

IMO the Dommenget set really sounds great. But I have to say that I don't hear that much of a difference between the others.

 

http://www1.gitarrebass.de/magazine/0502/paf.htm

 

Enjoy!

 

Guido

[Assumer]

Thanks. Will listen later.

[JeffB]

I posted the same thing here about a year ago PAF Comparisons

I was going through a bit of a p/up thing at the time. Think I listened to so many different sound samples they all started to sound kind of same ish..

Heres some more if you feel like killing a few more hours P/UP's

Different conditions and different brands and models.

[yoslate]

I'll go to my grave believing everyone hears things differently, like having an aural fingerprint, making exercises such as this very, very subjective. But isn't it fascinating how so many people have made recreating the sound of PAF's, whatever that consists of, such an impassioned arcane study? Lightning in a bottle, no doubt! I'm on vacation, and I had a little time to waste, so I did. Three times through all of them, and distinctions began to blur. I wrote particulars on all of them, but I'll spare you the subjective gory detail. With the '62's as a reference, I thought the Dommengets, Burstbuckers, and Hauessels closest to the '62's. I couldn't identify any difference in the Dommengets. The Burstbuckers seemed to have slightly less hair, and the Hauessels just a touch less on the high end. The differences in the others consisted primarily of shortcomings in transparency, high end presence, and some scooping in the mids. My German's pretty weak, so the text was lost on me. Didn't get details on the comparison. I'd rather the comparison had been done out of context of a tune, rather, just a clean amp with the least bit of reverb, an interesting lick, and a few chords. Thanks for the post, Guido.

[GuitArtMan]

You know these things are awesome, but there are just so many variables I'm not sure how much credence I put in them.

How close to/far away from the strings the pickup can make a HUGE impact on tone. I hope everyone is aware of this and has experimented with this and has found there own sweet spot.

Gauge of strings.

Age of strings.

Brand of strings.

Pick used.

Picking technique (or lack there of).

Where they picked (over neck pickup, in the middle, over bridge pickup, etc.).

The guitar used.

The amp used.

The speaker used.

The microphone used.

The microphone placement.

Recording equipement.

Computer speakers.

The song used for comparison.

Distorted? Clean?

etc., etc., etc.

 

That said, I'll give it a listen later. Seymour Duncan made a pickup comparison CD a few years ago, not sure if the demos is available online or not. ACME Guitar Works also had a nice pickup comparison section.

[Ray]

Thank you for the info and link. Will provide feedback.

[Guido]

I posted the same thing here about a year ago PAF Comparisons

I was going through a bit of a p/up thing at the time. Think I listened to so many different sound samples they all started to sound kind of same ish..

Heres some more if you feel like killing a few more hours P/UP's

Different conditions and different brands and models.

 

Sorry for the double post!

[Guido]

I was just reading through the old thread.

 

Before the question comes up: they used the same guitar, a Gibson Historic Collection LP 1959 with original '59 Bumblebee caps and played through the same amp.

 

You can hear some differences in playing of the demo lick (sometimes the attack is harder and sometimes weaker, also some differences in the notes).

So this makes a comparison very difficult.

Personally I think I can hear that the Dommengets are close to that sparkling airy sound (which is interesting because they are fully waxed), but somebody else will say something different.

In the end they all sound very close to each other.

 

The only pickup that sounds really distinguished to my ears is the '62 PAF.

 

Guido

[JeffB]

Sorry for the double post!

I thought you might be interested to see the content there was all.

 

Gauge of strings.

Age of strings.

Brand of strings.

Pick used.

Picking technique (or lack there of).

Where they picked (over neck pickup, in the middle, over bridge pickup, etc.).

The guitar used.

The amp used.

The speaker used.

The microphone used.

The microphone placement.

Recording equipement.

Computer speakers.

The song used for comparison.

Distorted? Clean?

etc., etc., etc.

Way to many variables I agree. Its great when you find a guitar that needs nothing swapped out.

6-7 of us at work play the same guitar through the same amp and you get 6-7 different sounds and opinions. Really proves nothing about the components of the gear we are checking out but proves we all like different things and we all get variations of the main sound by our own playing styles.

[smurph1]

Thanks for that Guido..And, yes our ears are very subjective..According to my very "unscientific" listening experience, I think I "Liked" the Fralins the best..Not sure why, really..Just sounded nice..Didn't really like the "Lovers "very much which surprised me because a lot of folks on the board swear by em.. they were just a bit tinny to me.. But thanks for the comparison, and yes they do all tend to run together after awhile..Rock On..

[Ray]

Having listened to all 14 pickups, I think the top 3 would be Dommenget PAF, Gibson Classic 57 and SD Seth Lovers. In my opinion Dommenget PAF and Gibson Classic 57 are joint first (can live with both) with SD Seth Lovers coming second. With regard to how the various pickups relate to the reference pickup (1962 Gibson PAF), I did not look into that. It was hard enough to identyfy which one was the best pickup from the list.

[FrankV]

Thanks for the post Guido. This is the kind of thing that could make one crazy, as has been pointed out there are so many variables; also they started to sound the same after a few. I agree with smurph1, the Fralins jumped out at me. The Seth Lover, not so much here. And that's what I've got in the 535. But the Lovers sound so different at different times, depending on how the amp is set up, or which pickup or combination of volume and tone knobs I use. Throw in my 'blues driver' pedal, and I can't say they sound like "this", it just depends on the setup and how I'm playing. And then when you change amps, it's a whole 'nother story! Some folks probably are more in tune with the subtleties, I won't argue about that. But let's face it, none of them sounds what you'd call bad.

[FredZepp]

Very Interesting ...

 

I probably need to spend more time listening to them... but something made these sound pretty similiar across the board.

Like some processing or compression in the recordings that masks the differences a bit.

Some subtle differences are there , but not as much as I'd expect to find.

 

I think that it goes to show that there are a lot of really nice pickups out there... because there is such a market for them right now.

 

I think that I preferred the Dommenget PAF and the Kloppmann PAF... but if I listened more... that might change .

[Patrick]

Thanks for the post Guido. This is the kind of thing that could make one crazy, as has been pointed out there are so many variables; also they started to sound the same after a few. I agree with smurph1, the Fralins jumped out at me. The Seth Lover, not so much here. And that's what I've got in the 535. But the Lovers sound so different at different times, depending on how the amp is set up, or which pickup or combination of volume and tone knobs I use. Throw in my 'blues driver' pedal, and I can't say they sound like "this", it just depends on the setup and how I'm playing. And then when you change amps, it's a whole 'nother story! Some folks probably are more in tune with the subtleties, I won't argue about that. But let's face it, none of them sounds what you'd call bad.

 

 

Who's to say what "sounds better"? It's all about the preference and as it has been appropriatly said many times . . . the variables. I'll stick to my belief that it's more about the touch, feel and soul of the player. Example;; put ANY humbuckers you want into Larry Carlton's guitar (his original Mr. 335) then put that guitar in Larry's hands . . . then plug him into his Dumble. Then sit back and enjoy!!!

[FredZepp]

Who's to say what "sounds better"?

 

Yeah, I have to agree with this to a large degree... on a different song or different amp settings , I might have picked something else.

 

I like to have different pickups in my different guitars , so that they have a bit of a personality.

 

All of my guitars have Tone.... just not the same tone...

[TalismanRich]

I finally got a chance to go to the web site and see what these files were. As soon as the first one started playing, I pulled out my handy USB key and looked at the time/date stamp on one of the folders. 4/30/09. Its been a year ago that I spent the best part of the evening listening to the wav files over 3 different systems (my Rubicon 8 monitors, IMF TLS 50s, and Vandersteen 1a).

 

Maybe Brent remembers me mentioning hearing a bunch of PAF comparisons. My comment was that I started thinking "I like the way he changed that lick right there".

 

I can't say that I thought any one was superior to any of the others. I was amazed at how similar they all were. After some of the comparisons I've read of real PAFs, I would guess that the real things vary just as much as these dids.

 

But what do I know...

 

as Zappa once said... Shut up 'n play yer guitar!

[Ray]

I agree with the view regarding there being too many variables in cases like this including brilliant guitar players generating great sounds from any pickup/guitar combination. But in this study, I presume the same guitar, cable and amp were used coupled with the fact that the guitar was played by the same person, in the same room/environment under the same conditions. This, in my view, eliminates a lot of the variables in this particular study.

 

For me, Dommenget PAF and Gibson Classic 57 stood out above the rest. They generated a ‘sweet’; 'milky' sound that that I liked with SD Seth Lovers coming second followed by, perhaps, SD Antiquity. The others were not that different from each other, in my opinion.