Best Pickup in terms of Technical Specifications, not Tone

[LtKojak]

Guys, lay off of TS. It's an interesting question, regardless of whether or not it's practical.

I, for one, don't think an exercise in futility may ever be interesting.

I prefer to waste *my* time in different ways, preferably not making others people's time go to waste in the process.

[tonello]

I really don't care about those technical specs. If you want a vintage style pickup, then high output isn't the best.

However, I only really care about output for the following reasons:

1. I compress the **** out of my guitar. I have a Boss Cs-3 Compressor Sustainer. So Sustain is taken care of.

2. I EQ the **** out of my guitar. An MXR Ten Band Eq can make even an invader sound AM Radio.

3. Frequency response is also taken care of the Ten Band.

4. Output is only really important for me because of Overdrive and fuzz. When I overdrive, the more gain going into the amp, the more clipping. When I fuzz the sound, I've noticed that more gain clips the circuit more.

I'd rather have the worst technical pickup than the best at everything, as long as I can make it sound good. There's no fun to buying a pickup or guitar and finding out it's perfect, unless it's custom. I wanna have to make it sound good.

[jeremy]

asking for the best of anything is always going to bring derision.

for what you want i would say a duncan patb. i think the patb3 is one of the best pups in the duncan line but doesnt have a ton of output. it does have all those other qualitites. the patb1 has more output and might be really good for you

emg 60 or duncan livewire classic II would be other good choices if you want to go active

[ItsaBass]

Looking at those specs, I'll say that you definitely want an active pickup, and maybe a MIDI pickup to go along with it.

That said...

This is probably the wrong place to ask, because we just don't know. Manufacturers don't provide all that much raw technical information to us. We are musicians, mainly people who play guitars through amps live. If we know anything at all, it is practical knowledge, not theoretical knowledge.

If you want to find an answer, I would write every pickup company out there asking what you asked here: do they have a pickup that meets such and such requirements. That will at least narrow it down for you.

I would suggest that instead of asking for the "best pickup in terms of specs," (WTF?), and then explaining what you mean by "best," you simply ask for pickups that meet certain technical criteria, as you did in the second part of your post. As the question was asked, we have no choice but to call you an idiot and make fun of you.

[lNllClK]

I, for one, don't think an exercise in futility may ever be interesting.

I prefer to waste *my* time in different ways, preferably not making others people's time go to waste in the process.

seems like you've just wasted your time explaining yourself about how you'd prefer to waste your time in another way. Now i've wasted my time. heheh

[Empty Pockets]

The best pickup is the P-90.

Go enjoy your guitar.

[darthphineas]

consider that Vai would be an excellent example of striving for the best tone and having the gear and the studio to do it. the guy is renowned for being the epitome of an anal retentive perfectionist. and then consider how many pickups Vai has been through in the past 25 years.

the ear changes and the tech changes and the environment changes.

it boils down to if it sounds good it is good. that's why there are so many type of guitars and amps and strings and accessories. what is best is relative to the listener or the player. one person may find the technically best pickup, but a hundred people will not like it.

[bullo]

again...there are a few ppl here very disrespectful. if you think this is a waste of time, thank you very much. Leave the thread.

For the others....I was curious to compare different PUs with different Tech aspects. that's it!!!! WHY making such a big deal!!!!!! I never said "All you guys need to switch to (whatever PU 'wins' here).

[Empty Pockets]

We are poking fun because of the term "best"

It's subjective. Best for your purposes might be lame for mine.

Nobody is making a pickup that is just "the best" because every guitar player wants something different.

[LtKojak]

Now i've wasted my time. heheh

No, you haven't. You've just learned how I like to waste my time!

[Aceman]

Bullo - My apologies for my ignorant associates. You DID very clearly state your point and purpose. They just chose to be @$$hats and ignore it because they want to discuss tTHEIR agenda, not yours. Guys - dig in, or argue question sensibly or GTFO.

For the record - I agree that this conversation ends up in a laess than satisfying spot. But it intrigues me. So I'll bite.

I see where you are going. If I am making MUSIC, it is much more than a "tone" if you will. And no doubt some of the greatest "tones we knw would sound like utter total crap out of the context, or live. And another great number of them have been manipulated, effected, and twisted to far beyond their original state.

So why NOT find the ideal wide range, flat signal, to do that with? Makes sense. To answer the question, I have no idea what pickup that is. And I will venture it is different for every guitar and amp combination out there.

You seek the answer to a very very complex tonal equation. I would instead ask a very different version of the question:

What combination of Guitar, Pickup, Amp, and Speaker makes the flattest, most wide ranging tone available?

Your "Microphone" analogy is most excellent. The pickup is indeed the microphone for the guitar. Very interseting consideration

except a bunch of you dumb@$$es can't get your mind around that are dooshing up the guys question! Bullo - to answer the "microphone" question facetiously, it's any mic using an A8 mag.

But I think this question is doomed for less than technical reasons. It is becuase much of our enjoyment of the sound is due to the IMPERFECDTIONS, along with the actual specs. A singal pure fundamental reference tone through digital clipping to most of us sound like puke.

To be fair to the forum, we ARE tone hounds here... But let me suggest the, if may, you explore the Seymour Duncan Zephyr. This may be the pickup you seek.

And welcome.

[uOpt]

-Frequency response (the wider and flatter the better)

Instant fail in assumption.

[ItsaBass]

Instant fail in assumption.

It's not an assumption. It is the OP naming a criterion – explaining what he means by "better."

[bullo]

Thank you Aceman!

To finish this discussion let me tell you another analogy i think it is interesting:

Not to go OT at all....but you may know the plugin called Antares Mic Modeler.

You select the Mic used when recording and then select the mic you want to emulate. I emulates the Frequency curve and other aspects. All nice. Now, lets "Assume" the emulation algorithm is 100% effective (of course it is not!).

if you record a cymbal using an SM58 and you want to emulate an AKG414...It will simply not happen! This is because the the recording captured with the SM58 already lacks frequencies, lets say, above 10Khz.

BUT....if you record a cymbal with the AKG414 and you want to emulate the SM58...it will be pretty close! The emulation can "Work" by filtering frequencies...but cannot create them if they don't exists.

So...in practice there is not perfect....but trying to get is as perfect as possible may make sense. and Yes...the "perfect pickup" (if it will ever exist) will sound very unfamiliar to you...

Regards,
Danny

[LtKojak]

Thank you Aceman!

To finish this discussion let me tell you another analogy i think it is interesting:

Not to go OT at all....but you may know the plugin called Antares Mic Modeler.

You select the Mic used when recording and then select the mic you want to emulate. I emulates the Frequency curve and other aspects. All nice. Now, lets "Assume" the emulation algorithm is 100% effective (of course it is not!).

if you record a cymbal using an SM58 and you want to emulate an AKG414...It will simply not happen! This is because the the recording captured with the SM58 already lacks frequencies, lets say, above 10Khz.

BUT....if you record a cymbal with the AKG414 and you want to emulate the SM58...it will be pretty close! The emulation can "Work" by filtering frequencies...but cannot create them if they don't exists.

So...in practice there is not perfect....but trying to get is as perfect as possible may make sense. and Yes...the "perfect pickup" (if it will ever exist) will sound very unfamiliar to you...

Regards,
Danny

To go this route, you record a track of a guitar, then re-route it through different presets of your favorite guitar modeler. This technique it's called "ReAmping", and you don't need more/less frequencies that what you get from any guitar direct to the board.

Roland uses an adaptation of this installing the GK-3 p'up in a guitar and letting the VG-99 do all the rest, emulating different amp and even p'up models. Line6 also has a similar software-based system with the Variax as the controller.

Your problem is that you're considering a magnetic p'up works like a microphone and its job is to gather as much tonal information (bandwidth) as possible. It simply does NOT work like that, and you've found out the hard way and even felt attacked and insulted.

A magnetic p'up is more adequate described as a "trasducer", which info to transmit is not bandwidth-based but pitch-based, meaning notes and the physics contained in the playing's nuances like timing, picking and plucking.

HTH,

[Edgecrusher]

While your analogy makes sense on the surface it has issues. Notably where they are in the signal chain. I understand what your thinking. If you use a pickup that has all the frequencies and all the sensitivity then you will be able to use the software to mold it into any shape you want. This would be a wonderful idea IF the signal chain ended at the pickup But its not the pickup is actually towards the front of the chain. Feeding all these unwanted frequencies that you plan to filter out later into the amp and effect emulations will sound like pewp and thats being nice.

Their is a perfect pickup.. actually many of them you just have to pick the perfect pickup for the job your doing and with the selection thats available today that should be pretty easy.

[verbotenco]

I think in addition to specs and the actual tone, what 'influential' people in this forum say matters too cause many of us are insecure and conforming.

[Beer$]

I don't get why everyone is pouncing on the guy. The microphone parallel makes perfect sense. The specs of different mics determine whether they would be harder or softer sounding to better match them to the sound source. That makes perfect sense for pickups as well in the way that pickups with different properties will be better suited to different kinds of guitars for a good balance.

He's acknowledged that it's not necessarily going to be a desirable sound. He just asked a question, what he does with the information afterwards is his business.

You all act as though he's on a mission to destroy the pickup industry.

[Edgecrusher]

I don't get why everyone is pouncing on the guy. The microphone parallel makes perfect sense. The specs of different mics determine whether they would be harder or softer sounding to better match them to the sound source. That makes perfect sense for pickups as well.

He's acknowledged that it's not necessarily going to be a desirable sound. He just asked a question, what he does with the information afterwards is his business.

You all act as though he's on a mission to destroy the pickup industry.

Thing is it doesnt make sense as has been explained by Kojak. A pickup isnt a mic. This is why the technical information hes after isnt published. If the info was useful people would collect it and publish it.

[uOpt]

Thinking that a linear frequency response is useful in a pickup simply betrays ignorance. Ever heard of "resonance frequency"?