Worst pickup you've played

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garey77":oeaegac7 said:
IBZ/Dimarzio QM pickups-poo on a stick tone


The IBZ in my 7-string Premium RG is pretty nice, actually. I tweaked the pole pieces to Kingdom Come on that one as well :)
 
EMG 81 (Messed around on a Dean Dime guitar that had a Dimebucker and it was same song, second verse)

Duncan JB-Perhaps it was because I was tuned down but this damn thing was a mudslide.

Dimarzio PAF Pro-I'd heard that Trey from Morbid Angel used them, so I tried them (into my high school Crate GX130C half-stack). I don't blame the pickup, it just doesn't sound like Morbid Angel until you put it through one of those rackmount R2DU Rat into a JCM900 with a Eventide Harmonizer. Also, spend most of your life practicing.
 
Haven't read all the reply posts - disclaimer.

My answer to the post title?

Anything active. EMGs most certainly.
/EOM

Mo
 
Man, I can't believe the hate on the Bill Lawrence pickups here. I have 2 guitars with L500L pickups (from Bill and Becky)....great clarity and percussive feel....plus they sound great split.
 
Ultron":1unie7by said:
Man, I can't believe the hate on the Bill Lawrence pickups here. I have 2 guitars with L500L pickups (from Bill and Becky)....great clarity and percussive feel....plus they sound great split.

they're really great neck pickups too.....actually, a fave of mine!
 
rcm78":2ugknlpk said:
Another one that lots of people seem to like is the Bill Lawrence L500XL. I find that pickup to lack low end and have a thin feel...
+1
Very trebly and it's hard to get any roar or growl from it.
I have to be the only one to ignore it because nobody wants to buy it to me. :lol: :LOL:
 
a lot of times when i hear a person say they hate a pickup (myself included too), i wonder if there wasn't a wiring issue, a bad pot, or a short of some sort, or even a backwards capacitor.

i had a steve's special, or air norton...can't recall... i bought it from a dude on CL. it metered fine.
installed it in one of my LP's and it just sounded horrible. absolutely bland and almost...lifeless

i sold it. bought a suhr aldrich. installed it. same thing.

put the OLD pickup back in it that i KNEW was a functional sh-5.
same thing.

started the flowchart to figure out what was wrong.

turned out to be this:

that shitty stock gibson, dual purpose vintage style cloth insulated wire that connects the hot to jack and sleeve to ground at the jack but also connects the volume pots....was fucked. i tried it OVER and over and kept duplicating results with a replacement wire.

the funny thing was...continuity was FINE on both sleeve and tip of the old wire. but it just wasn't working properly anymore. i've since replaced all of them with better wire.

the suhr aldrich turned out to sound pretty good, but i opted to go another route. im wondering what the steve's special/air norton would've sounded like

i plan to try both in the future in that very guitar!
 
I don't think there is worst pickup, there are just wrong combination of guitar player style, guitar woods, amps, cabs and pickups. put X2n in "meh" sounding, cheap guitar and you can have pretty lot of fun with it (or in shovel :lol: :LOL: ), EMG became obvious choice in some genres and 81 with its no-bass/hi-mid, compressed character can be just right in some mahogany guitars, in low tunings and with combination with amps that tend to have let's say flubby low end. Even cheap no name pickups can sound good in god instrument plugged into good amp.

different people, different tastes :cheers:
 
Lace Alumitone. Its a cool concept, but that's about it. Its a very hard pickup to play and the output was about nil. it had no sustain.
 
4Eyes":3d3ii380 said:
I don't think there is worst pickup, there are just wrong combination of guitar player style, guitar woods, amps, cabs and pickups. put X2n in "meh" sounding, cheap guitar and you can have pretty lot of fun with it (or in shovel :lol: :LOL: ), EMG became obvious choice in some genres and 81 with its no-bass/hi-mid, compressed character can be just right in some mahogany guitars, in low tunings and with combination with amps that tend to have let's say flubby low end. Even cheap no name pickups can sound good in god instrument plugged into good amp.

different people, different tastes :cheers:
+1
 
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