Sound Samples of Raised vs. Lowered Pickups

[nightengale82]

Gather 'round kiddos, it's time for sound samples! @mmmguitar mentioned that he lowered his pickups more by taking out the rubber pad below each pickup, and then he felt the pickups had a more "open" sound. I figured I would try that and document it for anyone else who might be interested.

What I have:
A 2005 refined Parker Fly Classic (mahogany body/poplar neck), Gen2 DiMarzio pickups, D'addario 9-46 strings tuned to E standard. Played through a 6' ft Mogami cable, into an Audient interface, going into Logic Pro, and using the Cory Wong Plug-in by Neural DSP that's set to an edge of breakup tone.

What you'll here in the audio clips:
Each clip is as follows; chords played on the normal "raised" height pickup, then chords played on the "lowered" height pickup, then single notes played on the normal "raised" height pickup, and then single notes played on the "lowered" height pickup. Each clip compares the pickup heights of an individual pickup position (Neck HB = Neck Humbucker, Neck CT = Neck Coil Tap, etc). I didn't use any compression or drive pedals, and the only thing I did add is a neutral gain block plug-in of +3.5 dB, before the amplifier plug-in, on the "lowered" examples so that the gain would stay almost the same between examples and so you can focus mostly on the tonal differences. Any gain difference you hear between the "raised" & "lowered" examples is due to the fact that there are some frequency response differences that happen when the height is changed. FYI there is a small amount of a delay effect on a few of these; I didn't realize if you have a large quantity of the same exact Neural plugin (in this case 12 tracks worth of the same plugin) then there can be a weird delay glitch. If I had more time to mess with this I'm sure I could've figured out how to get around this, but I don't believe it compromises the audio comparisons enough to be a problem. Also the "Middle - CT" audio is in the next post; I can only upload 5 attachments per post.

My 2 cents:
Taking out the rubber pad and lowering the pickups really does give a more "open" sound with a little less in the low mids, it's not drastic but it's there. I personally like it because I find the tone of the normal/default raised height pickups to be a little muddy in the low mids and also a little harsh with some frequency spikes around the 8k-11k. I don't play really heavy music so for me I dig the more "open" tone when playing rock, blues, funk, country, & pop. Tone is so subjective and I'd love to hear your thoughts on these comparison audio samples.

Extra thoughts:
Changing the height of the pickups definitely changes the timbre a little bit, and I'm sure if I raised them more than the normal/default height it would've given a more aggressive tone. That being said I need to mention that after I did these test recordings I also tried messing around with an EQ pedal & plug-in before the amp simulator and GOOD LORD you can make these pickups sound like just about anything you want by simply doing that!! I don't why I never thought of try this before. I got the neck hum bucker to sound like a P90 and a single coil just by messing with the EQ before the amp. What's even more impressive is that I got the coil tapped neck on this Parker to sound pretty close to my Music Man Cutlass (Strat-type guitar) with Lollar sixty-four single coil pickups; I'm extremely picky with my single coil sounds and I honestly never liked the coil tapped sound from the neck of my Parker.. until now. This seems like an exaggeration but I promise it's not; before you swap pickups try to EQ your guitar before it hits the amp first There's a lot of examples of "how to EQ your pickups to sound like "-----" on the internet. That'll be another topic & sound sample for another day

Cheers!

[nightengale82]

Here's the Middle - CT audio clip

[mmmguitar]

@nightengale82, First of all: The work you've put into your vibrato speaks for itself; and is a joy to listen to.

Secondly, thanks for going through the trouble of documenting your experimentation. I and others here would certainly agree that a good multi-band EQ in the signal chain can make for a more dramatic difference in the final mix than swapping pickups can on its own. I have more to say on the topic - But will save it for my own demo thread (should I ever manage to stop scrapping what I've recorded for it).

Being as you quoted me for the idea, I'd like to disclaim that I find there's quite a bit less of an obvious difference in backing off a typical ceramic magnet pickup from the strings than one would experience with, say, a typical alnico V. In fact, a ceramic electromagnet with sufficient gauss can compensate for such dramatic differences in distance between itself and the strings that Seymour Duncan (as an extreme example) produces a signature Brad Paisley pickup called the Secret Agent, which mounts under the pickguard of an Esquire (with around 14mm of space between the bottom of the strings and the top of the ceramic blade/bobbin):

No doubt you found you had a clear preference for how one height for your pickups feels, compared to the other. Though it may end up being mind games on my part, I find the dynamic *feel* of a transducer to be the most important aspect in inspiring whatever noise I end up wanting to play - Even when running through multiple gain stages and modulation effects. Like you, I favor amp tones better-suited for rock/jazz/funk/country/pop; and encourage you to audition other pickups in your Fly, at some point. It can be a lot of fun finding ways to make a great-sounding guitar sound even better, and I hope that adjusting the height of these weirdo Fly pickups proves intriguing/rewarding enough that you're encouraged to tweak things even more.

[nightengale82]

@mmmguitar Thanks, much appreciated!

Many of my session musician friends had told me over the years that an EQ pedal, or two, was the real champion on their pedalboard; now I finally understand why. I hope you put up a post/examples, I think it's a great topic rarely discussed. I may end up swapping pickups at some point, for now this is a really useful way to get different tones (and with my digital recording & live rigs it's so easy to save different presets).

That's a good point; ceramic magnets definitely don't react nearly as much to height differences. I remember having a Strat that I put Bartolini ceramic single coils in, and changing the height only changes the volume.. if there were any tonal differences then I couldn't hear them. That secret agent pickup is a great example, I would've never thought a neck pickup UNDER the pickgaurd would sound so good.

I completely agree about the transducer "feel" being the most import aspect of the pickup. I grew up playing super-strat type guitars with a H-S-S pickup configurations and I've never felt completely comfortable with anything else. I'm definitely interested in trying the P90 set from Vintage Vibe for those single coil sounds.