Testing pickups in live situations

[kevinT]

This is just eating away at me so i have to get it out of my system. When testing a prototype it's always a good idea to test it in live situations. Possum, I know you mentioned that you test yours in the field, so to speak. And you have mentioned that on occasions, a particular pickup sounds differently and sometimes sucks and you find the need to tweak the design.

My question is...Is the pickup the source of the perceived bad tone in a live situation?

I'm just throwing this on the table...it would seem that if a pickup sounds good while playing at various volumes in the bedroom/basement/garage, it would sound the same at a gig. The pickup is doing what it does...and it doesn't change.

However, the dynamics of the particular venue do change. Do you think that the bad tone that one is hearing is the result of the acoustics of the room, density of the audience, temperature, etc... instead of the pickup?

I'm just thinking....why would the pickup be the cause of it...I'm stumped

What do other folks think?

[madialex]

Good question Kevin. I had that very same thing happen a few weeks ago. New pickup, sounded great in the shop. Took it to my buddies gig and it sounded like ass. He used it 2 songs and went back to his Les paul. I checked out his setup, nothing wrong there. I too am stumped. The pickup was warm and full, great sustain etc...at home. At the gig it was bright and way too hot sounding. I wanted to crawl under the table and sneak out the back door. I think what may have happened is the height was not set all that well, he told me later it was set much higher than the other guitars he has. I remember trying to do a good setup in his basement but got called away and never got back to it. I guess I'll never really know at this point

[Possum]

...........

Well I'll give you my theories anyway. In your bedroom you're in a small enclosed space with alot of sound insulation around, carpets, drapes, venetian blinds, plants. Its my opinion that mass market pickups are made to sound good in that setting or a guitar store :-) So pickups at home , you're sitting in front of your amp so you hear every tiny nuance of the pickup. There's no crowd noise of clanking beer glasses to interfere with what you're hearing. Plus you really probably aren't going to have a Fender Twin cranked up at home either. So you aren't hearing an amp at gig levels usually at home and if you are the room is soaking up alot of whats going on.

On a live situation you're in an open room thats big enough for an audience, and usually has hard reflective surfaces for sound. Your amp is at playing level, alot loud than at home, you're getting reverberation from the room, and high frequencies aren't getting sucked up by stuff like at home it would. You also have chatting people, and if there's a good crowd then all those bodies will soak up the treble if its packed.

So you have the "room" thing and the amp volume in different rooms. So you think you have some pickups that sound pretty good sitting in front of your PigNose while you're sitting on the toilet playing Stairway To Heaven and the pickups sound killer. So say your pickups are wound pretty hot but you can still hear some good harmonics at home and it sounds good. So you go the gig and you crank your amp and now your pickups are too dark and at playing volumes turn to mud. Thats whats happened to me when I started out on a strat set, made them too hot, sounded good through Blues Junior at home, at the jam through Deluxe Reverb cranked up loud were really lacking in any kind of sizzle, too many winds were choking the tone, not enough sustain.

This really is on my mind now because I have a "bedroom" player who isn't digging one of my bucker sets at all. In fact two bedroom player customers are having problems with this new set. On the other hand two pro players have bought the same set and are telling me the pickups are exceptional, these are working pros. this set is somewhat unique in that it doesn't easily "give it up" at bedroom levels, but go onstage and they sparkle and sing beautifully. I am finding more and more that I better find sneaky ways to determine the playing level of my customers so I know what to steer them away from. At a mass market level the big guys go the easy route, make bright snappy pickups that will immediatley grab you when you sit down on a stool at Guitar Center and plug into the near Line6 monstrosity and make you into instant Jimi Page Allman Halen :-) then you take those same pickups to a gig and your band mates fire you because you shattered all the windows wiith glass breaking treble :-)