The problem with sound clips for pickups is a fairly in depth one truth be told, but I’ll try to get it down as concisely as possible for the sake of speed here. Let’s be honest, no one’s shopping for pickups with the explicit reason being “I’d like to be told how this is all very flawed”, but, none the less, it’s quite interesting, so, here goes.

I think we’ve all been baffled by pickups at some point – the sheer amount of choice from most manufacturers is utterly overwhelming, and it’s very easy to get lost in the minute details, and ultimately, there’s always the niggle in the back of our minds that we might have made a mistake in our choice right? Atleast until we install the pickup, and lo, it does exactly what we wanted all along… funny that isn’t it?

Let me start off by saying this – if you’ve bought a pickup that’s been pitched at being capable of doing Swedish black metal, and you want it to do Nu metal revival or doom thrash or Stoner metal… your fine! You’ve made the right choice!

The problem with pickups, is this.

To make a decision, we generally trust our ears, we trust our tastes in music, and really? Its kind of flawed for a few reasons.

If I’m making a pickup I know is going to be absolutely great at, lets say, mimicking my favourite 2004 metalcore band? It’s very easy to record a sound demo aping that style of playing, because I know it sounds great, and I’m hoping, somewhere, there are other people who like said Metalcore band who’ll hear it and go “hey, sounds like Anarchist law! (not a real band… I don’t think!) I love them! Sold!” (a niche market, I know!)

The problem is, this pickup might be able to churn out all that lovely trashy metalcore tone for days… but it will also be capable of being able to do Swedish Black Metal, Norwegian Stoner Punk, Danish Power violence and whatever other Scandinavian music you can think of that uses guitars!

Now, realistically? Theres no way I can make a recording for every sub-genre and spin off of “distorted guitar music” – where would it end?! So, often? Pickup demos work in very broad strokes – the tracks are usually pretty generic (so my Metalcore track might have shades of Hardcore punk in it, it might have a bit of Nu Metal… whatever) – and that’s fair enough – I think we can all infer that a pickup that can do one form of “punky metal” is likely to be able to atleast pull its weight in a few genres of punk and metal right?

But what about the cleans? Hows this pickup cleaning up? Hows it handle a bit of light rock? Could I use it for depping in a wedding band?

And heres where the problems sort of transcend guitar and electronics and become a bit of a black hole of marketing.

Sure – I could record (and we have!) the same pickup doing a very middle of the road blues track (cover those bases!) a “by the numbers” rock standard and and a funk song – but, from a marketing point of view? That kind of dilutes the the message doesn’t it? If I’m going to sit here and say “The Power-violencer-7 - Not only will it melt your face off with its blistering low end, scooped mids and devastating highs, but it’ll also clean up beautifully, with a sultry, warmth, a delicate, near brittle high end ping, and a neat and tidy mid-range to stay out of the way of your horn section!”

You’re going to think I’ve gone mad right?

However… its true (to a greater or lesser extent – if you can get a power-violencer-7 to not drive your amp into the next postcode? Yea!) – Ultimately, there’s nothing about a pickup that makes it utterly incapable of playing any genre of music! It’s just magnets and wire!

I say that, semi-tongue in cheek –because there are things about pickups that make them “better” for playing certain styles of music, but again, its very broad strokes! Music has no hard and fast rules – if you want to play the heaviest of heavy metal on a 5K Filtertron? Go for it! Probably won’t sound anything like the next person doing it on an active humbucker, but that’s fine!

And this kind of breeds a problem.

Because pickups are, generally, pigeon holed to correspond to “what their sound clip is showing” – and their write ups match up with what you’re hearing – there’s no room for, frankly, honesty.

And as a result, rather than explaining “look, good pickups make good guitar sound great!…” - we see this weird invention of specifics, where, really, none exist!

So, the Power-Violencer-7 (and these are all hypothetical pickups remember!) might be 12.7K of 43 AWG on a Ceramic magnet… but we need to appeal to the Trad hardcore players? How about “The Straight edge” - a 12.5K of 43 AWG on an Alnico 5?! Dark Disco players? The "Party machine" is a wonderful 13.5k 43 coil on an alnico 6! How about you gutter punks?! Errrr “Switch blade”…. 11.8K of 43 AWG on an Alnico 2!

Easy! 4 pickups (I wish I was this creative when coming up for names of actual pickups!) – Easy recording job, easy marketing job – ones powerful and defined, the others muscular and aggressive, the others dirty beyond dirt... no idea what Dark disco would be – pick your camp and dive in!

But, really? All of those pickups are more than capable of any of those styles! I’m not saying that, maybe, the Straight edge isn’t, maybe, slightly more suitable for Hardcore… but it’s not… it’s not actually, electrically, all that different from the power-violencer – but, you better believe, the person who buys the hardcore pickup, and lives and dies hardcore – is over the moon that hes got a pickup that appeals their sensibilities.

BUT – it’s a myth I’m afraid. It’s kind of an industry failure in a way – pickups aren’t that genre specific - its just easier to pretend they are, and because, realistically, the differences between similar specs are so minor? No one goes away unhappy! No ones buying an 18K pickup thats been showcased doing metal and hoping against hope it'll do cafe jazz, but the lad with the who are buying the 11.5K pickup pitched at Hardcore are over the moon when it turns out that it actually does all his dads favourite classic rock songs too!

So, what do we do then?

Well – remember right back at the beginning of this “short” write up? That we all panic that it’s the right pickup for us, and all those fears melt away at the first chord?

Really, if you can find “the ball park”? The 4 or 5 different pickups that sort of match up with what you hope they’ll do? (and this is why “genred sound clips” are great!) the ones with the write ups that, somewhere, disguised in all the flowery language, get you salivating? You’ve cracked it – you might as well toss a coin, because, trust me – your not missing out on the Power-Violencer by buying the Straight Edge (or visa versa) – pickups, honestly? Work in those very broad strokes, and a lot of the time? Any variations in “the pitch” of the write up, or the sound clip, are purely there to hook you in – it’s a perverse thing frankly (and something even Axesrus is guilty off… atleast we give you the comparison tracks eh?!), because its literally make miles more work for the winders – but, it does work! Its much easier to sell a fan of Hardcore punk a pickup that’s been written up and recorded doing hardcore punk then it is to sell them a pickup that’s been recorded playing an absolutely banging modern rock number, even though, the guitarist from The Germs uses the same pickups as the Guy from The Foo Fighters!

Now, when we’ve been designing pickups, we actually do keep this in mind (its why the roster is actually pretty slim considering the amount of parts we’ve got at our disposal!) – so yeah, honestly? Go in with an open mind – get in that ballpark, and I promise you, you wont be disappointed. Pickups really aren’t that complicated!