[Neck Pickup] 1:44 Single Coil 2:12 Hot Rail 2:38 Active Single Coil 3:05 Humbucker 3:31 P90 [Bridge Pickup] 3:57 Single Coil 4:25 Hot Rail 4:52 Active Single Coil 5:17 Humbucker 5:44 P90 [Neck Pickup] 6:14 Single Coil 6:35 Hot Rail 6:56 Active Single Coil 7:15 Humbucker 7:36 P90 [Bridge Pickup] 7:58 Single Coil 8:18 Hot Rail 8:39 Active Single Coil 9:01 Humbucker 9:21 P90
Yes sir! But as an intermediate guitar player I’d like to expand on my sound and I’m still new to the different types of pickups even though I’m a guitar tech lol just an electrician sorry
Humbuckers didn't sound good, on low gain I mean. P90s first, active second, and hotrails third. I personally on play humbuckers, but it's my honest opinion.
Nice production with clear simple playing so the ear could actual discern the tone. FYI...Shane has demoed the Godin. The Godin LGX-SA is a 3 voice guitar Swiss Army knife with active Humbuckers, Peizo acoustic bridge, and Synthesizer controller ready your Boss controller. HH are Seymore Duncan (JB neck, Custom Custom bridge) with coil tap from the 5 way switch in positions 2 and 4. So Kennis could have used the tapped single tone. All three tones can be out together or individually or any combo. Example: HH to guitar amp, Piezo acoustic to acoustic amp or PA, and Synth to a 3rd amp or PA. Spread these amp apart for a wall of sound. Yes, I own one and love it. Beautiful and solid. At level of LP or PRS for around $2500 or less new. Great for the gigging musician especially worship music that needs many sounds but can't haul a lot equipment around.
I have been watching pickup tone videos and so far you are the only one that uses a standard clean sound without excess gain or any distortion. So useful.
Very interesting. I thought that the first Piece really benefited from the chimier singlecoil tone but the second from the warmer humbucker tone. The humbucker sounded too muddy and disarticulate on the first piece and the singlecoil to bright in the second. P90s spanned both really well followed by the hotrails. The actives sounded too synthetic and compressed on both pieces, to my ears.
Standard singles and P-90s were my favorite. The actives were really similar to the standards. Hot rails were...ok. I didn't care for the humbuckers at all.
I ordered some new pickups recently after doing a ton of research on this topic, hadn't yet found your video but hearing them all side by side reassured me I made the right decision for my preferences. Thank you for making this and I'm glad it popped up in my feed. For those wondering, I went with an active pickup for the neck and a hotrail for my bridge and watching this confirmed that those are indeed the sounds I'm looking for. So anyone watching this will definately have a good idea of what to expect from each pickup type. Well done and thank you!
That was a smashing heads up for someone new to the electric guitar scene. I've known about them all for a long time but never heard them like that. Brilliant thank you chap!
For my taste the Hot Rails and Humbuckers sounded terrible - muffled without any sparkle. The standard Single Coils deliver the typical Strat sound which many Strat players might expect/want. From a general sound perspective the Active Coils but also the P 90 delivered a for me surprisingly pleasant sound.
I think the humbucker sounded the best. Also, when you call humbuckers muddy and lacking sparkle, I'm not sure if you're talking about humbuckers in general, but in the video (at 7:19 for example) they sounded really thick and bitey to me. Didn't like the hot rails either though.
Yes in this video the HRs did not sound too good, but this is just one setup. With a different amp / settings this test could give completely different results. I have a tele with overwound sigles, a strat with cheap Hotrails and an other strat with Wilkinson humbuckers, and with a crancked amp the Hotrails sounds the best for me for rock. It sounds so much better even on a solid state Peavey Envoy. So I think this demo showed a style and sound where singles are good but he could play in an other style with other setting where the same singles would sound terrible and the beefier pickups would shine.
Great comparison! I was thinking about replacing my HSS with some hot rails now I know not to bother. They all sounded good but my preference would be: 1. P90 2. Single 3. Humbucker 4. Active 5. Hot Rail
Single Coil are the brightest, but I like Hot Rails the most, imho they are the best balance in sound, not so brights as single coil, not so ioly like humbackers
Seems to me what is wrong with all these comparison videos is the player never plays to the strength of the pickup to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the pickup itself. Play a plain G cord with single coil pickups through a fender hot rod DeVille amp and it will sound wonderful. Do the same with a humbucker and it will simply not sound as good. Put a single coil through a Boss Kantana gain channel and the single coil will sound fizzy and noisy. The humbucker sound clear and distinct, almost artificial.
This dude did you a favor of taking a scientific approach to comparing tone for tone. This was an informative video. I guess you'd prefer comparing a grand piano to a sloop to Godzilla to a bed sheet to suntan lotion.
Excellent job Kennis, always enjoy your stuff. I appreciate that you didn't do the typical heavy gain thing, they are always the same sound. These sound bites were great for hearing the subtle differences (especially with headphones). I'm not knocking gain but there are a thousand pedals out there for gain - these tones are distinguishable and unique. Thanks.
Nothing drives me nuttier rhab a pickup demo on a dimed out XXX Amp, but I pushed with an OD and DS pedal both engaged. Chug chug chuga crunka chug. OK so almost everything sounds the same playing a Hetfield riff when the amp is wrapped in three stages of distortion lol.
This is good for people new to electric guitars because you play the same thing for each thing, and you are clear about which position you are using and which type of pickup
Wow! Those active pups surprised me! I thought they sounded best out of all of them, what are they? I also really liked the P-90s. I would love hear how they all sound with a bit of overdrive though. 🎸
Thank you so much! I've been looking into buying pickups for a guitar I'd like to build and know some about differences but hadn't seen a back to back comparison of many before, this was very helpful.
Thanks for taking the time to do this video. TBH, I liked all of the tones. As others have noted, the active pups were surprisingly good. My wife will be thrilled when I tell her I want to buy another guitar, this one with EMG 's. 😂
Thank you for doing this, I have been looking and hunting for a video of someone comparing those 5 types of pickups. I knew that there were differences in the sound, but this brought out a lot that I did not realize. Oh, and I hope you don't mind but I had to run the audio of your video through a spectrum analyzer program so I could actually see the frequencies (sorry, I had to geek out when offered this opportunity) and I would have never thought that a single coil has more dynamic range than any of the others. I didn't keep your audio, FYI, I just had to see what they looked like on the most basic level. Thank you again for this comparison.
@@rdb9936 I really wish I would have seen this before, while I still all the captured audio. Let me see what I can do about that. Expect to see a video of it.
man I'm so tone deaf.... the difference in the tones were so subtle I found myself saying, "really!?" haha... thank you for the content. I enjoyed listening and trying to train my ears.
@@KieraQ0323 you can use phrases in other ways. It's not like there was another way to say what they wanted easily. Languages are built off making things up.
I liked the active singles the best (the P-90's were very nice too). I did find that the differences between the rails and the full-sized humbuckers to be quite dramatic. The rails just couldn't compete, but from what others have said; some single-coil sized humbuckers sound closer to their full-sized bretheren (the JB Jr. comes to mind) while others sound like muddy single coil.
Mine too, i play mainly metal but it sounds amazingly in almost every situation, only problem is that i cant get the right tone on songs like "And justice for all..."
Such an amazing video. Lovely playing, and lovely demonstration when demonstrating the bridge pickup for the humbuckers, it sort of sounded like part of explosions in the sky - your hand in mine.
This is how all comparing/teaching videos should be done great job Mr Russel well done looking foreword to your next video. Thanks for taking time to help others
Interesting. More difference than I expected. Some of this was colored by the changes in volume between the units (not to mention being out of tune). I thought the second set of playing was more telling. Initially, I disliked the straight up Strat, but then on the second round, the neck pickup sounded really good while the rails sounded too thin, the actives sounded too dynamically inflexable and the P90's were too punchy. Surprising.
This is very helpful video. It would have been even better if you had matched the volume level. The Hot Rail were only about half the volume as the other pickups and the Actives were the loudest. So in the real world you would turn up the gain on the amp (or use a clean boost) to bring the lower output pickups up to the same volume and turn the gain down on the hottest pickups so they are all compared at equivalent volumes. I quite liked the sound of the Hot Rails but I had to adjust volume levels in order to compare them.
Kennis, I really love the idea of playing all of these pick-ups at the same levels and the same phrasing. I only wish you could have driven them so people playing different genres would be able to hear the differences then. The way you were playing, I really could not tell big differences between them. Could be my ag-ed :) ears. Who knows. I know you did lots of work doing this video. Perhaps, you could make a follow showing the same guitars but driving them harder in a couple two or three different ways. As it is, I would not care to switch anything other than to take out a crap PUP for a quality PUP.
Nice production with clear simple playing so the ear could actual discern the tone. FYI...Shane has demoed the Godin. The Godin LGX-SA is a 3 voice guitar Swiss Army knife with active Humbuckers, Peizo acoustic bridge, and Synthesizer controller ready your Boss controller. HH are Seymore Duncan (JB neck, Custom Custom bridge) with coil tap from the 5 way switch in positions 2 and 4. So Kennis could have used the tapped single tone. All three tones can be out together or individually or any combo. Example: HH to guitar amp, Piezo acoustic to acoustic amp or PA, and Synth to a 3rd amp or PA. Spread these amp apart for a wall of sound. Yes, I own one and love it. Beautiful and solid. At level of LP or PRS for around $2500 or less new. Great for the gigging musician especially worship music that needs many sounds but can't haul a lot equipment around.
Everyone has their own taste and opinions, but personally I life the Std. Single coils, and P90's... Humbuckers are nice, but Active singles seem a little less "alive" and Hot Rails just seem to have "dead tones" in certain frequencies. But I'm not a heavy "distortion fan", so those are just what sounds best to me in what I look for in guitar tones... If you like something else? You're not wrong, we just don't have the same taste in tones. To each, their own!
Noob questions here from a new guitarist. A hot rail pickup is what, a humbucker that is sized to fit a single coil pickup cavity? And a P90 is a single coil the size of a humbucker?
A hot rail is a single coil sized humbucker, but instead of using two sets of six individual pole pieces, it has two bars of steel connected to a single bar magnet.
Yeah if I'm not mistaken a p90 is closely made like a single coil but with more copper wire wrapped on it so it creates a different effect with magnet making a different sound.
Very useful video. Thanks for posting. To my ears the P90, the rails, and the active pickup are all smoother, with better definition for rhythm (all strings are heard cleanly when chording), but lack the attack and percussive qualities of the humbucker and the single coil.
For me, a very informative test. I was worried initially about the fact that the results would be confounded the fact that different guitars were used but since I mostly couldn't hear much difference between any of them (except maybe the humbucker which sounded a bit less dynamic), that was not an issue. I was mostly impressed by how similar they sounded. I am really surprised that most of the commenters had definite preferences. It's no secret that as you age you lose the ability to hear certain (higher) frequencies. I'm 57 and wondering if some of the differences noted by others are more in the high frequency components which I'm just not hearing at all.
Nice effort to demo the difference of these pick up choices! They all have their traits but for the all-genre players,..one can choose which is best from the “sound” experienced and tastes for each genre! Good on ya’ fo’ doin’ this fellow musician!...👍🏽🎸🎵
Very Cool video. It really shows the average differences between those pickups, mainly in the strats. For strats i preferred the standard single-coils, however, the actives were a surprise, i can see they doing a really vesatile set. Thanks Kennis Russell.
One of the things I love best about guitar playing is that you ask 10 people which pickup sounds the best and maybe two sets of people are going to agree. To my ear I think the humbuckers and hot rails sound the best. Seeing a ton of love for active and single coil too though. Gotta love diversity.
What company , and type are the rail pickups? They’re just rail style single coils, designed to cancel hum, and not actual Seymore Duncan hot rails which have extremely high output meant to be lead pickups, and a trademark name I might add. The amp would have been pushed into overdrive if they were. Those are Dimarzio, or maybe Joe Braden. There’s a very wide grey area as far as rail style pickups go. Maybe more so than any other style of pickup. They can go from being super low output, hum cancelling design, which those sound like, to such high output, that you can play extreme metal on, and have a hard time getting a clean tone out of.
I would love to hear the hotrail split. I have a strat loaded with three rails and a split switch for each one. Sadly my other strat has actives, and my Teles have Fralin and Suhr high output pickups in both, making them impossible to compare as well. Anyways, very awesome video, thanks for doing the clean comparison as well. :)
High output hot rails with coil switching can achieve all those sounds. Switch to single or humbucker mode. Irongear pickups are the way to go. But the P90 sounded best to me. Clear and rounded. Active was just louder.
Geez, I hate it when guys show how good Godins are because if they get popular Robert Godin makes a lot of money and the price goes up and I don't get to buy more of them at the price I love. :)
I only have guitars with humbucker pickups, but I ordered a quad rail pickup for the neck, and I'm leaving the S/D Black Winter bridge pickup. I think it should sound amazing. Best part, it was only $15!
05/10/2020: I have asked many experts the following question. But, no one replies. Maybe you will be the one that can answer it. I love the sound of Fender's single coils in a Telecaster, especially the punchy twang sound using both pickups (center position on toggle switch). But, I hate the entire uncomfortable style of the telecaster body and there is no tremolo (not talking Bigsby). What I heard from many people on TH-cam is that the Telecaster bridge plate and string barrels do not make any difference in tones and sound, nor does the body wood, or neck wood. OK, my question is, what if I took a Fender Stratocaster and got a custom pickguard to hold two Fender noiseless Telecaster pickups, and add a 3-way switch like a Telecaster, would still get the Telecaster sound? What would be so nice is that this custom guitar would have all the comfort features of a Stratocaster, such as a belly cut and strumming arm contour. Plus, it would have the Fender Stratocaster tremolo. Now, how cool would that be? So, is it possible and would it sound like a Telecaster?
I'm thinking the best pickups are the ones closest to what you already have be it a hot Fender slinky single coil, or a smooth, rich jazz humbucker or whatever in between. Thing about the Godin, if you think the neck is too dark/muddy, you can add in a little of the acoustic and get all the clarity you want. Nice review, especially straight in rather than with pedals which creawte their own sound rather than the basic pickups.
Very informative. That said, for the style you used in your test it's no wonder the humbuckers and hot rails sounded uninspiring. That said, OMG I want some P90s :D
As usual, humbuckers just sound like smothered muck to my ears. The active pups sounded great, but I can't stand the idea of having to rely on batteries. Thought the Hot Rails were too dark, though not as bad as the humbuckers, and I've always found Strat pickups sound too thin and weak. So my preference is the P90s. Excellent example of how to do a great comparison video, :)
Out of 5k views I’m wondering was there at least one individual who was going to hit the dislike button at the end but then burst out laughing at your comment and wondered really why he waited to the very end to dislike it and changed his mind so ended up liking the video cos you do have a point. Great video btw, to quote the Cars, this was just what i needed. I’m def going with the active pickups, they sounded the best overall to me. Thanks
Those active pickups sounded crisp, I liked them. What brand did you put in that SX? I also thought the P-90's had a nice tone to them. Thanks for the video!
That fender makes me want to pick up my fender, all the other guitars sounded good but the first fender had spank so did the active strat clone but it sat in a jazz domain which is cool. Like it but the strat was a funk machine for sure
I found one annoyance with Hot Rail pickups. It's very easy to touch the pole pieces and generate a moderate to loud hum. For me, the middle pickup is exactly where I want to plant my anchor finger for palm muting, and I tend to strum almost directly over the neck pickup. If I use the end of the pickup shell as my anchor point, a single coil is unaffected, so I didn't even stop to think this was going to be a problem. Well, I ended up putting electrical tape over the middle and neck pickups, problem solved! XD Anyhow, the Hot Rail pickups were the worst of the five. They weren't _bad._ but they weren't the best at anything. All of the other setups had a reason to exist.
Probably a challenge to balance the volume, my reflex would be to have a humbucker at the neck and a noise canceling single coil at the bridge. I like a 3 way selector where the sound EQ difference is in your face: Jazzy neck, funky both, hard rock bridge.
I had a guitar with active pickups. Tone in itself was nice, but it was always too loud. I didn't like so much the dynamics, because I felt I always had to restrain myself from playing to avoid it being too loud, and in my head it was the opposite: when I wanted a louder sound I played harder. But it was excellent in terms of noise and great to have articulate highs, which is great for soloing in high gain. I replaced with a guitar with regular humbuckers, which would fit my style better.
commonly held view that low power single coils are better for clean sounds and high power humbuckers are for high distortion, is fairly accurate. But the higher the power the single coil the more they sound better with distortion (like P90), and low power humbuckers (like Alnico II or Gold Foil) sound pretty decent clean, although you will probably need more reverb and/or delay.
Really liked that last C,G riff at the end of the video!...... before yas even start, i know he played a Gsus9 in there along with a Few Triads, he knows what riff i meant
![ตีสิบเดย์ [FULL] | อาจารย์โอเล่ ญาณสัมผัส ผ่าดวงคนดัง ประเทศไทยจะเป็นยังไงหลังจากนี้!](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gszT2O76fL4/mqdefault.jpg)
Most useful video I've yet seen on this topic.
cdavidlake2 l
The recordings were perfectly consistent and you used simple chords as well as single notes. Perfect for comparisons like this
Yes, It is!
YES FINALLY, i have reached my destination.
lol seriously, you wouldn't believe how many tabs I got going right now trying to research and order a new guitar
[Neck Pickup]
1:44 Single Coil
2:12 Hot Rail
2:38 Active Single Coil
3:05 Humbucker
3:31 P90
[Bridge Pickup]
3:57 Single Coil
4:25 Hot Rail
4:52 Active Single Coil
5:17 Humbucker
5:44 P90
[Neck Pickup]
6:14 Single Coil
6:35 Hot Rail
6:56 Active Single Coil
7:15 Humbucker
7:36 P90
[Bridge Pickup]
7:58 Single Coil
8:18 Hot Rail
8:39 Active Single Coil
9:01 Humbucker
9:21 P90
Thanks!
Thank you so much
Dude, you are a legend.
Good looking out👍
Dude!
Basic lesson here is.... Guitars are awesome, go play.
Haha fair comment
Yes yes they are.
Yes sir! But as an intermediate guitar player I’d like to expand on my sound and I’m still new to the different types of pickups even though I’m a guitar tech lol just an electrician sorry
I like guitars but my friends don’t really like it except for one friend.
@@acreation831 he is not a good friend
I didn't think one sounded any better then the other per-say, all five pickups sounded good in there own way
*their
Humbuckers didn't sound good, on low gain I mean. P90s first, active second, and hotrails third. I personally on play humbuckers, but it's my honest opinion.
*per se
There were some superiorities in this video for sure
Per se* it is a Latin expression
Nice video Kennis! The active pickups actually surprised me a lot.
intheblues you annoy me
@@codycarter5627 hhahah
They sound amazing
Nice production with clear simple playing so the ear could actual discern the tone.
FYI...Shane has demoed the Godin. The Godin LGX-SA is a 3 voice guitar Swiss Army knife with active Humbuckers, Peizo acoustic bridge, and Synthesizer controller ready your Boss controller. HH are Seymore Duncan (JB neck, Custom Custom bridge) with coil tap from the 5 way switch in positions 2 and 4. So Kennis could have used the tapped single tone.
All three tones can be out together or individually or any combo. Example: HH to guitar amp, Piezo acoustic to acoustic amp or PA, and Synth to a 3rd amp or PA. Spread these amp apart for a wall of sound.
Yes, I own one and love it. Beautiful and solid. At level of LP or PRS for around $2500 or less new. Great for the gigging musician especially worship music that needs many sounds but can't haul a lot equipment around.
For me they had more of an "industrial" sound. The normal single ones had something natural and warm.
guitar videos have the nicest comments on youtube. i love the guitar community
I have been watching pickup tone videos and so far you are the only one that uses a standard clean sound without excess gain or any distortion. So useful.
Very interesting. I thought that the first
Piece really benefited from the chimier singlecoil tone but the second from the warmer humbucker tone.
The humbucker sounded too muddy and disarticulate on the first piece and the singlecoil to bright in the second.
P90s spanned both really well followed by the hotrails.
The actives sounded too synthetic and compressed on both pieces, to my ears.
Agree
@@irishn8 cheers. On a second listen a year later I'm loving the bridge p90 in the second piece.
@@seanparker7415 p90s in the bridge cant be beat imo
This whole time I thought Blake Shelton was playing
Lol. I get that a lot
Standard singles and P-90s were my favorite. The actives were really similar to the standards. Hot rails were...ok. I didn't care for the humbuckers at all.
Just realized my guitar has a pair of p90, tought they where humbuckers lol
Also, the hotrails sound so freacking cool
All along I thought I would go for single coils, until I heard the Active pickups. They are outstanding.
I would've liked to see a comparison with more gain as well.
Rick Beato does that. It result is that you ear the amp, not the guitars.
I ordered some new pickups recently after doing a ton of research on this topic, hadn't yet found your video but hearing them all side by side reassured me I made the right decision for my preferences. Thank you for making this and I'm glad it popped up in my feed.
For those wondering, I went with an active pickup for the neck and a hotrail for my bridge and watching this confirmed that those are indeed the sounds I'm looking for. So anyone watching this will definately have a good idea of what to expect from each pickup type.
Well done and thank you!
That was a smashing heads up for someone new to the electric guitar scene. I've known about them all for a long time but never heard them like that. Brilliant thank you chap!
For my taste the Hot Rails and Humbuckers sounded terrible - muffled without any sparkle. The standard Single Coils deliver the typical Strat sound which many Strat players might expect/want. From a general sound perspective the Active Coils but also the P 90 delivered a for me surprisingly pleasant sound.
I think the humbucker sounded the best. Also, when you call humbuckers muddy and lacking sparkle, I'm not sure if you're talking about humbuckers in general, but in the video (at 7:19 for example) they sounded really thick and bitey to me. Didn't like the hot rails either though.
I hope you know you sound like you’re 96 years old
Yes in this video the HRs did not sound too good, but this is just one setup. With a different amp / settings this test could give completely different results. I have a tele with overwound sigles, a strat with cheap Hotrails and an other strat with Wilkinson humbuckers, and with a crancked amp the Hotrails sounds the best for me for rock. It sounds so much better even on a solid state Peavey Envoy. So I think this demo showed a style and sound where singles are good but he could play in an other style with other setting where the same singles would sound terrible and the beefier pickups would shine.
Really? I find Fender in general but particularly Strat single coils to sound too trebly/harsh, thin and lacking any real punch
Harald Engels
Wire a humbucker or rail pickup in PARALLEL instead of standard series wiring and they are MUCH better.
Playing starts at 1:45
Great comparison! I was thinking about replacing my HSS with some hot rails now I know not to bother. They all sounded good but my preference would be:
1. P90
2. Single
3. Humbucker
4. Active
5. Hot Rail
Best demo in years! A simple comparison that covers different styles and sounds. Well done! And thank you.
Single Coil are the brightest, but I like Hot Rails the most, imho they are the best balance in sound, not so brights as single coil, not so ioly like humbackers
I'm with you. My next partscaster will have rails. I also like the P90's :)
I use my Mitchell with hot rails for metal and hard rock/thrash
Its okay to be bright.. You can just adjust the tone knob of the guitar.. Or the amp
Single Coil Neck pickup was my favourite. This is how i want my guitar to sound like. Amazing
Seems to me what is wrong with all these comparison videos is the player never plays to the strength of the pickup to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the pickup itself. Play a plain G cord with single coil pickups through a fender hot rod DeVille amp and it will sound wonderful. Do the same with a humbucker and it will simply not sound as good. Put a single coil through a Boss Kantana gain channel and the single coil will sound fizzy and noisy. The humbucker sound clear and distinct, almost artificial.
Agree, you have to match the guitar to the correct amp
This dude did you a favor of taking a scientific approach to comparing tone for tone. This was an informative video. I guess you'd prefer comparing a grand piano to a sloop to Godzilla to a bed sheet to suntan lotion.
I liked the active pickups best for this particular tune
The active single coils were my favourite. Awesome sounding.
What a great video. Thank you!
I came here for the hot rails, but was surprised that I liked the active singles the best
same :-)
Excellent job Kennis, always enjoy your stuff. I appreciate that you didn't do the typical heavy gain thing, they are always the same sound. These sound bites were great for hearing the subtle differences (especially with headphones). I'm not knocking gain but there are a thousand pedals out there for gain - these tones are distinguishable and unique. Thanks.
Nothing drives me nuttier rhab a pickup demo on a dimed out XXX Amp, but I pushed with an OD and DS pedal both engaged. Chug chug chuga crunka chug. OK so almost everything sounds the same playing a Hetfield riff when the amp is wrapped in three stages of distortion lol.
This is good for people new to electric guitars because you play the same thing for each thing, and you are clear about which position you are using and which type of pickup
Wow! Those active pups surprised me! I thought they sounded best out of all of them, what are they? I also really liked the P-90s. I would love hear how they all sound with a bit of overdrive though. 🎸
Thank you so much! I've been looking into buying pickups for a guitar I'd like to build and know some about differences but hadn't seen a back to back comparison of many before, this was very helpful.
Thanks for taking the time to do this video. TBH, I liked all of the tones. As others have noted, the active pups were surprisingly good. My wife will be thrilled when I tell her I want to buy another guitar, this one with EMG 's. 😂
Thank you for doing this, I have been looking and hunting for a video of someone comparing those 5 types of pickups. I knew that there were differences in the sound, but this brought out a lot that I did not realize.
Oh, and I hope you don't mind but I had to run the audio of your video through a spectrum analyzer program so I could actually see the frequencies (sorry, I had to geek out when offered this opportunity) and I would have never thought that a single coil has more dynamic range than any of the others. I didn't keep your audio, FYI, I just had to see what they looked like on the most basic level. Thank you again for this comparison.
Jeremy Jones Please share! It would be interesting to see!
@@rdb9936 I really wish I would have seen this before, while I still all the captured audio. Let me see what I can do about that. Expect to see a video of it.
@@jtjones73 so?
man I'm so tone deaf.... the difference in the tones were so subtle I found myself saying, "really!?" haha... thank you for the content. I enjoyed listening and trying to train my ears.
That's not what tone deafness is... Tone deafness refers to the pitches, not the timbre...
@@KieraQ0323 you can use phrases in other ways. It's not like there was another way to say what they wanted easily. Languages are built off making things up.
I liked the active singles the best (the P-90's were very nice too). I did find that the differences between the rails and the full-sized humbuckers to be quite dramatic. The rails just couldn't compete, but from what others have said; some single-coil sized humbuckers sound closer to their full-sized bretheren (the JB Jr. comes to mind) while others sound like muddy single coil.
How could anyone not like Humbuckers, man they sound so good
Humbuckers are my favorite
@@Unus_Annus_ Memento Mori
The best one to me is the single coils but it depends on the type of music that your playing
Joe Curran lmao same profile pic
nah singe coils on a tele can play anything
yeah, I think also that in the 2 and 4 position on the strat, they are supposed to be somewhat humbucking if the middle PUP is reverse wound.
My first electric guitar has P90s...and I absolutely love to play it clean with a little reverb. Great video!
Mine too, i play mainly metal but it sounds amazingly in almost every situation, only problem is that i cant get the right tone on songs like "And justice for all..."
Such an amazing video. Lovely playing, and lovely demonstration when demonstrating the bridge pickup for the humbuckers, it sort of sounded like part of explosions in the sky - your hand in mine.
Excellent test, that's how it should be, clean sound with clear playing shows the real flavor of the pickups
Well done
More please
THANK YOU. Been playing for a long time but never knew the differences. BIG THANKS!!!
I like the actives. Thinking of giving them a shot. Thanks for the demo!
Wow.. reading the responses I feel better to say the actives had the nicest tone.. Beautiful sound.. Thanks!
This is how all comparing/teaching
videos should be done great job Mr Russel well done looking foreword to your next video. Thanks for taking time to help others
I like the way the single coils and the P-90’s bite through.
Interesting. More difference than I expected. Some of this was colored by the changes in volume between the units (not to mention being out of tune). I thought the second set of playing was more telling. Initially, I disliked the straight up Strat, but then on the second round, the neck pickup sounded really good while the rails sounded too thin, the actives sounded too dynamically inflexable and the P90's were too punchy. Surprising.
For me personally Active and Humbucker is my favorite.
Great demo, and some fine playing amigo. I appreciate what you're doing, it really gives folks a real audio comparison between pups.
Really helpful to hear all the different types of pickups thank you.
This is very helpful video. It would have been even better if you had matched the volume level. The Hot Rail were only about half the volume as the other pickups and the Actives were the loudest. So in the real world you would turn up the gain on the amp (or use a clean boost) to bring the lower output pickups up to the same volume and turn the gain down on the hottest pickups so they are all compared at equivalent volumes. I quite liked the sound of the Hot Rails but I had to adjust volume levels in order to compare them.
Kennis, I really love the idea of playing all of these pick-ups at the same levels and the same phrasing. I only wish you could have driven them so people playing different genres would be able to hear the differences then. The way you were playing, I really could not tell big differences between them. Could be my ag-ed :) ears. Who knows. I know you did lots of work doing this video. Perhaps, you could make a follow showing the same guitars but driving them harder in a couple two or three different ways. As it is, I would not care to switch anything other than to take out a crap PUP for a quality PUP.
Finally ,the video that I have been needing ,thank you !!!!!!! Very much !!!!!!!
Thanks for taking the time to make the video.
... 03/19/2020: I love this demo. My favorite is single coils in Fender guitars, per that spanky and sparkly sound.
I didn't even know that active pickups were my favorite
They all sound pretty good...I like your lender strat with hot rails the best!!
Nice production with clear simple playing so the ear could actual discern the tone.
FYI...Shane has demoed the Godin. The Godin LGX-SA is a 3 voice guitar Swiss Army knife with active Humbuckers, Peizo acoustic bridge, and Synthesizer controller ready your Boss controller. HH are Seymore Duncan (JB neck, Custom Custom bridge) with coil tap from the 5 way switch in positions 2 and 4. So Kennis could have used the tapped single tone.
All three tones can be out together or individually or any combo. Example: HH to guitar amp, Piezo acoustic to acoustic amp or PA, and Synth to a 3rd amp or PA. Spread these amp apart for a wall of sound.
Yes, I own one and love it. Beautiful and solid. At level of LP or PRS for around $2500 or less new. Great for the gigging musician especially worship music that needs many sounds but can't haul a lot equipment around.
Everyone has their own taste and opinions, but personally I life the Std. Single coils, and P90's... Humbuckers are nice, but Active singles seem a little less "alive" and Hot Rails just seem to have "dead tones" in certain frequencies. But I'm not a heavy "distortion fan", so those are just what sounds best to me in what I look for in guitar tones... If you like something else? You're not wrong, we just don't have the same taste in tones. To each, their own!
Noob questions here from a new guitarist. A hot rail pickup is what, a humbucker that is sized to fit a single coil pickup cavity? And a P90 is a single coil the size of a humbucker?
Thanks!
A hot rail pickup is a humbucker meant to fit in a single coil cavity and a P90 is kind of an in between, it's neither it's its own thing
A hot rail is a single coil sized humbucker, but instead of using two sets of six individual pole pieces, it has two bars of steel connected to a single bar magnet.
@@wrencormier513 A P90 is actually a single coil, but yeah, it's different from the regular single coils.
Yeah if I'm not mistaken a p90 is closely made like a single coil but with more copper wire wrapped on it so it creates a different effect with magnet making a different sound.
I love the active aingle coil neck pickup def my favorite one out of the bunch
I liked the hot rails, then single coil, then active, then p90, last most certainly was the humbuckers
Humbackers good with high gain, i caught the radio on my singles))
Humbuckers best for heavier songs
Very useful video. Thanks for posting. To my ears the P90, the rails, and the active pickup are all smoother, with better definition for rhythm (all strings are heard cleanly when chording), but lack the attack and percussive qualities of the humbucker and the single coil.
I've been a humbucker & single coil user for some time but after watching this I might give P90 and Active pickup a try
I have used EMG SA active pickups in my 1986 Strat since 1986. and they still get great comments from people on there tone.
Very cool of you to do this Sir. Thank you for the hard work! Blessings, Best Regards and Best Wishes!
the active pups on the blue SX are lovely
For me, a very informative test. I was worried initially about the fact that the results would be confounded the fact that different guitars were used but since I mostly couldn't hear much difference between any of them (except maybe the humbucker which sounded a bit less dynamic), that was not an issue. I was mostly impressed by how similar they sounded. I am really surprised that most of the commenters had definite preferences. It's no secret that as you age you lose the ability to hear certain (higher) frequencies. I'm 57 and wondering if some of the differences noted by others are more in the high frequency components which I'm just not hearing at all.
Lots of opinions below. My opinion I need all 5 just in case. :) great vid thanks much
Nice effort to demo the difference of these pick up choices!
They all have their traits but for the all-genre players,..one can choose which is best from the “sound” experienced and tastes for each genre!
Good on ya’ fo’ doin’ this fellow musician!...👍🏽🎸🎵
Hot Rails sound nice and of course the P90's are awesome. Thanks for the video.
P90 sounded the best!
agreed! Would have liked to hear some gain tho...
Very Cool video. It really shows the average differences between those pickups, mainly in the strats. For strats i preferred the standard single-coils, however, the actives were a surprise, i can see they doing a really vesatile set. Thanks Kennis Russell.
One of the things I love best about guitar playing is that you ask 10 people which pickup sounds the best and maybe two sets of people are going to agree. To my ear I think the humbuckers and hot rails sound the best. Seeing a ton of love for active and single coil too though. Gotta love diversity.
What company , and type are the rail pickups? They’re just rail style single coils, designed to cancel hum, and not actual Seymore Duncan hot rails which have extremely high output meant to be lead pickups, and a trademark name I might add. The amp would have been pushed into overdrive if they were. Those are Dimarzio, or maybe Joe Braden. There’s a very wide grey area as far as rail style pickups go. Maybe more so than any other style of pickup. They can go from being super low output, hum cancelling design, which those sound like, to such high output, that you can play extreme metal on, and have a hard time getting a clean tone out of.
Looks like different pickups are better for different genres to my ears. Those active single coils sounded surprisingly good. Nice video :)
I would love to hear the hotrail split. I have a strat loaded with three rails and a split switch for each one. Sadly my other strat has actives, and my Teles have Fralin and Suhr high output pickups in both, making them impossible to compare as well. Anyways, very awesome video, thanks for doing the clean comparison as well. :)
I like the active single coil ones. Sounded the best for me
High output hot rails with coil switching can achieve all those sounds. Switch to single or humbucker mode. Irongear pickups are the way to go. But the P90 sounded best to me. Clear and rounded. Active was just louder.
Geez, I hate it when guys show how good Godins are because if they get popular Robert Godin makes a lot of money and the price goes up and I don't get to buy more of them at the price I love. :)
ya just pulled ur own covers, Bro!
They are already expensive, I don't think can get more expensive than this
Mahogany Marco They are dirt cheap used though even if they are practically new.
Is Godin pronounced Go din, Go dan, or other? :)
@@bobwelker4519 Go-din, not Go-dan.
I only have guitars with humbucker pickups, but I ordered a quad rail pickup for the neck, and I'm leaving the S/D Black Winter bridge pickup. I think it should sound amazing. Best part, it was only $15!
05/10/2020: I have asked many experts the following question. But, no one replies. Maybe you will be the one that can answer it. I love the sound of Fender's single coils in a Telecaster, especially the punchy twang sound using both pickups (center position on toggle switch). But, I hate the entire uncomfortable style of the telecaster body and there is no tremolo (not talking Bigsby). What I heard from many people on TH-cam is that the Telecaster bridge plate and string barrels do not make any difference in tones and sound, nor does the body wood, or neck wood. OK, my question is, what if I took a Fender Stratocaster and got a custom pickguard to hold two Fender noiseless Telecaster pickups, and add a 3-way switch like a Telecaster, would still get the Telecaster sound? What would be so nice is that this custom guitar would have all the comfort features of a Stratocaster, such as a belly cut and strumming arm contour. Plus, it would have the Fender Stratocaster tremolo. Now, how cool would that be? So, is it possible and would it sound like a Telecaster?
I'm thinking the best pickups are the ones closest to what you already have be it a hot Fender slinky single coil, or a smooth, rich jazz humbucker or whatever in between. Thing about the Godin, if you think the neck is too dark/muddy, you can add in a little of the acoustic and get all the clarity you want. Nice review, especially straight in rather than with pedals which creawte their own sound rather than the basic pickups.
Very informative. That said, for the style you used in your test it's no wonder the humbuckers and hot rails sounded uninspiring. That said, OMG I want some P90s :D
Well made video - and funny thing - I like the sound of those Hot Rail pick ups.... they are probably the cheapest of the bunch !!
As usual, humbuckers just sound like smothered muck to my ears. The active pups sounded great, but I can't stand the idea of having to rely on batteries. Thought the Hot Rails were too dark, though not as bad as the humbuckers, and I've always found Strat pickups sound too thin and weak. So my preference is the P90s. Excellent example of how to do a great comparison video, :)
Out of 5k views I’m wondering was there at least one individual who was going to hit the dislike button at the end but then burst out laughing at your comment and wondered really why he waited to the very end to dislike it and changed his mind so ended up liking the video cos you do have a point. Great video btw, to quote the Cars, this was just what i needed. I’m def going with the active pickups, they sounded the best overall to me. Thanks
Thought I didn't like actives, but when I think about it most actives I hear are duals screeching through like a rat and a plexi, good show
Those active pickups sounded crisp, I liked them. What brand did you put in that SX? I also thought the P-90's had a nice tone to them. Thanks for the video!
I agree 100%.
Maybe a stupid question but will more expensive ones sound even better?
I agree
Dane Presley yes
Dane Presley although you should buy the cheap ones and custom wind them
I prefer the P90. I liked the hot rail as well.
i liked all of them except the hot rails, they sound too muffled, but thats just me.
anders harmsiddlyumptious exactly. I hated the hot rails
I guess they would be good for a rhythm player that wants to blend in and provide a basis for the lead guitar or vocals.
They are primarily made for Rhythm guitarists who play heavier genres.
That fender makes me want to pick up my fender, all the other guitars sounded good but the first fender had spank so did the active strat clone but it sat in a jazz domain which is cool. Like it but the strat was a funk machine for sure
The one guitar sound that I don't have is the straight single core twang sound from a Tele or Strat. Hearing it makes me want to remedy that.
I found one annoyance with Hot Rail pickups. It's very easy to touch the pole pieces and generate a moderate to loud hum. For me, the middle pickup is exactly where I want to plant my anchor finger for palm muting, and I tend to strum almost directly over the neck pickup. If I use the end of the pickup shell as my anchor point, a single coil is unaffected, so I didn't even stop to think this was going to be a problem.
Well, I ended up putting electrical tape over the middle and neck pickups, problem solved! XD
Anyhow, the Hot Rail pickups were the worst of the five. They weren't _bad._ but they weren't the best at anything. All of the other setups had a reason to exist.
Active, and Strat sounded the best to my ear. Thanks
Best sound here is Active single coils & Single coils Pick ups.
The strength of the sounds is effective & strong
Nice comparison Kennis! The active single coil sounded best to me.
Merry Christmas to you and your family! Cheers!
Probably a challenge to balance the volume, my reflex would be to have a humbucker at the neck and a noise canceling single coil at the bridge.
I like a 3 way selector where the sound EQ difference is in your face: Jazzy neck, funky both, hard rock bridge.
I had a guitar with active pickups. Tone in itself was nice, but it was always too loud. I didn't like so much the dynamics, because I felt I always had to restrain myself from playing to avoid it being too loud, and in my head it was the opposite: when I wanted a louder sound I played harder. But it was excellent in terms of noise and great to have articulate highs, which is great for soloing in high gain. I replaced with a guitar with regular humbuckers, which would fit my style better.
Put EMG's on my first Strat and never looked back.
Now I got a new Strat and looking to go with hot rails.
Great comparison! I’m now a fan of the P90s for clean tone. 👍🏻
commonly held view that low power single coils are better for clean sounds and high power humbuckers are for high distortion, is fairly accurate.
But the higher the power the single coil the more they sound better with distortion (like P90), and low power humbuckers (like Alnico II or Gold Foil) sound pretty decent clean, although you will probably need more reverb and/or delay.
Those Active pickups sounded nice ;)
Really liked that last C,G riff at the end of the video!...... before yas even start, i know he played a Gsus9 in there along with a Few Triads, he knows what riff i meant