Guitar experts. classic alnico humbuckers vs. seymour duncan.?

Question

well. my cousin is giving me his guitar because he has 13.. its an epiphone les paul wiht alnico humbuckers. people have told me that i have to change them to gibsons or seymour duncans.

i respect metal, but its not my style..i have hear seymours are very good for that style.

and ..i dont know how a classic alnico sounds or behaves..

can any one describe the sound of any of those?

what if i like the alnicos and i change them to seymours..and then i dont like it?

does anybody know of an artist who relys on classic alnico humbukers so i can look for it and hear?

thanks.

Answer 1

Regarding pickups, you basically have three things to look at.

One, what's it made out of? Alnico and ceramic are the two most common magnet types. Alnico is generally gives more of a vintage, smoother sound, while ceramic is generally hotter, more trebly, and more edgy.

What configuration are the coils? Single coil vs humbucker. Single coils have hum, but they also have lots of sweet high end treble. Humbuckers have no hum, but when cancelling out the hum, some amount of treble is cancelled too.

How hot is it? The more windings a pickup has, the more signal comes out, but the less high end treble response it has.

Needless to say, overwound (really hot) ceramic humbuckers are favored by many in the metal community, while lower output alnico single coils tend to be favored by the blues players. These are stereotypical generalizations - exceptions abound.

It isn't fair to lump a brand into one genre - Seymour Duncan pickups can be used for any style of music.... they;ve got a couple dozen different varieties, for petes sake. Their JB humbucker is a classic "all around" pup, the "Hot Rails" are pups that sound and look like single coils but don't hum, and their "Livewires" are a series of active pickups that sound better than EMGs.

Other pickup mfg's have their own lines of pickups, as well.

Research before you buy - you'll be okay.

Saul

Answer 2

Slash from Guns N Roses uses Alnico II, and Davif Gilmour of Pink Floyd uses Seymour Duncans. Both are great pickups play around with alnicos and see if you liek them. There is also MANY other brands to choose from just look around and see if you find something for your taste. Goodluck and happy playing?