Pickup Question: when a maker says "our pickups don't play well with other pickups"

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semi-n00b
I've seen a few pickup makers put verbiage in that warns against "mixing" one of their pickups (or, sometimes a specific model of pickup) in with pickups from other makers (or other models).

I seen it with the Lace Sensor pickups, and with the Bill & Becky Lawrence L-500's.

Is this marketing hype - or is there something to it (and if there is something to it, what do they mean?)

Like, if I owned a Bill & Becky L-500 bridge, and wanted to combine it with an SD APS-2 neck - I'm assuming I'd want to go with separate volume controls and tone controls for each. But would that work?

(Hope its not a silly question!)
 
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It's not like your guitar will explode or anything.

The main problem will be with volume outputs. I don't know the power rating of either of those pickups, but if they are very different, you'll notice a big change when you switch pickups. It's not that big of a deal if you just play at home, but if your recording or playing live it can be a big pain in the butt.
 
I think that you can probably put any pickups you want to together physically in a guitar, but sonically they might not work together..thats more for you as the consumer to decide, though.

An example for me are strat pickups in a guitar where the "combination" 2 and 4 sounds are important to you. I have a Warmoth strat that I started off with 57-62 reissue pickups in the neck and middle and a Duncan Trembucker Custom in the bridge. I've never liked the "split humbucker/single coil midd" #2 sound but it was more important to me to have the humbucker in the bridge for this particular guitar so I got past my dislike for the tone.

Then I decided I wanted a Duncan Antiquity in the neck, which sounded awesome but then the #4 sound sucked in that guitar because of the differences between the Antiquity and the Fender Reissue pickup.

By the time I was done with that guitar the only thing that really made me happy were all 3 of the same Antiquity pickup, which I've now put in my Tokai strat :facepalm:

The finished result: http://markweinguitarlessons.com/soundfiles/duncans.mp3

not sure if this is helpful or not...
 
I don't recall ever seeing an actual warning about using one mfgs pickup with another...I'm sure that every pickup winder would love it if you bought all your pickups from them.

Do you have anything you could point me to so I could see what you mean?

Your biggest stumbling block when mixing and matching pickups is coming up with a combination of pickups that will sound good together, blend nicely when combined and not have too drastic of an output difference so you're not always trying to compensate with height or volume adjustments so your different switch positions have similar output.
 
The Lace and BL pickups are not your typical run of the mill designs. I know that the BL stuff is pretty low impedance and if you set up your rig for it than it may not sound right when switching to other pickups or even worse when mixing them.

Of couse that is just speculation on my part.

The Lace pickups are completely off the wall though and I woudn't be surprised one bit if they didn't play well with others.
 
shasha said:
The Lace and BL pickups are not your typical run of the mill designs. I know that the BL stuff is pretty low impedance and if you set up your rig for it than it may not sound right when switching to other pickups or even worse when mixing them.

Of couse that is just speculation on my part.

The Lace pickups are completely off the wall though and I woudn't be surprised one bit if they didn't play well with others.
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Just wondering if you solved your SD JB dilemma yet?
 
Here's a pic of Dime on Bill's site:

youngdimebag.jpg


Notice that he isn't using two XL500s......IIRC that's a stock Dean neck bucker.
 
Most pup makers, work to balance neck, mid, bridge pups within an impedance range, hence they'll have a "set" of pups. Mixing and matching pups of wildly fluctuating impedances, tends to make life more difficult. Both from a volume, and a tone standpoint.
 
The only ones I know of that just won't work with others is the Lace alumitone. I used a Sensor Dually in combo with a Burstbucker and they worked fine together.

EG
 
_pete_ said:
Just wondering if you solved your SD JB dilemma yet?
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Of course not. I'm so frickin busy right now that I can't even take 5 minutes to make a decision.

I want to run out to one of the guitar stores further down the road and get some time with some guitars with a variety of pickups. I know that it isn't a sure fire thing that'd sound the same way in my guitar, but it'll get me a ballpark idea of what to expect.

I'm still thinking that a Dimarzio Dual Tone would be a nice fit.
 
Wow - thank you all most kindly for the responses!

k4df4l said:
I don't recall ever seeing an actual warning about using one mfgs pickup with another...I'm sure that every pickup winder would love it if you bought all your pickups from them.

Do you have anything you could point me to so I could see what you mean?
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You know, I'm embarrassed - but Glad you asked! I honestly could "sweah tu GAWD!" that I read that on the Lace Website. But I went and checked that today and lo & behold! There's no warning anywhere about mixing their pickups with other brands. I sit corrected!! (now I feel like a dunce!)

In fact, I noticed Specifically on the "Alumitone Deathbucker" description they're saying: "Deathbuckers™ are compatible with all guitars and other pickups. As an easy drop in replacement, the 4 conductor design needs only 250k pots." !! So, now I figure I was dreaming, or residing in another dimension or something! :confused: :)

shasha said:
The Lace and BL pickups are not your typical run of the mill designs. I know that the BL stuff is pretty low impedance and if you set up your rig for it than it may not sound right when switching to other pickups or even worse when mixing them.

Of couse that is just speculation on my part.

The Lace pickups are completely off the wall though and I woudn't be surprised one bit if they didn't play well with others.
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Elias Graves said:
The only ones I know of that just won't work with others is the Lace alumitone. I used a Sensor Dually in combo with a Burstbucker and they worked fine together.

EG
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The "Bill Lawrence Wilde-Gate > L-500s: options and characteristics" page at: http://guitarsbyfender.yuku.com/topic/3027/t/L-500s-options-and-characteristics.html

Does say: "...All 500's are extremely loud and therefore don't really mix well with other pickups..."

k4df4l said:
Here's a pic of Dime on Bill's site:

Notice that he isn't using two XL500s......IIRC that's a stock Dean neck bucker.
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Well, now thats something I never noticed all the times I looked at that pic!

Uncle Fester said:
Most pup makers, work to balance neck, mid, bridge pups within an impedance range, hence they'll have a "set" of pups. Mixing and matching pups of wildly fluctuating impedances, tends to make life more difficult. Both from a volume, and a tone standpoint.
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Yeah - that makes a lot of sense.
 
That's odd. The original Alumitone specifically warned that it wouldn't work with others. I wonder if they've made changes or maybe they just got over themselves.

EG
 
i had a set of Bill Lawrence L500s in my Ibanez for a while. good sounding pickups, but to say that they're much louder than everything else isn't really being truthful. maybe the XL version, but it'd probably be fine with something like a Dimarzio Norton in the neck. Bill makes nice pickups, but i really just think it's a play to get you to buy all BL pups.
 
Elias Graves said:
Lace seems to do that without really trying.

EG
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i think the issue is that replacement pickups are such a gamble to begin with. so if i try something from Dimarzio or SD and don't like it, i can still get something more traditional. even BL and Bryan will rewind something for you. with Lace, no matter what you get, you're still gambling on their design. not a lot of people want to do that sight unseen.
 
The way I read about the Alumitones is that they are a current driven design rather than voltage driven. I'm no electrical thingy guy so I really have no idea what that means, if anything but it seems to have been at the heart of their earlier claims of incompatability.

Although, the way those things sound, I doubt I could find anything to put with them that sounded right.

EG
 
Elias Graves said:
The way I read about the Alumitones is that they are a current driven design rather than voltage driven. I'm no electrical thingy guy so I really have no idea what that means, if anything but it seems to have been at the heart of their earlier claims of incompatability.

Although, the way those things sound, I doubt I could find anything to put with them that sounded right.

EG
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that's not a very encouraging post.
 
Help!I'maRock! said:
that's not a very encouraging post.
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I guess that sounded wrong. I meant that they are a pretty unique sounding pickup and you'd probably find it hard to find something that meshed well with them. They are....the best way I can describe it is a hi-fi pickup. The opposite of a P90, say. They have a really wide dynamic range, tons of bass, tons of highs, really balanced, loud and super clean. I'm not sure a humbucker would sound right mixed with one. I could be way off. I usually am.

EG
 
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