Pickup conundrum

[bassface732]

Hi all!

I'm a bit of a newbie with a question about pickups, but it requires a little background... I'll be brief!

I'm currently planning my 2nd guitar (a mooncaster).  My 1st guitar is also a Warmoth build; basically a korina HSH Strat with some pickup mods that allow me to get a good variety of Strat/Tele tones, plus a good aggressive rhythm sound for hard/heavy rock.  This suits me very well for my primary needs, playing alternative rock that ranges from funky to heavy.

For this 2nd guitar, I'm planning a mahogany/koa mooncaster that I'd like to serve 2 primary functions:  1st, as my primary guitar for playing jazz, and 2nd, as a suitable backup to my other guitar for playing rock.  In other words, I'd love to be able to get a nice warm, mellow jazz tone in one pickup position, and a good rock tone in the other that will sound good with high-gain/distortion.

When I first posed this question to some other guitar folks, the first response I got was that the Seymour Duncan "Hot-Rodded Humbucker Set" (https://www.seymourduncan.com/pickup/hot-rodded-humbucker-set) would be a perfect fit for what I'm looking for.  This is great... except that the guitar I already have has these exact pickups (with a custom stack in between them)!  This perplexes me because I think he's right; those two pickups make perfect sense for what I'm after, but the thought of building another guitar with the same exact pickups feels very questionable to me...  Is it going to wind up sounding too similar to my other guitar?  I am thinking that the darker sounding mahogany coupled with the hollow-ish nature of the mooncaster body will help contribute to a more jazz-y sound than the one I can get on my current guitar, but nonetheless I can't help but feel like I might be about to waste a lot of money if I'm going to build a second guitar with the same pickups as my current one.

What do you all think?  Can 2 guitars with the same pickups sound significantly different?  Or are there some other pickup options you all might recommend to accomplish what I'm after?  Or is this all just a sign that I don't really have a good reason to build a new guitar at all??

So sorry for the long post...  I really appreciate any input you wonderful people might have for me!

 

[rgand]

I would try different pickups for sure. There are so many good ones out there that you should be able to get very different tones that give you more options and still fall within your parameters. What I do now and then is select a set of pickups and find Youtube demos of them to get a rough idea. I'm not familiar with your pickups so wouldn't know what to send you looking after. I'm sure someone here can help with that.

 

[Cagey]

Can 2 guitars with the same pickups sound significantly different? 

"significantly" is the operative word in that question. While pickups are #1 on the list of tonal character variables, they're not the only thing on that list and different platforms will have some effect on their performance/behavior. So, will they sound different? Certainly. How much? Anybody's guess. "significant" is a relative term, and to one player the difference will be night/day, while to another it's not worth talking about.

On the plus side, pickups are relatively inexpensive in the grand scheme of things, so experimentation isn't out of the question. Also, don't assume price has anything to do with it. Some units can be stupid expensive for no apparent reason, while others are on the other end of the scale. If experimenting isn't something you're afraid of trying, GFS has a pretty wide variety of pickups of high quality and low price, so they can be quite entertaining.

 

[Rick]

Looking at nothing else but the pickups, I've owned the set you mention and found them adequate for everything, but not special.  Sort of mild, goes with everything like chicken ...

I'd do what rgand recommends, looking at higher output pups from, sd, rio grande or reverend rail hammers.  With higher output you can stil get jazz tones, which to me is rolling back the  tone on the guitar.  Sounds like you're looking for pizzazz and I find it in more output. Of course, ymmv.

 

[spe111]

Personally, I would put lower output humbuckers in the mooncaster. The ones in your main guitar are pretty hot. "Vintage" output might give you a little more variety in sound and would still be able to do the backup job for your main guitar.

 

[bassface732]

Thanks so much to all of you for your responses!  I feel better already 

Does anyone have any specific pickups they would recommend for what I'm looking for?

 

[AirCap]

Okay - the Hot Rodded Humbucker set is the most popular set of pickups in the world - an astonishing best seller. So..... do ALL the guitars that have Hot Rod Duncans in them sound the same? NO. If they did, we wouldn't even be discussing it. If you like 'em, buy 'em, play the crap out of 'em.

 

[Chad11491]

I’m a huge fan of Dimarzio’s PAF 36th set.  Does everything from sparkly to mellow cleans, to blues, to hard rock/80’s metal awesomely.

 

[musicispeace]

The Bare Knuckle Rebel Yell set might be worth checking out. They have output but the neck supposedly cleans up clearly and nicely articulate. If people play jazz on a telecaster you should be able to warm up a lot of neck humbuckers as long as they are clear. They won't be cheap and Bare Knuckle ships registered mail so you will have to sign for them. That said, they practice some of the best customer service in the music industry.

A friend of mine here in Washington runs and winds Righteous Sound pickups and has some nice clear but warm humbuckers. He does sets or singles. I bought a neck pickup from him to pair with my Zhangbucker Duanebucker for the bridge. Whatever happens in the middle position with that pairing I will just take what the world throws at me. Still gathering parts for that project so can't yet comment on the outcome.