Questions about Guild humbuckers

lautmaschine

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Hi there,

I'd like to start a thread about the differences between Guild humbuckers from the various eras. If I understand correctly, there were at least three different types of humbuckers over the years: the original 'mini-humbuckers' from the 1960s, the larger humbuckers from the 1970s and the later Seymour Duncans.

What are the differences in sound / tone between these pickups? Why did Guild switch to a larger size in the 1970s? What pickups are generally considered to be 'classic'.

Incidentally, I have a SFIV, with the minis, and I think they sound great. A lot more definition than any PAFs I've heard.

Thanks!
 

Darryl Hattenhauer

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Important question. I hope we get some info here, becasue I don't know squat on this issue.

Years ago, a guild expert told me he couldn't tell any sound difference between the 60s and 70s buckers. And he's heard a million of them.

I do think that there are a lot of specific PUs that don't sound like most of the others of their kind. For example, I had a black Guild P90 that sounded very different, and I had a 60s Guild bucker that was odd. As far as I know, they weren't broken, just different for some reason.

I can't say I like the Duncs in my startfire 5. And I really hate to admit that my friend's X 150 sounds better with Gib--- pafs.

Interesting fact: Jim Hall put Guild 60s buckers in his Gib--- guitars. I assume the results were better than having his wife sing on a few tracks. Maybe that's where McCartney and Lennon got this terrible idea.
 

teleharmonium

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I was under the impression there were 3 types of humbuckers that were manufactured (or, at least, assembled) by Guild: the original "mini"s, the full sized version that came a little later, and then a lot later on, a higher output version (more windings, for a sound closer to Gibson pickups). I think they all sound better than Gibson humbuckers from the equivalent time frames, and that makes sense because I prefer brighter sounds, but the minis are especially nice.

I'm mostly into single coil pickups, but now that I have caught the Guild bug, I figure at some point I'll get a Starfire III with the minis or the full sized hums from the mid to late 60s.
 

santfe

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I'm with Jim Hall on this one, although it does depend, as always, on what tone you are after.

If you want a really fat, high output pickup to drive the input stage(s) of your amplifier into distortion, then by all means stick with the Gibson humbuckers.

The Guild humbuckers aren't as fat as the Gibsons, and have considerablely more "twang," for want of a better word. They are "ballsier," more gritty on the bass strings.

If the Gibsons represent one end of the pickup tone spectrum, and single-coils the other extreme, then the Guild humbuckers are closest to the Gibson sound (whereas the Gretsch FilterTron humbuckers are much closer to a single-coil sound (not so much on the bass strings)).
 

parker_knoll

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I 50% agree with Santfe here. As the owner of both types I would say my SF III with Dearmonds doesn't sound a whole lot different from SF III with minis. They are both twangy and pretty trebly.

I would also say that Guild minis are way closer to single coils than Filtertrons, but I haven't only one set of minis to judge from. At the moment i have only TV Trons but I've also owned Filtertrons and I'd say they are definitely humbuckers - okay, they're not as muddy as PAFs, but there's not much twang in the bass and still essentially a warm smooth sound.
 

santfe

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"I 50% agree with Santfe here. As the owner of both types I would say my SF III with Dearmonds doesn't sound a whole lot different from SF III with minis. They are both twangy and pretty trebly. "

I wasn't talking about the mini-humbuckers. I have no experience with those, only the Gibson-sized humbuckers (on a '80 X-500).

Coil-split, they sound pretty good as single coils.
 
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Can anyone point me to good examples of Guild humbucker sounds? My experience with Guild pickups is based almost exclusively on listening to the band Cake (both of their lead players used mid-to-late '60s Starfire IIIs). It's such a weird, nasty, lo-fi tone that those guys get that I'm hesitant to base any sort of opinion on their sound.
 

parker_knoll

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well, for a completely contrasty shiny / sh#tty sound the guyv out of Garbage also predominantly plays a Starfire III, although I'm not sure what vintage. Also, early Kinks used Starfires and Duane eddies.
 

Dirt123

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How about Lovin' Spoonful? At some time Zal Yanovsky changed the pickups on his Guild to gibsons, but most of the early recorded stuff should be Guild.

Dirt
 

dklsplace

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The guy from Garbage is playing a newer SF III. Sounded good live (when Directv was still showing weekend concerts). But they lose something in the translation when they use so many digital effects.

I wasn't aware that Cake was using Guilds. I had a thread going on the old forum trying to identify the LP/BB-ish guitar that Xan was using during another Directv concert.
 

dklsplace

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Well, you got me curious about Cake again so I went looking.
http://music.yahoo.com/ar-294061-videos--Cake

In the Never There video it looks like he's playing a newer (Westerly) SF III which I believe were HB-1's?
The Distance video is an older one which appears to be the mini humbuckers.
 

Walter Broes

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The original guitar player in Cake played a Hoboken SFIII with the mini's. Those SF's, plugged into an amp with not a lot of headroom, do get nasty and ratty.
Those pickups are pretty powerful for a small humbucker, and have a mean upper midrange and treble, pretty agressive sounding, and I wouldn't really describe them as very "pretty" sounding. Great pickups though. My buddy Mischa in Dutch band T99 gets a great blues sound out of his CE100D with minis. ( http://www.t-99.com/home.html)
 

dhdfoster

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I think "Never There" is the "new" guy, although not so new by now. The original guitartist was only on the first two albums. "The Distance" is on the second album, Fashion Nugget, which is 45 minutes of really great, nasty Guild humbucker tone. His tone is so ugly it's beautiful. On the thrid album they brought in a few guitarists, including Jim Campilongo.

I think there's another one out now, but I'm not familiar with it. I tried to listen to it in Borders and almost fell asleep.
 

lautmaschine

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Walter Broes said:
Those SF's, plugged into an amp with not a lot of headroom, do get nasty and ratty.

Yes, I've found the same thing on the bridge pickup with the volume cranked to 9. There's just a ton of bright harmonics there, when I'm playing through the dirty channel. I find that rolling the volume back to 8 helps a lot, but rolling off tone control does little. The middle position and the neck pickup sound fantastic though. Just gorgeous.

I've often wondered if changing the cap value or pot value could help tame the beast a bit, but I really don't want to mess with things too much, since I think its all original.
 
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