I always end up with Toneriders in my guitars. Not just because they're cheap but because they sound fantastic. Maybe Toneriders are just a fair price and it is the other brands which are expensive???
The real star of this comparison is whatever delay and reverb you are using. Sounds fantastic. ☺☺☺ 🤔 But back to the pickups. I loved the tone of the Hot Classics. Clean was nice and not too nasally and overdriven was fantastic.
The psychology of this is fascinating. The only identifiable difference I can grab onto was in the cleans. Every time you cut back to the ToneRiders (independent of position), I went “whoa!”. I kept thinking it was just perception, and that both sets of pickups sounded similar... but then you’d cut back to the ToneRiders and... “whoa!”. Keeping things in perspective, I AM listening through iPad speakers. ;) Love’d the playing.
Late to the party here. Just had a set of Tonerider Hot Classics fitted to my Squier Classic Vibe 50s Telecaster. They are exceptional for the money. Danced all over the Fender Designed units. And many hold them (FD) in higher esteem than the ones that come as stock in the Player II model. So much snake oil out there in terms of the instruments themselves and then the pickups. £65 for the Toneriders is a stellar purchase for me.
Man, pickup changing is a proper rabbit hole and can open up a huge can of worms. I'm still not convinced about my handwound fat 50s in my custom shop Landau strat but am reluctant to start swapping pickups. As you say it can be a costly process and I don't think my ears are good enough to pick up the differences/nuances. Rabea Massaad has done a good video on swapping 4 different sets and to be honest I prefer the ones he had in there to start with. Great video and playing as always.
i dont mean to be offtopic but does any of you know of a way to log back into an Instagram account..? I somehow forgot the account password. I appreciate any tips you can give me
i dont mean to be offtopic but does any of you know if Jesus Luca is trolling to get someone's Instagram password? There are dozen of UA-cam videos where this guy is asking the same question, starting (nonsensically) by saying, "I don't mean to be [a jackass]..." Clearly, he does mean to be one.
02:25 ToneRider Hot Classic NECK CLEAN 02:55 K Line NECK CLEAN 03:27 ToneRider Hot Classic MIDDLE CLEAN 03:58 K Line MIDDLE CLEAN 04:29 ToneRider Hot Classic BRIDGE CLEAN 05:01 K Line BRIDGE CLEAN 05:36 ToneRider Hot Classic MID GAIN 06:22 K Line MID GAIN 7:06 ToneRider Hot Classic LEAD TONE 08:35 K Line LEAD TONE 09:59 ToneRider Hot Classic LEAD TONE NECK snippet 10:06 K Line LEAD TONE NECK snippet
The Toneriders go hard. They are a great general purpose Tele pickup that cover a lot of ground. Someone looking to just play clean might want something with more chime and clarity. Someone who plays rowdy blues and blues/rock might want something like a Fender Tex/Mex (another great value pickup set) I've got the Toneriders in a CV Tele and for versatility and value they are very hard to beat.
The note separation and clarity is much better with the K Lines, and this is more prominent in the clean setting. It's also very satisfying to hear the individual notes clearly during the gain/distorted setting with the K Lines. It has a very nice and balanced sound. Given a smaller budget, the Toneriders are a decent set but it's overall a bit muddier. I wonder how they compare to Dimarzio Twang King/Seymour Duncan.
Well, the Hot Classics have a higher resistance which means they sacrifice some presence/clarity for more power. It's not so much a comparison between cheap vs expensive as it is about hotter vs lower output. If you had the Alnico II Blues set, I think the differences would've been imperceivable. Tonerider (and IronGear) pickups don't sound cheap at all.
I found your post looking to better understand pickups, but your playing blew me away. Great to be so inspired to practice after hearing you play. And I agree the high sounds I for sure it makes a difference which I saw in other posts too. Will for sure look for more posts with you playing.
Hi John, I discovered your channel a short time ago; I have got to say what a refreshing take on guitar tones, playing and gear demo's. Love your very articulate playing and musical styles. In regards to the pickup differences as you say I think each person has a perseived tone they like from a guitar, this maybe influenced by the type of music they like or an artist style and tone they like. Also I discovered after damaging my hearing in terms of now having tinnitus "ringing in the ears" after many years giging with AOR style rock bands, when I had my ears tested I was told by the doctor that we all can hear slightly different frequencies; which in this case may contribute to what we think is a good sounding pickup. In your test I found that there was a marginal difference, ironically I like the harmonics produced by the Tonerider cheeper pickups both in the cleans and slightly driven tones, but again the K Line pickups may have what may seem like a bit more clarity; but to myself a little more output and slightly higher frequencies. Personally I think you can change the tone of most pickups by using a Graphic Equaliser pedal in your guitar chain to shape your required tone. Admittedly you may need a certain type of pickup such has an high output pickup for a certain type of music. Also if a pickup gives you a certain tone that may influence the way you play.
small difference's. Both sound very good. It's funny how little it matters but how much it matters for anyone chasing " perfect tone " and for some of us.. pretty good is more than enough and those tone riders are pretty good. I am considering now the difference and value of toneriders vs Mojotone noiseless or low noise 52's.. it seems like I'd be fine with the tone riders.
Generally speaking, the tonerider are very good pickups. They say these pickups were mounted in the old squier classic vibe strats and tele. I own a Classic vibe strat 50 (2015) and it sounds very good. I would say it sounds better than my american standard strat (2009) with standard pickups
Dropping the A3 pup height a quarter turn would make them sound pretty similar IMO. Not surprising that people liked the low output A2 clean, would be interesting to compare them to toneriders A2 offering.
I just ordered a set of hss toneriders and wiring set for my 2009 Squier Strat MII. I bought the strat for a good price and thought that it sounded quite good next to my AM Pro One. However, I did a proper A B check and noticed that the Squier sounded sterile. I also ordered some Wilkinson EZ lock tuners since it doesn't really hold tune too well. Hopefully, it will sound like another beast quite soon.
Tele 4-way switch? I didn't know. Wow. Most noticable tone was the consistent speed, volume, and pick attack. The fingers were magic, the pickups, ehh?. Have fun. :-)
definitely agree with your assessment on the clean tones the New pick ups are more open sounding have more clarity you can hear the High end on the lower strings the wound strings sound so much better. from my experience it’s not always money that makes the pick up sound better I replace the pick ups in my epiphone Joe pass which sounded good but they were what I would consider muddy. I first put in Seymour Duncan‘s which was a big improvement and then I bought a cheap pick up made in the UK I believe a Warman. P90 style with a ceramic magnet and boy did that thing and still does sound great for jazz.
Firstly great playing, I would listen to this even if i wasn't interested in pick up swap. Re the swap I actually preferred the Toneriders, not saying they're better just different. Is it worth swapping pick ups. I think so if you like the guitar, i swapped out the stock pickups in my MIM strat (ceramics ) and replaced them with Wilkinson alnico v's. It now sounds cleaner, brighter, clearer and warm, before it sounded bouncy and warm tending to muddy yet was shrill on the bridge. My son prefers the ceramics I prefer the alnico. In your hands I'd guess either config would sound great and I'd probably want both set ups. Good video thanks, ill be buying some Toneriders for my SX tele (an amazing value cheapy). Cheers
Haha I was literally diving in to comment that I thought I noticed most difference when clean, then you popped up and said it for me! I did personally notice an improvement with the K Lines, not to say the ToneRiders didn't hold their own here, can't argue with that sound for the price point, but the K-Lines did sound particularly more lovelier haha to me with the headphones on. Good video man! A/Bs are really helpful and done in this context, same guitar, same settings in a variety of styles etc, is perfect. Good work man, as always!
@@johnnathancordy Absolutely, that's how I hear it there for sure. It's really interesting as I've had my mind on pickup demos specifically for a number of years now. I definitely have a long way to go in making the best pickup demos I can with my abilities, but this does give me food for thought. I do feel it's important to show how a pickup responds to drive/gain/fuzz etc, as some sets can handle it better than others, but this does show that clean tone is still where you can hear the biggest differences.
I could hear a greater difference in the clean tones on the neck and middle positions. The clean bridge positions sounded closer to my ears. The K Lines played clean in the neck and middle positions had more presence, a slightly bigger sound and were just more "there". If clean tones are an important part of someone's playing then the pickup change could be justified. Of course I don't know the price of the K Lines......So I don't know if a cheaper pickup change could achieve similar results.....As the sounds became more overdriven I found it harder to hear the differences. So if a more overdriven tone is key to your sound - then it could be difficult to justify the expense in changing the pickups. Just makes me think how good those Toneriders are!
There is a difference in the clean sound, the more transparent neck pickup cover is probably the only reason the K Line sound more chimey. As soon as any gain is put on they sound the same to me. By the time you've adjusted the amp I don't think you would notice any difference in a band session. I've used Tonerider and Irongear and they punch well above their weight. All a pickup is is copper wire and magnets.
Really interesting topic here. Honestly you got a really nice tone out of both sets. I am lucky to have pretty good quality studio speakers to hear and good head phones. I agree the K's had bit more clarity than the Toneriders. At the same time with that clarity they "to my ears" has some mid range overtones that kind of ever so slightly swelled up on some lower notes. The Toneriders to "my ears" were consistently a bit muddier but evenly so. Actually the new clarity of the K's sounded like that "new set of strings" sound to "my ears". But for all I know you had new strings on both examples. I have to say the way you play that guitar with either pickup set, with the effects and signal chain you used sounded very nice. The overdrive sounded about the same to me. I've changed pickups so many times I think I have a problem :-). This next statement will make my comments appear like a guy who knows nothing about tone to most who read this. My latest favorite pickup combo on my Tele after trying so many?. DiMarzzio DP112BK bridge, and SHOCKER!! GFS NeoTN9 vintage overwound neck. I unlike most Tele players prefer a really fat full tone on the neck. And the cheap GFS shocked me after trying so many brands. I can get that fat jazzy bucker sound. The DiMarzzio bridge has an even level of brightness on all strings as most I've tried kind make the higher strings a bit shrill. But if I only played chicken pickin country I'd use the Duncan Jerry Donahue bridge. It's just got that thing to me. And takes overdrive pretty cool as well as delivers gritty spanky country. I'm not at all an expert on tone. Just one older guys opinions. Johnnathancordy. I've been enjoying your playing for a while now. You really have developed a very cool style and sound. And your playing is soulful, interesting, and you lack nothing when it comes to superb technique. Some players are great to listen to because they are so technically good. You have both. Technically good and you choose stuff that is enjoyable to listen to. Love the channel very much. Thank you.
From my personal experience when i swapped out pickups in my American Special Tele with a set from Bare Knuckle i was blown away! The difference in clarity and detail was huge in clean tones! What i wanted to hear though in your comparison, was an A/B test but with a real amp... Would those tonal differences be more highlighted or not? I guess we will never find out at this point...
Well thatd be very difficult to match the microphone position etc over the course of a few days? But yes in general amps are a bit more sensitive to this stuff!
@@johnnathancordy exactly, and if you use an amp and microphone in a pretty uncontrolled setting/room, then things in the room like chairs or clothes being out in the room will alter the acoustics of the room and what the microphone picks up. Which is why I get why you did it the way you did... also, although people hate on digital only, I feel it can show the far more clarity if recorded properly as it is controlled you can see the subtle differences that may have been harder to hear in the room.
I agree that the differences are not big enough to justify the investment, based on what I can hear on UA-cam. But that's just my opinion. I've also watched the recent pickup change stuff that rabea did recently and come to a similar conclusion. Maybe it's different 'in the room'. I mainly use a modeller these days so get much bigger impact from changing an IR for a few £s. The other part of this is whether there is any difference in feel or your perception of the guitar when playing...that elusive 'mojo'.
Very interesting ! Honestly I don't see any major difference here (with headphones anyway). On clean there is a difference, but I feel like they can be a bit different in term or voicing, more than in term of "quality" ? (if that makes sense, don't know how to word it properly). I can't tell which ones I'm liking the most aha ! Neck pickup I might like the Kline a bit more, when on bridge I might like the Tonerider a bit more...aha !
In fairness..there are "cheap" pickups (tonerider) which are quite good...and "cheap and crap" pickups. I would place toneriders near the top in bang for your buck. I have the same hot classic bridge in a tele and its pretty good. Not a Fralin or a Lollar..but for the price..pretty darn good. I also have a tonerider alnico 2 classic humbucker which is really good. Having said that..i did prefer the k-lines :)
@@johnnathancordy I can send you the ones I have in the old black Strat' I've bought recently...man THAT is really bad pickups ahahaha ! Even on the cheap Harley Benton stuff or Squier Bullet etc nowadays...the pickups aren't "bad" anymore I feel like though.
If you want to do the comparison, here you have a set of strat pickups for 8$: es.aliexpress.com/item/4000930181069.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.50561900U3YzKi&algo_pvid=f2ea6e49-3be2-4ea5-9ec7-638606adcad0&algo_expid=f2ea6e49-3be2-4ea5-9ec7-638606adcad0-29&btsid=0ab50f6115916181991351838e3b75&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_
The differences are really small and maybe more related to the newer strings than pickups themselves. The toneriders just sound great for really little money. I doubt it was worth the considerable cost of the upgrade.
Would like to know if you ever tried noiseless single coils? Getting my first strat, kind of afraid of the 60 cycle hum. If you have how do you think they compare to the normal single coils? Love the legato lessons on patreon btw !
I've never tried a noiseless pickup no, for me I find that generally at home I move away from the monitors enough that I don't really have any issues with hum?
I think any pickup change is going to make a tonal difference, but I do think better and worse is subjective. You will likely play different with hotter pickups for example... which may or may not suit your play style. It’s just like pedals in that way... 2 ppl can play the same pedal and one will say it is the best pedal ever and the other will say it is garbage. Lol. You will also see a tonal change with guitar picks and strings of different gauges. All part of the secret sauce :)
People chase their tails too much when it comes to pickups. If you're not getting the tone you want, try adjusting pickup heights, amp EQ, guitar EQ (Teles have tone knobs for a reason), before throwing more money at the guitar. I know, it's a stupid and obvious thing to say, but even I've been guilty of plugging in a guitar and declaring it crap, without even considering that perhaps the amp settings I had for the LAST guitar I was playing may not be ideal for THIS guitar. I've also gone through a pretty long stretch of my playing life where I would dime all the knobs on the guitar and never touch them after that. You can do a lot with a good tone pot, but since so many times, the tone control is little more than an on/off switch, we just turn it up to 10 and leave it there. Now, if the pickups sound naff, and there's nothing you can do to make them sound better, then by all means, replace them. But if the pickups you have sound good already (which the Toneriders definitely do), spending a couple hundred more will not make that much of a difference. You become subject to the law of diminishing returns. If you're chasing 5% more of something that you can't even define, or even know for sure that you're missing, then I'm afraid you're on a fool's errand my friend. Frankly, those pickups sounded almost identical to me. The differences between them could be easily compensated with a little tweaking. Besides, whatever subtle, nuanced improvements in tone you may perceive from the expensive, boutique pickups will be completely lost on stage, or in the mix, anyway. I'm not trying to detract from the skills of boutique pickup winders. I build guitars, and have employed the valued skills of custom pickup makers for some of them. Most notably; Buddha Pickups. He does great work, and when I want a really specific sound, he always manages to deliver what I was hearing in my head... based on a vague description, using inaccurate, borrowed adjectives ("I want it to sound sparkly, but not too jangly... warm, but not too dark... full, but not too round"). But I only go to him when I have something special in mind, and I don't want to dick around. For other builds, I've used Toneriders, Roswell, GFS, etc. They sound awesome too, and I don't waste a second worrying if something I ALREADY LIKE could be an Nth of a degree better. Because that's all you're gonna get is an Nth of a degree... Whether that's "better" or not is a completely subjective perception.
You're comparing pickups with different magnets, with one set hotter than the other and with old strings for the hotter set and new strings for the lower output set. You should have at least had new strings on the guitar for both sets of pickups. Unsurprisingly, the lower output pickups with less powerful magnets and with new strings sound more open and articulate. You possibly could have achieved a similar result with the Tonerider blues set (TRT-3) which use Alnico 2 magnets?? In this test I prefer the K-Lines neck pickup over the Tonerider. This is a fair difference in output here and the K-line has more clarity. The bridge pickups are closer. They have similar outputs and I'm not sure how easy it is to identify each one correctly. Perhaps the K-Line has more presence......more of a certain something - but I'd say it was quite subtle. I do think the Toneriders sounded pretty good overall. If maximum clarity in your clean sound was of prime importance then maybe the K Lines are worth it.....but can't help wondering if you could have achieved a similar result with lower output Tonerider pickups?
I don't think this is expensive vs cheap. This is Formvar vs Enamel. If you were A/B'ing those Toneriders against enamel wire pickups of any price, with the same voicing (number of windings) then they would probably sound near-identical. The Formvars will have a different response (which we can't hear, only you can sense because you're striking the strings) due to the difference in the total reactance and fact that less energy is temporarily stored in the coil before becoming the signal. Also the Formvars, for the same peak EQ, seem to have a different character of phase-cancellation in the bass frequencies which is 'hollowing out' the bass frequencies and creating a more open and less pushy bass sound. If someone buys a single coil made with enamel wire, even if they spend £300 on it, it won't sound different to the Tonerider. Equally they could buy a heavy Formvar pickup for £20 (from AliExpress or whatever) and if it was made with genuine heavy Formvar it would most likely sound near identical to the K-Line.
I am beginning a business of pickup winding and in my research, for delving into the venture, I have come to a couple conclusions. 1. Handwound pickups are time-consuming to hand assemble. From start to finish a pickup can take an hour or more factoring in assembling and prepping the bobbins, wrapping the coil, and potting the pickup. It takes about 10-15 min with a fast winding machine to fully wrap and solder a pickup. Not fully factoring potting time ( about 20-30min ) it could even be a little longer than an hour. Obviously while potting you can do other tasks. So round it out to around an hour from start to finish. 2. Hand-wound pickups are more unique and certainly have more character than and off the shelf model. This can be both good and bad. Since a human touch is involved, each pickup is more or less a one-off, custom pickup. The good thing is that the human touch is good enough to make them within a reasonable tolerance. The big upside is that at the very least, you paid money that went to a human as opposed to a machine if you're into that sort of thing. 3. Machine wound pickups are obviously more alike and replicable. Buy one today and it will be very close to the same 5 years from now if you need to buy another. There is certainly value in that. Not to mention the cost can be cut WAY down. These days it isn't so much that a machine wound pickup isn't as good as a hand-wound one, it's just what you place the value of that dollar in? If you are paying $45 for a pickup that is obviously made on a machine, you know that the pickup only costs about 25% of that to make. It's more affordable for a reason. 4. Handwound pickups are the benchmark for custom offerings and tailored tone from the start. A couple phone calls or emails and you are that much closer to a truly one of a kind pickup made to meet your desires. While there are production pickups that may meet your criteria, for a few dollars more, you can often get a mulligan or two and truly get what you want. With production models, you have MANY options at hand and there is only one way to find out which one works for you. At least with a custom design, you can get it dialed in quicker and quite likely at a cost much cheaper than buying 3-4 sets of pickups to find what you're looking for. For many guitarists buying an off the shelf item is just fine, but for a few, off the shelf isn't their style. So how do you know what pickup to acquire? Well, I hope to answer that question one day :) Having invested in higher dollar pickups lately to see what the difference really is, I can say one thing is for sure, there is a difference and I prefer the hand-wound models. In this example, I preferred the K-Lines. To me, they sounded clearer and more defined. If that has value to you, then it is worth every penny more. If not, well then you spent good money on a pickup that you still like just as much. I don't like throwing my money away any more than the next guy, but sometimes you have to pay the price of entry to find out.
Value for the money ,Ill tell you what I Know from hands on ,Not just demos,Wilkenson M series can shoot it out with S ,D jb any old day,Guitar madness P 94 hum, sized ,,I like better than p 90s ,They have a sound like my old 78 tele but with more attitude The clean is chimmy enough ,and when driven they sound like a professonal recording .These pickups I mentoioned are 21 bucks ! Tone rider tele blues sound like my 97 American standard tele,Very good a true tele sound for under 100.00 a set,Inthe last 3 years Ive used 15 pickup brands and styles ,For the most part The S.D and Dimarzio win out ,With the exception of the pickups I just mentioned ,Truthfully they win out and not just for the price,I hear good things about Iron gear too, But never had one,Dont be afraid to try a fleor humbucker I have a set of theirIn a less paul ,Sorry to say But I like them better than gibsons ,They have cleaner upper mids with good lows.
Here’s what I’ve found after 30 years playing and going down this rabbit hole before ! I have an Axefx 8 and can make any change in sound With all the compression multi band and eqs I could ever want plus 200 amps I can make a 200$ Tele sound 95% of the way to my lollars ! Live and in the mix it’s pointless ! Don’t do it ! I can alter the sound so dramatically at the amp and speaker side i never change pickups If your a combo one amp man your stuck and pretty limited ! I dint change pickups I change amps and eq and comp done !
The newer pickups definitely sound more "woody" and not as sterile as the originals. Both sound great, but I think I like the tamed high end(or maybe it's a slight mid-range push) on the newer pickups.
For me its the magnets. Give me just about any passive pickup with alnico 5's and I will be happy. Even my new Fender American Professional II with those v-mod pickups I can tell the difference. The bridge pickup is the only pure alnico 5 pickup in the guitar. The middle pickup is half 5 half 2, and the neck is half 2 and half 3. Same with humbucking. I like A5's the best. I don't buy into any of the other hocus pocus. You're either wound hot of underwound, potted or not, and then down to types of wire and bobbin material....all BS in my book.
I cannot hear a difference on account of everything DROWNING IN REVERB! David Gilmore called and complained about that insane amount of delay and reverb! Sounds like a fucking yoga soundtrack.
I always end up with Toneriders in my guitars. Not just because they're cheap but because they sound fantastic.
Maybe Toneriders are just a fair price and it is the other brands which are expensive???
The real star of this comparison is whatever delay and reverb you are using. Sounds fantastic. ☺☺☺ 🤔 But back to the pickups. I loved the tone of the Hot Classics. Clean was nice and not too nasally and overdriven was fantastic.
The psychology of this is fascinating. The only identifiable difference I can grab onto was in the cleans. Every time you cut back to the ToneRiders (independent of position), I went “whoa!”. I kept thinking it was just perception, and that both sets of pickups sounded similar... but then you’d cut back to the ToneRiders and... “whoa!”. Keeping things in perspective, I AM listening through iPad speakers. ;)
Love’d the playing.
Late to the party here. Just had a set of Tonerider Hot Classics fitted to my Squier Classic Vibe 50s Telecaster. They are exceptional for the money. Danced all over the Fender Designed units. And many hold them (FD) in higher esteem than the ones that come as stock in the Player II model. So much snake oil out there in terms of the instruments themselves and then the pickups. £65 for the Toneriders is a stellar purchase for me.
Man, pickup changing is a proper rabbit hole and can open up a huge can of worms. I'm still not convinced about my handwound fat 50s in my custom shop Landau strat but am reluctant to start swapping pickups. As you say it can be a costly process and I don't think my ears are good enough to pick up the differences/nuances. Rabea Massaad has done a good video on swapping 4 different sets and to be honest I prefer the ones he had in there to start with. Great video and playing as always.
i dont mean to be offtopic but does any of you know of a way to log back into an Instagram account..?
I somehow forgot the account password. I appreciate any tips you can give me
@Jesus Luca instablaster ;)
i dont mean to be offtopic but does any of you know if Jesus Luca is trolling to get someone's Instagram password? There are dozen of UA-cam videos where this guy is asking the same question, starting (nonsensically) by saying, "I don't mean to be [a jackass]..." Clearly, he does mean to be one.
02:25 ToneRider Hot Classic NECK CLEAN
02:55 K Line NECK CLEAN
03:27 ToneRider Hot Classic MIDDLE CLEAN
03:58 K Line MIDDLE CLEAN
04:29 ToneRider Hot Classic BRIDGE CLEAN
05:01 K Line BRIDGE CLEAN
05:36 ToneRider Hot Classic MID GAIN
06:22 K Line MID GAIN
7:06 ToneRider Hot Classic LEAD TONE
08:35 K Line LEAD TONE
09:59 ToneRider Hot Classic LEAD TONE NECK snippet
10:06 K Line LEAD TONE NECK snippet
Could never go wrong with toneriders, been using alnico 4's in my les paul and it is absolutely amazing price to performance ratio wise.
The Toneriders go hard. They are a great general purpose Tele pickup that cover a lot of ground. Someone looking to just play clean might want something with more chime and clarity. Someone who plays rowdy blues and blues/rock might want something like a Fender Tex/Mex (another great value pickup set) I've got the Toneriders in a CV Tele and for versatility and value they are very hard to beat.
New pickups sound more percussive to me especially with clean tones. More dynamic and less "flat" than the original pickups. Great playing man.
The strings were changed which is a factor
The note separation and clarity is much better with the K Lines, and this is more prominent in the clean setting. It's also very satisfying to hear the individual notes clearly during the gain/distorted setting with the K Lines. It has a very nice and balanced sound. Given a smaller budget, the Toneriders are a decent set but it's overall a bit muddier. I wonder how they compare to Dimarzio Twang King/Seymour Duncan.
Well, the Hot Classics have a higher resistance which means they sacrifice some presence/clarity for more power.
It's not so much a comparison between cheap vs expensive as it is about hotter vs lower output.
If you had the Alnico II Blues set, I think the differences would've been imperceivable.
Tonerider (and IronGear) pickups don't sound cheap at all.
I found your post looking to better understand pickups, but your playing blew me away. Great to be so inspired to practice after hearing you play. And I agree the high sounds I for sure it makes a difference which I saw in other posts too. Will for sure look for more posts with you playing.
Oh yeah! It's more than how good types of mid priced pickups could be, You play like an angel!
They both sound great! When the band come in, especially for live events, everything goes up in thin air. In a studio maybe but not that significant
Hi John, I discovered your channel a short time ago; I have got to say what a refreshing take on guitar tones, playing and gear demo's. Love your very articulate playing and musical styles. In regards to the pickup differences as you say I think each person has a perseived tone they like from a guitar, this maybe influenced by the type of music they like or an artist style and tone they like. Also I discovered after damaging my hearing in terms of now having tinnitus "ringing in the ears" after many years giging with AOR style rock bands, when I had my ears tested I was told by the doctor that we all can hear slightly different frequencies; which in this case may contribute to what we think is a good sounding pickup. In your test I found that there was a marginal difference, ironically I like the harmonics produced by the Tonerider cheeper pickups both in the cleans and slightly driven tones, but again the K Line pickups may have what may seem like a bit more clarity; but to myself a little more output and slightly higher frequencies. Personally I think you can change the tone of most pickups by using a Graphic Equaliser pedal in your guitar chain to shape your required tone. Admittedly you may need a certain type of pickup such has an high output pickup for a certain type of music. Also if a pickup gives you a certain tone that may influence the way you play.
small difference's. Both sound very good. It's funny how little it matters but how much it matters for anyone chasing " perfect tone " and for some of us.. pretty good is more than enough and those tone riders are pretty good. I am considering now the difference and value of toneriders vs Mojotone noiseless or low noise 52's.. it seems like I'd be fine with the tone riders.
Generally speaking, the tonerider are very good pickups. They say these pickups were mounted in the old squier classic vibe strats and tele.
I own a Classic vibe strat 50 (2015) and it sounds very good. I would say it sounds better than my american standard strat (2009) with standard pickups
Dropping the A3 pup height a quarter turn would make them sound pretty similar IMO. Not surprising that people liked the low output A2 clean, would be interesting to compare them to toneriders A2 offering.
I just ordered a set of hss toneriders and wiring set for my 2009 Squier Strat MII. I bought the strat for a good price and thought that it sounded quite good next to my AM Pro One. However, I did a proper A B check and noticed that the Squier sounded sterile. I also ordered some Wilkinson EZ lock tuners since it doesn't really hold tune too well. Hopefully, it will sound like another beast quite soon.
Tele 4-way switch? I didn't know. Wow. Most noticable tone was the consistent speed, volume, and pick attack. The fingers were magic, the pickups, ehh?. Have fun. :-)
definitely agree with your assessment on the clean tones the
New pick ups are more open sounding have more clarity you can hear the High end on the lower strings the wound strings sound so much better.
from my experience it’s not always money that makes the pick up sound better I replace the pick ups in my epiphone Joe pass which sounded good but they were what I would consider muddy. I first put in Seymour Duncan‘s which was a big improvement and then I bought a cheap pick up made in the UK I believe a Warman. P90 style with a ceramic magnet and boy did that thing and still does sound great for jazz.
Firstly great playing, I would listen to this even if i wasn't interested in pick up swap.
Re the swap I actually preferred the Toneriders, not saying they're better just different.
Is it worth swapping pick ups. I think so if you like the guitar, i swapped out the stock pickups in my MIM strat (ceramics ) and replaced them with Wilkinson alnico v's. It now sounds cleaner, brighter, clearer and warm, before it sounded bouncy and warm tending to muddy yet was shrill on the bridge. My son prefers the ceramics I prefer the alnico. In your hands I'd guess either config would sound great and I'd probably want both set ups.
Good video thanks, ill be buying some Toneriders for my SX tele (an amazing value cheapy).
Cheers
Haha I was literally diving in to comment that I thought I noticed most difference when clean, then you popped up and said it for me! I did personally notice an improvement with the K Lines, not to say the ToneRiders didn't hold their own here, can't argue with that sound for the price point, but the K-Lines did sound particularly more lovelier haha to me with the headphones on. Good video man! A/Bs are really helpful and done in this context, same guitar, same settings in a variety of styles etc, is perfect. Good work man, as always!
Yeh man I think clean I can hear quite a big difference but as the gain increases bit trickier?
@@johnnathancordy Absolutely, that's how I hear it there for sure. It's really interesting as I've had my mind on pickup demos specifically for a number of years now. I definitely have a long way to go in making the best pickup demos I can with my abilities, but this does give me food for thought. I do feel it's important to show how a pickup responds to drive/gain/fuzz etc, as some sets can handle it better than others, but this does show that clean tone is still where you can hear the biggest differences.
I could hear a greater difference in the clean tones on the neck and middle positions. The clean bridge positions sounded closer to my ears. The K Lines played clean in the neck and middle positions had more presence, a slightly bigger sound and were just more "there". If clean tones are an important part of someone's playing then the pickup change could be justified. Of course I don't know the price of the K Lines......So I don't know if a cheaper pickup change could achieve similar results.....As the sounds became more overdriven I found it harder to hear the differences. So if a more overdriven tone is key to your sound - then it could be difficult to justify the expense in changing the pickups. Just makes me think how good those Toneriders are!
There is a difference in the clean sound, the more transparent neck pickup cover is probably the only reason the K Line sound more chimey. As soon as any gain is put on they sound the same to me. By the time you've adjusted the amp I don't think you would notice any difference in a band session. I've used Tonerider and Irongear and they punch well above their weight. All a pickup is is copper wire and magnets.
Really interesting topic here. Honestly you got a really nice tone out of both sets. I am lucky to have pretty good quality studio speakers to hear and good head phones. I agree the K's had bit more clarity than the Toneriders. At the same time with that clarity they "to my ears" has some mid range overtones that kind of ever so slightly swelled up on some lower notes. The Toneriders to "my ears" were consistently a bit muddier but evenly so. Actually the new clarity of the K's sounded like that "new set of strings" sound to "my ears". But for all I know you had new strings on both examples. I have to say the way you play that guitar with either pickup set, with the effects and signal chain you used sounded very nice. The overdrive sounded about the same to me. I've changed pickups so many times I think I have a problem :-). This next statement will make my comments appear like a guy who knows nothing about tone to most who read this. My latest favorite pickup combo on my Tele after trying so many?. DiMarzzio DP112BK bridge, and SHOCKER!! GFS NeoTN9 vintage overwound neck. I unlike most Tele players prefer a really fat full tone on the neck. And the cheap GFS shocked me after trying so many brands. I can get that fat jazzy bucker sound. The DiMarzzio bridge has an even level of brightness on all strings as most I've tried kind make the higher strings a bit shrill. But if I only played chicken pickin country I'd use the Duncan Jerry Donahue bridge. It's just got that thing to me. And takes overdrive pretty cool as well as delivers gritty spanky country. I'm not at all an expert on tone. Just one older guys opinions. Johnnathancordy. I've been enjoying your playing for a while now. You really have developed a very cool style and sound. And your playing is soulful, interesting, and you lack nothing when it comes to superb technique. Some players are great to listen to because they are so technically good. You have both. Technically good and you choose stuff that is enjoyable to listen to. Love the channel very much. Thank you.
From my personal experience when i swapped out pickups in my American Special Tele with a set from Bare Knuckle i was blown away! The difference in clarity and detail was huge in clean tones! What i wanted to hear though in your comparison, was an A/B test but with a real amp... Would those tonal differences be more highlighted or not? I guess we will never find out at this point...
Well thatd be very difficult to match the microphone position etc over the course of a few days? But yes in general amps are a bit more sensitive to this stuff!
@@johnnathancordy exactly, and if you use an amp and microphone in a pretty uncontrolled setting/room, then things in the room like chairs or clothes being out in the room will alter the acoustics of the room and what the microphone picks up. Which is why I get why you did it the way you did... also, although people hate on digital only, I feel it can show the far more clarity if recorded properly as it is controlled you can see the subtle differences that may have been harder to hear in the room.
I agree that the differences are not big enough to justify the investment, based on what I can hear on UA-cam. But that's just my opinion. I've also watched the recent pickup change stuff that rabea did recently and come to a similar conclusion. Maybe it's different 'in the room'.
I mainly use a modeller these days so get much bigger impact from changing an IR for a few £s.
The other part of this is whether there is any difference in feel or your perception of the guitar when playing...that elusive 'mojo'.
Very interesting ! Honestly I don't see any major difference here (with headphones anyway). On clean there is a difference, but I feel like they can be a bit different in term or voicing, more than in term of "quality" ? (if that makes sense, don't know how to word it properly). I can't tell which ones I'm liking the most aha ! Neck pickup I might like the Kline a bit more, when on bridge I might like the Tonerider a bit more...aha !
Your guitar playing was excellent thankyou
In fairness..there are "cheap" pickups (tonerider) which are quite good...and "cheap and crap" pickups. I would place toneriders near the top in bang for your buck. I have the same hot classic bridge in a tele and its pretty good. Not a Fralin or a Lollar..but for the price..pretty darn good. I also have a tonerider alnico 2 classic humbucker which is really good.
Having said that..i did prefer the k-lines :)
Yeh I bought these 5 years ago back when they were good bang for buck pickups!
That's right, the more gain - the less difference between the pickups, because the very character of highly distorted sound minimizes differences.
Nice playing as always John!
If you can compare them “dry” instead of adding modulation+reverb that we might get the actual differences? 🤔
Tone riders win. Felt the trebles were a bit harsher to my ear on the new set
I kinda like these new signature jokes in the beginning of these comversational videos.
I heard that all Squier Classic Vibes used Tonerider pickups
How did you make that sound in your solo? It has such a soothing sound, yet I hear a bit of overdrive.
The "problem" is that toneriders are cheap....but very good pickups.
Ah - what are some bad pickups that you'd recommend? Haha
@@johnnathancordy I can send you the ones I have in the old black Strat' I've bought recently...man THAT is really bad pickups ahahaha ! Even on the cheap Harley Benton stuff or Squier Bullet etc nowadays...the pickups aren't "bad" anymore I feel like though.
If you want to do the comparison, here you have a set of strat pickups for 8$: es.aliexpress.com/item/4000930181069.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.50561900U3YzKi&algo_pvid=f2ea6e49-3be2-4ea5-9ec7-638606adcad0&algo_expid=f2ea6e49-3be2-4ea5-9ec7-638606adcad0-29&btsid=0ab50f6115916181991351838e3b75&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_
@@CarlosDelgado-co1bi and they are alnico
@@johnnathancordy Wilkinson. Just suggesting, I personally haven't tried it
Prefer toneriders , I actually am now thinking of doing a build with these because of your vid ,thanks
I think the toneriders are well liked amongst the self builders - think that's why I chose them initially
The differences are really small and maybe more related to the newer strings than pickups themselves. The toneriders just sound great for really little money. I doubt it was worth the considerable cost of the upgrade.
Big change in articulation and clarity. The new ones chime more the old ones are slightly scooped and nasal sounding.
Would like to know if you ever tried noiseless single coils? Getting my first strat, kind of afraid of the 60 cycle hum. If you have how do you think they compare to the normal single coils? Love the legato lessons on patreon btw !
I've never tried a noiseless pickup no, for me I find that generally at home I move away from the monitors enough that I don't really have any issues with hum?
I think any pickup change is going to make a tonal difference, but I do think better and worse is subjective. You will likely play different with hotter pickups for example... which may or may not suit your play style. It’s just like pedals in that way... 2 ppl can play the same pedal and one will say it is the best pedal ever and the other will say it is garbage. Lol. You will also see a tonal change with guitar picks and strings of different gauges. All part of the secret sauce :)
Yeh picks can make quite a big difference....may have something coming on that front soon!
People chase their tails too much when it comes to pickups. If you're not getting the tone you want, try adjusting pickup heights, amp EQ, guitar EQ (Teles have tone knobs for a reason), before throwing more money at the guitar. I know, it's a stupid and obvious thing to say, but even I've been guilty of plugging in a guitar and declaring it crap, without even considering that perhaps the amp settings I had for the LAST guitar I was playing may not be ideal for THIS guitar. I've also gone through a pretty long stretch of my playing life where I would dime all the knobs on the guitar and never touch them after that. You can do a lot with a good tone pot, but since so many times, the tone control is little more than an on/off switch, we just turn it up to 10 and leave it there.
Now, if the pickups sound naff, and there's nothing you can do to make them sound better, then by all means, replace them. But if the pickups you have sound good already (which the Toneriders definitely do), spending a couple hundred more will not make that much of a difference. You become subject to the law of diminishing returns. If you're chasing 5% more of something that you can't even define, or even know for sure that you're missing, then I'm afraid you're on a fool's errand my friend.
Frankly, those pickups sounded almost identical to me. The differences between them could be easily compensated with a little tweaking. Besides, whatever subtle, nuanced improvements in tone you may perceive from the expensive, boutique pickups will be completely lost on stage, or in the mix, anyway.
I'm not trying to detract from the skills of boutique pickup winders. I build guitars, and have employed the valued skills of custom pickup makers for some of them. Most notably; Buddha Pickups. He does great work, and when I want a really specific sound, he always manages to deliver what I was hearing in my head... based on a vague description, using inaccurate, borrowed adjectives ("I want it to sound sparkly, but not too jangly... warm, but not too dark... full, but not too round"). But I only go to him when I have something special in mind, and I don't want to dick around. For other builds, I've used Toneriders, Roswell, GFS, etc. They sound awesome too, and I don't waste a second worrying if something I ALREADY LIKE could be an Nth of a degree better. Because that's all you're gonna get is an Nth of a degree... Whether that's "better" or not is a completely subjective perception.
Verdict: I need a telecaster
Same here !
You're comparing pickups with different magnets, with one set hotter than the other and with old strings for the hotter set and new strings for the lower output set. You should have at least had new strings on the guitar for both sets of pickups. Unsurprisingly, the lower output pickups with less powerful magnets and with new strings sound more open and articulate. You possibly could have achieved a similar result with the Tonerider blues set (TRT-3) which use Alnico 2 magnets?? In this test I prefer the K-Lines neck pickup over the Tonerider. This is a fair difference in output here and the K-line has more clarity. The bridge pickups are closer. They have similar outputs and I'm not sure how easy it is to identify each one correctly. Perhaps the K-Line has more presence......more of a certain something - but I'd say it was quite subtle. I do think the Toneriders sounded pretty good overall. If maximum clarity in your clean sound was of prime importance then maybe the K Lines are worth it.....but can't help wondering if you could have achieved a similar result with lower output Tonerider pickups?
I don't think this is expensive vs cheap. This is Formvar vs Enamel. If you were A/B'ing those Toneriders against enamel wire pickups of any price, with the same voicing (number of windings) then they would probably sound near-identical. The Formvars will have a different response (which we can't hear, only you can sense because you're striking the strings) due to the difference in the total reactance and fact that less energy is temporarily stored in the coil before becoming the signal. Also the Formvars, for the same peak EQ, seem to have a different character of phase-cancellation in the bass frequencies which is 'hollowing out' the bass frequencies and creating a more open and less pushy bass sound. If someone buys a single coil made with enamel wire, even if they spend £300 on it, it won't sound different to the Tonerider. Equally they could buy a heavy Formvar pickup for £20 (from AliExpress or whatever) and if it was made with genuine heavy Formvar it would most likely sound near identical to the K-Line.
I am beginning a business of pickup winding and in my research, for delving into the venture, I have come to a couple conclusions.
1. Handwound pickups are time-consuming to hand assemble. From start to finish a pickup can take an hour or more factoring in assembling and prepping the bobbins, wrapping the coil, and potting the pickup. It takes about 10-15 min with a fast winding machine to fully wrap and solder a pickup. Not fully factoring potting time ( about 20-30min ) it could even be a little longer than an hour. Obviously while potting you can do other tasks. So round it out to around an hour from start to finish.
2. Hand-wound pickups are more unique and certainly have more character than and off the shelf model. This can be both good and bad. Since a human touch is involved, each pickup is more or less a one-off, custom pickup. The good thing is that the human touch is good enough to make them within a reasonable tolerance. The big upside is that at the very least, you paid money that went to a human as opposed to a machine if you're into that sort of thing.
3. Machine wound pickups are obviously more alike and replicable. Buy one today and it will be very close to the same 5 years from now if you need to buy another. There is certainly value in that. Not to mention the cost can be cut WAY down. These days it isn't so much that a machine wound pickup isn't as good as a hand-wound one, it's just what you place the value of that dollar in? If you are paying $45 for a pickup that is obviously made on a machine, you know that the pickup only costs about 25% of that to make. It's more affordable for a reason.
4. Handwound pickups are the benchmark for custom offerings and tailored tone from the start. A couple phone calls or emails and you are that much closer to a truly one of a kind pickup made to meet your desires. While there are production pickups that may meet your criteria, for a few dollars more, you can often get a mulligan or two and truly get what you want. With production models, you have MANY options at hand and there is only one way to find out which one works for you. At least with a custom design, you can get it dialed in quicker and quite likely at a cost much cheaper than buying 3-4 sets of pickups to find what you're looking for.
For many guitarists buying an off the shelf item is just fine, but for a few, off the shelf isn't their style. So how do you know what pickup to acquire? Well, I hope to answer that question one day :) Having invested in higher dollar pickups lately to see what the difference really is, I can say one thing is for sure, there is a difference and I prefer the hand-wound models. In this example, I preferred the K-Lines. To me, they sounded clearer and more defined. If that has value to you, then it is worth every penny more. If not, well then you spent good money on a pickup that you still like just as much. I don't like throwing my money away any more than the next guy, but sometimes you have to pay the price of entry to find out.
Yeh man I really dig these new ones - thanks for breaking down the differences!!!!
Value for the money ,Ill tell you what I Know from hands on ,Not just demos,Wilkenson M series can shoot it out with S ,D jb any old day,Guitar madness P 94 hum, sized ,,I like better than p 90s ,They have a sound like my old 78 tele but with more attitude The clean is chimmy enough ,and when driven they sound like a professonal recording .These pickups I mentoioned are 21 bucks ! Tone rider tele blues sound like my 97 American standard tele,Very good a true tele sound for under 100.00 a set,Inthe last 3 years Ive used 15 pickup brands and styles ,For the most part The S.D and Dimarzio win out ,With the exception of the pickups I just mentioned ,Truthfully they win out and not just for the price,I hear good things about Iron gear too, But never had one,Dont be afraid to try a fleor humbucker I have a set of theirIn a less paul ,Sorry to say But I like them better than gibsons ,They have cleaner upper mids with good lows.
Here’s what I’ve found after 30 years playing and going down this rabbit hole before !
I have an Axefx 8 and can make any change in sound
With all the compression multi band and eqs I could ever want plus 200 amps
I can make a 200$ Tele sound 95% of the way to my lollars !
Live and in the mix it’s pointless !
Don’t do it !
I can alter the sound so dramatically at the amp and speaker side i never change pickups
If your a combo one amp man your stuck and pretty limited !
I dint change pickups I change amps and eq and comp done !
Whats the cost diffs?
The newer pickups definitely sound more "woody" and not as sterile as the originals. Both sound great, but I think I like the tamed high end(or maybe it's a slight mid-range push) on the newer pickups.
That difference almost completely disappears on the high gain settings to my ear though.
For me its the magnets. Give me just about any passive pickup with alnico 5's and I will be happy. Even my new Fender American Professional II with those v-mod pickups I can tell the difference. The bridge pickup is the only pure alnico 5 pickup in the guitar. The middle pickup is half 5 half 2, and the neck is half 2 and half 3. Same with humbucking. I like A5's the best. I don't buy into any of the other hocus pocus. You're either wound hot of underwound, potted or not, and then down to types of wire and bobbin material....all BS in my book.
What guitar is this?
A partscaster I put together!
Full frontal?.....
I'm sorry, but I haven't noticed any major difference 🥺
That's totally fair
I cannot hear a difference on account of everything DROWNING IN REVERB!
David Gilmore called and complained about that insane amount of delay and reverb! Sounds like a fucking yoga soundtrack.
Enjoy your yoga