Wide Range #2 - Brandonwound vs Fender
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- Take the WideRange blind test!: • Blind Test - Wide Rang...
Watch Fender Cunife vs Vintera vs Squier vs MIM 2014:
• Fender CuNiFe vs Vinte...
Neck Clean Picked - 2:10
Neck Overdrive Rhythm - 3:00
Neck Overdrive Lead - 3:40
Neck Clean Fingers - 4:10
Bridge Clean Picked - 5:17
Bridge Overdrive Lead - 6:00
Bridge Clean Fingers - 6:32
Bridge High Gain - 7:31
Middle Clean Fingers - 8:08
Middle Overdrive Rhythm - 8:55
Middle Clean Picked - 9:35
Middle Overdrive Lead - 10:15
Amp Set to Brandons - 10:40
Amp Set To Fender 2020 - 11:11
Amp Set To Brandon/Fender back to back - 11:43
ps not sure how you reviewed them before but they are not al alnico 5- maybey I should have pmd you but I a luddite- appreciate your other reviews for sure
Also from Lollar Jason below (I can't pin 2 comments)
lollar jason
7 hours ago
not true- lollars use half alnico 5 and half fecrco like brandon wound and we made them a few years before anyone
Thanks for the info, Jason! Apologies for the error, I was under the impression for years they were Alnico 5. I'll make a note of it on the other videos.
Fender has done an amazing job matching the tonality of the originals in the reissues.
I agree. At least with the vintage one I have, one could say they improved the tone by making the neck a little bighter... But that mellowness in the vintage is one thing really love about it... So I kept both!
Thank you so much for this video. I have been close to purchasing a set of the BW, but now I’ve decided to go with the Fender 2020’s, despite the massive price difference.
Glad it helped - Have fun!
I had a Brandonwound in my Tele Custom. I struggled a lot with that pickup. The output was so high that it overwhelmed the bridge pickup. It also had a very weird tone to it. It was both overly bright and muddy at the same time (???). I tried everything and had the height cranked down to almost flush with the guard as it was the only spot where they sounded passable. I swapped it out for a Seymour Duncan Custom Shop WRHB. That was better but still just ok. I ended up finally putting the Fender reissue WRHB (the older PAF style one) and much to my surprise it was actually easier to work with than those other two pickups.
Nice Vid, wish I watched it sooner. I got the Brandonwounds since the price was so much better and seems like a good company, but I could not believe how dark they were, don't really understand their decision to voice them like that, they're darker than any of my humbuckers.
Got the Cunife based on your vids and swapped them in, they sound great!
Well, this video just saved me $150. I was super close to jumping on the Reissue CuNiFe 2020's for my Squier Starcaster Reissue, but after seeing this went for a Brandonwound set instead - they get in a very close ballpark and I actually like the middle position MORE than the reissue. The brighter and hotter sound is definitely more what I was going for and I didn't even realize that until I saw this. Thank you!!
Glad it helped!
I love the Brandonwounds. I have a set and they are going in the neck of two Tele Custom builds. I don't like WRHB in the bridge position for some reason so I decided to break up the set and make 2 guitars. They were in a Tele Deluxe with coil split and I always put the bridge pickup on single coil and that was the best sound to my ears. I just purchased a Broadcaster bridge pickup from Q pickups-at 8.8K and Alnico 3 magnets it should balance out nicely with the neck PU. I will be using 500k pots for neck and 250k for the bridge along with .022uf and .047uf orange caps, respectively.
The Brandonwounds sounded the nicest of these three. They sounded more scooped and alive at the same time where the others seemed a little lifeless. If he would work the tone knob a bit, you would see a difference. He had it all the way up.
Glad you liked the Brandons... they are definitely unique among the wide ranges. Should be interesting to split them up into two guitars. While I'm not sure I agree that they were more scooped than the fender, they do have a much "sweeter" mid-range than most wide ranges I've tried. Maybe we're both hearing that. As far as the tone knob, unless I want each video I do to be over an hour long, the most fair way to do these tests is with the tone and volume all the way up... If I just turn down to 7 or so, one pickup may sound better than the other, but at 6, the other might sound better. The variability would just get out of control. In general, I think most people want to hear how they sound with the tone all the way up, because the biggest complaint of most wide ranges on the market is the muddiness. Interestingly enough, I didn't like the Brandons with the tone down, because IMO they needed the highs. Cheers and good luck with the builds, would love to hear that!
Nicely done. They all sound good. I couldn't really hear a difference between the 2 Fenders, which is good. The Fenders were a bit warmer than the Brandonwounds, though. I appreciate the comparison because there is a guy selling a Squier Thinline with refurbished (They take your pickups and reload them) Brandonwounds and I wanted to hear what they sounded like, and this is great.
Thank you for your videos, they are clarifying and also appreciate the trouble you've gone to make all these tone comparisons.
I’m thinking of building my own Tele Custom partscaster: body & neck from Warmoth but I've been stuck debating over the neck pickup.
I was quite set on a splittable SD '59 if I couldn’t get a Fender '20 CuNiFe (also I don’t know if Warmoth does the special routing needed for the CuNiFes). As for the bridge, either a Fender traditional or a Lollar single coil pickup.
However, thanks to your videos, I really enjoyed listening to the Brandonwound you tested. I also like the fact that you can have the option of splitting the neck WRHB.
I’m obviously looking for the traditional Fender crunch, plus the capabilities of a neck HB.
My main (and first) guitar is a 1976 Tele (USA) which I positively love… but always found the neck pickup a little “dull”. Nonetheless I would never consider putting this guitar under major surgery. Hence the partscaster.
I was wondering what your thoughts are on the pickup combination for the neck (considering the traditional single coil bridge): Fender CuNiFe, or Brandonwound? My main concern is the balance on position 2.
Love to hear your thoughts if you have the time. Thanks!
Awesome comparison! Thank you from Austria 🇦🇹
Thanks for watching!
I think Brandonwound are making the best pickups out there today. Very reasonable too.
very reasonable indeed. I'd love to get some custom wounds from him.
@@haskitt , do it. I've got the JP#1 set that I put in an old MIJ Burny LPC. Sounds fantastic. The guys there are very cool and responsive to emails. I'll never buy a new pickup from anyone else as long as they maintain their current standards.
Through my stereo setup those Brandonwounds sounded really nice on your guitar. The Fenders also sounded fab (loved the 70s one especially) and I thought all 3 slightly beat the other offerings from trial 1. Your quitar seems to have a particularly clean, crisp tone also and perhaps it balanced out well with the Brandonwounds, too. Its all subjective, but great fun.
Interesting, do you think you’re more into the darker sounds? The Brandons really had a directness that I liked a lot, thought they were a bit darker to me.
Brandon's own the T-top bobbin maker- and his great reviews on Ebay are mostly the wide rage and fender vintage pickup's being sold, which I have no experience with, I'm a Gibson PAF and t-top guy, and thought of selling my org T-tops to buy a set of his, but I must have the airy treble sounds which T-tops are known for...his Widerange here sounds muddy really compared to the fender's, the fender wins IMHO... I love bright pickup's, to me, it makes the strings sound fresh, when my strings get old they lose that treble airy'ness and I find myself having to use the Bright switch more... and using a '88 studio les paul i have enough Mid and bass, usually having to turn down a bit... My FAV pickup really is the T-Top Gibson Mini's I have in a 71 Gibson SG pro 2 ..I have a handmade p-90 type Jazz pickup "has no magnet but the pole's ...that is great made by Sentell I got for 20 bucks on ebay, bright and jangly on a 60's Harmony, fit up under the strings with no mods, a real flat pickup, Sentell makes some unusual stuff - mostly overly high wounds, but he will make what you want - love that pickup, nice bright with mids and bass- great review and test compared to a real widerange, want to hear a real t-top compared to his now ;:*)
Cool! I actually haven’t ever played a T-Top before - I know Lollar makes a set inspired by the pickups used on the Stooges Raw Power record, which i guess were T Tops .
i prefer the 70s ones they sound alot smother and have a bit more soul than the 2020 ones. wonder what the biggest diference is, one is def the aging of the magnets, the other is prob that the copper coating might be different? though i believe it should be formvar in both, 3rd and most likley is that the winding style is diferent
I would love to see how a full-size wide range compares side-by-side to the PAF-size variants. I know Lollar, Creamery, and Revel make PAF-size versions of their WRHBs.
As far as I know Lollar does not make a PAF size WRHB, but I've had a Novak and have seen the others. The Novak was quite nice, but it didn't have the extreme midrange character that I love about the Lollars, or the cunifes or creamery full size. I don't know if it's a size thing or if the novak is just a different sound. That would be super interesting to do thoiugh!
Starcaster semi-hollow has WRHB
Well done, articulate intro too
Thank you!
Thanks for sharing this video. I really enjoyed this comparison, but it's hard to say which one I like more. Did you replace the pots and caps as well? 500k and .047uF? Cheers!
Thanks Manuel! In this partscaster I used 1 Meg vol pots, 500k tone pots with .047... but tone was all the way up for all examples so cap was n/a. Cheers!
Thank you 🙂
Thanks for another great comparison. They all sounded pretty great to me.
Curious if you have any experience with the Fender reissues (non cunife) and how you found they compare to all these fine replacements. I guess the one challenge with that is fender has revoiced them multiple times.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! Yeah I have considered doing a comparison with the MIM wide ranges that use bar magnets instead of pole mags. And you’re right, the trick is they have changed them so often I’m not sure which ones I would choose… I’ve liked all the demos I’ve heard of what the new Vintera models have.
@@haskitt yes I have an AVRI 72 Thinline that I'm planning to upgrade with the new Fender Cunifes. To be honest, I enjoyed the existing revoiced pickups (and have found them much better and less muddy than some of the other older MIM ones that I have also tried). Unfortunately I've never tried real Cunife's to see how they compare. None the less I can't resist trying the real deal. (And your video's are encouraging the experiment!) We will see how long they take to come in stock.
Yeah it’s weird how they seem to be releasing the bridges and necks so sporadically… I think there’s one guy on Reverb selling a bridge for the actual selling price… Other people with used ones are really hiking the price. cheers and good luck!
Hey, I just uploaded a comparison of the cunifes, the actual vintage, squier, MIM and Vintera wide ranges - i’m honestly blown away by the differences! ua-cam.com/video/8CV8-zOxMes/v-deo.html
I just got and Fender American Professional ii Telecaster that I am going to have routed for the Fender Wide Range pup (Cunife not the double tap) in the neck position . I’ll have to see how it matches up with the Vmod single coil on the bridge. I am having it done by a tech that I trust but do you have any advice on the installation as far as pots wiring etc. Also any recommendations for a single coil bridge pup that would match well Thank you for doing this video it really helped me out in choosing which Wide Range I wanted.
I have the Brandonwounds in a Tele Thinline (1Meg pots) I love. They are the AlNiCo III with FeCrCo types. The FeCrCo is degaused to match the AlNiCo (as per Brandonwound explanation). They sound according to what I hear in your video except for the bridge treble strings, which are ear-piercing harsh. Very unbalanced. I have to dial down the tone pot every time I play there, but then the wound strings lose too much bite. I wanted to try the 2020 CuNiFe Fender for the bridge position, but your video doesn't give me much hope.
Yeah, I've found that the biggest issue of all the wide ranges is the push and pull between round sounding high strings and bright enough sounding low strings. The Creamery has some pickups he claims address and solve this problem (check out his "custom 13"), but I haven't tried them! The lollar low winds and the 2020 cunife have been the best I've tried as far as that goes.
@@haskitt Thanks for the hint, and for doing the video. Despite so many of the kind being made, I think yours resonate with people who have been interested in these pickups for a long time much better.
not true- lollars use half alnico 5 and half ferco like brandon wound and we made them a few years before anyone
Awesome Scott《☆》The BrandonWounds sound like the way to go on my cheapo Donner Thinline. I could even spring for 2 Fender covers $26ea🌴◇:*:◇🌴Greetings from Florida Brother😁☮✌
Right on! I really love the aged nickel covers from Brandonwound.
@@haskitt 《☆》If they had a Fender logo I would use them. I just want covers that say Fender since it's not a Fender guitar😁
I'm really curious about the rewind?repair that BW does to your existing WRs. Seem like they use a different process than building their own WRs from scratch. Only $80 per pickup too!
That is a great deal. I’d like to try more of his pick ups
Can these new wide range be split? I like the fact the Creamery 71 can be split, I want to have a single coil at times, the WIDE range when split sounds good
New Fender CuNiFe aren’t wired to split, but Brandonwound for sure and I think mojotone can be.
Do you think lowering the pickups and playing with the pole heights would get you closer to the original sound? Talking about the brandonwounds
Lowering them didn’t really do it... I did mess with the bass side poles and it was interesting but I couldn’t quite get the sparkle out of them. I bet his lower wind would be closer/Brighter, judging from what the low wind lollars sounded like compared the regular lollars.
Were you using the recommended 500k pots & .022 cap that Brandon recommends for his wrhbs?
Hi Rob, this guitar has 1 Meg volume pots and 500k tone pots with .022 caps. This is of course preference, but since I rely heavily on the neck pickup I prefer those higher frequencies coming through. I’ve thought of going 500k volume for the Bridge, but I like what the 1 Meg does to the middle position. FWIW, I find 500k volume pots to be too dark for most wrhb, and his are darker than most I’ve tried.
What’s song is the 3rd riff you play from?
At 3:40 for the OD Neck Lead it’s just a noodle I came up with and can’t stop playing… it did you mean 4:10 for clean Fingerstyle - Somewhere Beyond The Sea?
Thanks. The riff reminds me of James Bay I actually found it. It sounds like Hold Back The River to me
In every video I've watched, the Brandonwound WRH sound awful. Even the hate-magnet MIMs sound better.
hahaha "hate-magnet". :)