HT Pickups?

[lightertoss]

Sorry - new here, and I’m not finding the inevitable master thread(s) discussing the heat treaded pickups via the search function.

Please direct me, and I will be happy to have this thread deleted afterwards.

Thank you

 

[fogman]

Hey, welcome to the forum!
Unfortunately information on the HT pickups has been minimal since their inception.
There's the Music Man videos that are on the the website and YouTube; and a handful of YouTubers that did their own.
For the most part, people seem to like them. They appear to have a little more growl than the regular pickups. There's pretty much no info as to how they sound when played clean. I haven't seen anything yet anyways.

 

[racerx]

I have a set of HT humbuckers in my StingRay. I find it difficult to articulate the nuance in sound and compare it to other popular pickups, but a few observations in no particular order:

• Bottom line, they sound good and can be useful in any genre I can think of.
• My model came with the boost (and I believe most/all do). When the boost is engaged, they saturate very nicely for that creamy lead sound.
• The neck and middle positions are my favorite sounds. The neck because of the warmth and fullness, the middle does a very compelling and interesting quacky sound if you're looking to get the single coil-ish sounds out of a HH guitar.
• The bridge sounds good clean but I think it really shines with any level of gain applied. Obviously great for articulate rhythm work or cutting through sharply on leads.

 

[Epiplatys]

I have a Sabre with the regular pickups (okume body, maple/ebony fretboard neck). The whole things is super light, resonant and bright sounding guitar. A really great and full sounding guitar actually! The pickups seem to have a decent and pronounced amount of extended bass, just enough mids and great highs. The result is a very balanced sound overall, but on the brighter side in a good way.
The second Sabre (the recent BFR) got the HT pickups. I suppose it is not a good direct comparison, as the guitar itself is very heavy and entirely different response and feel-wise. But the HT pickups in it sound very mid range focused, like accentuated low to mid midrange. I‘d say it is a dark sounding guitar. Pretty much the other extreme from the regular Sabre sound. How much is this from the pickups and how much of it comes from the wood composition I can only speculate.
But the end result is that these two guitars have zero overlap in sound, response or feel. Both being the same model technically. Would it be due to the HT pickups? Maybe.

 

[NickNihil]

Only the bridge position on both Stingray and Sabre have the actual heat treated pickups, right? The site copy says both have custom wound ceramic pickups in the neck and seemed to specify that only the bridge employed the HT technology. The Cutlass HT, on the other hand, has HT neodymium in all three positions (right?).

 

[fogman]

I had an exchange with someone on facebook over the weekend. I asked him how the cleans were on the HT pickups were and this is his reply.

 

[Rbg]

I personally think that:
1. Pickups are the most personal thing about electric guitar sound. Lets be honest they contribute to the sound the most, and whether someone like it or not is totally about personal preferences, the rest of the gear or small nuances in EQing the sound.
2. The honey moon period with pickups is real and takes some time to end. Our brains like variety and we will most likely experience that "wow" effect when switching pickups due to the tonal difference they bring. So this excitement will switch to a habit after some time and will last for some time before we actually will start noticing some flaws.
3. It is very difficult to be honest to admit some details/flaws in the sound of a new expensive instrument especially when it plays and feels great. If a neck is super uncomfortable or, body someone will just not be able to play and there is nothing but to admit that this instrument is not for you. If there is something in the sound of a new pickup you will keep tweaking it before you actually admit that maybe it is not for you.

All my opinion of course. Thats why it is very difficult to take other people opinion on the pickups... we all have different audio references. I am not saying you should not, I watch YouTube constantly and read guitar forums if I need to find something to convince myself to buy a piece of gear .
From what I've heard in the demos HT pickups have a quite unique sound, other from that I would like to try them.

 

[guitarnerdswe]

I have a Sabre with the regular pickups (okume body, maple/ebony fretboard neck). The whole things is super light, resonant and bright sounding guitar. A really great and full sounding guitar actually! The pickups seem to have a decent and pronounced amount of extended bass, just enough mids and great highs. The result is a very balanced sound overall, but on the brighter side in a good way.
The second Sabre (the recent BFR) got the HT pickups. I suppose it is not a good direct comparison, as the guitar itself is very heavy and entirely different response and feel-wise. But the HT pickups in it sound very mid range focused, like accentuated low to mid midrange. I‘d say it is a dark sounding guitar. Pretty much the other extreme from the regular Sabre sound. How much is this from the pickups and how much of it comes from the wood composition I can only speculate.
But the end result is that these two guitars have zero overlap in sound, response or feel. Both being the same model technically. Would it be due to the HT pickups? Maybe.

Do you by any chance have the possibility of recording some clean clips of both guitars, just so we can get a ballpark idea about the difference of the pickups? Just some noodling on the bridge and neck would be greatly appreciated

 

[Epiplatys]

Ops, just traded it in for another Majesty. So only the BFR Sabre left. Sorry!

 

[guitarnerdswe]

Ops, just traded it in for another Majesty. So only the BFR Sabre left. Sorry!

No worries! Why did you sell that one and not the regular non HT Sabre?

 

[Epiplatys]

What I meant was that I traded-in the regular Sabre and kept the BFR (with the HT pickups).

I would not say the BFR version is a better instrument, between the two. The regular one felt more alive, involving guitar. But the BFR is really pretty, and a bit more special. I am superficial and attracted to shiny things, I know!… :0)
Ideally I would want to keep them both, since these were so different from each other. But at the number of MM guitars I already own I can’t afford to keep them all, and have no more space left on my wall hangers. So one had to go, just to physically make room for a spice melange 7 string I have coming. Certainly, not because I felt that the regular Sabre pickups were inferior in any way.

Personally, I think while the pickups are important they are only a (smaller) part of the overall signal chain. If a pickup is reasonably decent I can make it work for me. Both the regular and the HT pickups are more than fine in my experience and would not be a factor in my decision making.

 

[guitarnerdswe]

What I meant was that I traded-in the regular Sabre and kept the BFR (with the HT pickups).

I would not say the BFR version is a better instrument, between the two. The regular one felt more alive, involving guitar. But the BFR is really pretty, and a bit more special. I am superficial and attracted to shiny things, I know!… :0)
Ideally I would want to keep them both, since these were so different from each other. But at the number of MM guitars I already own I can’t afford to keep them all, and have no more space left on my wall hangers. So one had to go, just to physically make room for a spice melange 7 string I have coming. Certainly, not because I felt that the regular Sabre pickups were inferior in any way.

Personally, I think while the pickups are important they are only a (smaller) part of the overall signal chain. If a pickup is reasonably decent I can make it work for me. Both the regular and the HT pickups are more than fine in my experience and would not be a factor in my decision making.

I hear you. You want to look at a guitar and pick it up, just because it looks cool. Might seem silly, but little things like that inspire you to play. After owning both for a while longer after your original post, would you still describe the HT as being darker and more low/mid heavy? Are they're noticable hotter than the regular Sabre pickups?

 

[Epiplatys]

The regular Sabre was about 6 pounds - light and resonant. I suspect a lot of brightness came from the light weight and woods, the pickups on it “felt” like a great match balancing the brightness with pronounced lows and overall full sound. So the overall result was a really good balance of frequencies, airy and snappy guitar.

The BFR one is 9 pounds, and body is black limba. It’s got the HT pickups and the whole thing sounds more mid-centric (even low-mid centric) giving you a really smooth high-gain tone. It is still giving you full sound, but you defensively hear the mids are on the forefront. It sounds entirely unlike the regular Sabre I had, eyes closed you immediately know which one you’re playing.

But I have to say that this is how the whole thing sounds, I can’t say for sure how much of it is the HT pickups vs the woods. Swapping the pickups would be the only way to objectively compare, which of course I did not do. So we are essentially looking at two different guitars that sound and feel so different.

The BFR with the HT does have higher output, I noticed that right away. I had both guitars setup identically, except the pickup height. The factory pickup height on the HT is what I would normally prefer (about 3mm on the bass side and 2.5 mm on the high side), while the regular Sabre had the pickups set much lower - about 8mm on the bass side and 6-7mm on the high side. Which is not unreasonable, but much father from the strings than I personally would do. Was that intentional? I assume so, since the pickup height on these is set with spacers at the factory and you’d need to make a new set of spacers to change this.

 

[milosjak]

Pickup height has a major impact on output, and the difference of 4-5mm is massive. So not sure if the output difference you heard was because of that or because HT are actually higher output.

If anyone is thinking about trying to acquire these pickups on aftermarket, I sent an email to EB support about purchasing a complete HT SSS pickguard, but got no response for about 2 months now.

 

[DrKev]

If anyone is thinking about trying to acquire these pickups on aftermarket, I sent an email to EB support about purchasing a complete HT SSS pickguard, but got no response for about 2 months now.

They've had a backlog to deal with and obviously repair and warranty issues get priority. Feel free to try again.