Planet Tone Pickups...?

[blues4jesus]

As far as I'm concerned, the Seymour Duncan pickups have proven themselves for decades
and represent a very good value for the money.
The price ($59) of the pickup you're looking at makes me think that you want a "great deal".
If that is the case, the SD's are an even greater deal despite their slightly higher price.
Cheap (in both sense of the word) pickups are a loss of money.
I have used and recommended SD's pickups for more than twenty years.
If that matters.

Also, video samples of pickup tones are approximate at best.
Recording, compression, etc. affect the final mix.
And you can't be sure if that pickup is really what they would send you
or if it's just a bait!


Good luck in your quest for tone!

Duncan were ok in the day . No real options except Dimarzio or rewinding what you had. Now it just automated people use them. They are pretty boring pickups. I

 

[blues4jesus]

Don't believe I would chance it with those pickups. Just MHO.

I've been using their pickups for years. They have knocked out a ton of other winders. Jose's pickups are top quality. I wouldn't worry about dropping them in any guitar.

 

[Antigua]

"big" and "huge" are probably too lofty of words when talking about talking about the difference a speaker or pickup makes.

Nobody ever listens to a recording and says they can tell by listening what pickup was used. You can tell where the pickup is positioned in the guitar, bridge or neck, and even combinations, like bridge and neck, because it has a whole new timbre, but one brand of PAF replica from another in the bridge? I wouldn't believe anyone who says they could tell. I'd like to see a demonstration, for science. A JB will have a much lower resonant peak than a standard PAF, and probably can hear that, but you certainly can't pick it apart from other pickups with similar technical specs. Studios have multi band equalizers that can make one pickup have a frequency response like another. In fact Billy Gibbons uses EQ to make sure that his different pickups won't change what he considers his ideal stage tone.

Speakers, I'd think it would be hard to tell if you are hearing speaker difference, or EQ difference, because I know guitarists have used little amps like a Pig Nose or a practice size amp to get a tight punchy sound on a recording, but I think you learn about that after the fact, and when you first hear the song you can't tell if it's EQ magic or maybe mic placement that made it sound that way. Even then, it's a whole other size of speaker, I don't think you could possible hear the difference between a P12R and a P12Q.

Having said that, I think a reason as a guitar player to care about pickups and speakers is because it determines the starting point, so that you don't have to have a pedal or rack mount EQ in your rig like Billy Gibbons in order to get the EQ you want, you can just plug straight in and already have the sound you want.

 

[scottosan]

Hi Gang!

My name is Jose Mellado and I personally hand make each Planet Tone pickup. I see that there may be some confusion about our parts and why they are so affordable.

First off, we use only premium parts...100% nickel baseplates and covers, maple spacers, vintage plain enamel 60s wire and vintage 50s heavy formvar. We use Gavitt wire...the same that Fender and Gibson use in their custom shop and just about everything we get is sourced from America or the same factories that Gibson and Fender use. We have painstakingly done whatever it takes to get the best parts at the best prices. In addition, unlike other manufacturers we only use Alnico magnets. Never cheap ceramic stuff.

So why are the prices so cheap? First we don't have an army of workers so our overhead is low, second we buy in huge volumes unlike most boutique winders so we can compete with companies like DiMarzio and Duncan. In fact, our goal was to make our prices the same that the pickups were in the 1980s... We simply pass the savings on to you.

While people want to believe we are re branding Asian pickups, nothing could be further from the truth. We welcome anyone to come to our shop in Commerce City and see us make the pickups...each one by hand.

While its easy to say they are cheap, they are not. They are affordable and I simply do not charge a lot for my labor. My full-time job is a Pastor for a church. This is my side job so I don't charge a salary to my church.

In the end, we hope you would give our pickups a try. We are an honest and small company who just wants to give back to musicians.

Much blessings,

Jose
Planet Tone

Your baseplates are identical to the copper nickel AliExpress baseplayes with the obvious large circled B and N on the baseplates, so there's that. Also, most of.the mass produced imports.use the same baseplates.

 

[ErictheRed]

Yeah this whole thread is pretty odd and raises some questions...

 

[severalbeans]

i've been happy with all the planet tone pups i've tried -- humbuckers, p90s, mini-humbuckers, and tele bridge. i recommend them very highly if you can wait a few weeks.

contact jose -- he'll get back to you and help you choose the stuff for your purpose.