Though pickups are only part of the chain, many of us considering TVJ upgrades have been somewhat stymied by when searching for quality examples of his products. Anyone looking to hear Classics can throw a Setzer recording on. But if you know of good recordings with T-Armonds, PowerTrons, SuperTrons, MagnaTrons, TV-HTs, or T90s, maybe we could compile our own audiography/database/list.

that sounds like an exercise in madness.

I'm better at madness than exercise. And I prefer it as well.

Dunno. Seems like it would be more helpful to be able to steer someone toward a recording done with PowerTrons than to continue to fumble about for adjectives like darker, lighter, warmer, brighter, chimier, mid-rangey, hotter...

I like the idea but if you don't know what amp, the results are useless: my two amps sound way different.

Plus you'd need clean and crunch examples. Done by quite a good guitarist who knows how to record and who has nice recording gear. There should be guitar only; guitars in a mix are difficult to judge.

Mission Almost Impossible.

Yes. Acknowledged in the OP. But the idea would be for folks to offer up enough examples that there would be multiple references for each pickup. For instance, I would have loved to be able to check out multiple recordings using T-Armonds a few months back. Folks could offer their own as well.

But if no has suggestions, perhaps it was just a bad idea.

Strummerson, it's actually a good idea. I had to buy TV Jones pickups from down in Australia, and I had trouble making choices based on the sound samples on TV's website. The problem is having so many variables it is very hard to get a really good basis for direct comparison. My can of worms post was not to diminish the value of your suggestion, but to point out the difficulties involved in the actual realization of it. Of course we have all experienced those select few players who manage to make ANY pickup sound great effortlessly, which only serves to make a choice more difficult. Good luck in progressing this concept futher.

I think its a great idea, and I dont think it needs to be -- or should even try to be -- as definitive and isolated as Geoff Vane proposes. I think i learned more about dynas when i first began researching Gretsches by listening to a huge spectrum of clips -- different guitars, amps, players, styles, sound quality, etc. Gradually the consistent characteristics emerge out of that robust spectrum of environments. Thats of value.

Strummerson, you should approach Baxter on this before it gets crazy -- we'd need some kind of database or at least threads for each pickup so people can easily search and upload by type.

Until then, I'm happy to kick this off. For starters, I'll offer this i did last year - a 5125 w/stock Dearmond 2000s vs a 5120 with TV Classics. .Actually a fairly controlled experiment, despite what i just said!

If you want T-armonds in a Club through a Vox-ish type rig, the recent videos from our show will give a sample of that setup in a variety of contexts, from slow jazz to hyper polka to funk to surf.

Proteus has done a number of these kind of shootouts, but they re a bit scattered throughout and hard to locate -- but well worth it when you find them, and his playing is lovely to boot. another reason to move for some kind of consolidation effort.

but you cant just decide to make a recording with "Whatever".. the microphone, the mic preamp, the use of or lack of compression, use of EQ or lack of eq at mixdown,etc.. all come into play. All saying that if it was all done in one session with a group of guitars thats one thing ,but... to have Jimmy sunshine take his squire bullet 1 watt solid state amp and record with a cellphone, and then Bobby big iron takes his gretsch, locks and loads into a vintage plexi with a Neumann U87 mic.... it wont be valuable to archive.

I do feel your pain though, those sound samples at the tvjones sight are really sort of not great.

Are Jimmy Sunshine and Bobby Big Iron members here?

In the 'Billy Zoom's workshop tour' thread TV Jones had the test guitar with removable pickups. Maybe someone could do somthing like this? record different PU's same amp and settings and nonsense.

TV and I will both be at the Cowtown Roundup. There will be multiple players and amps. There will be recording gear.

Both TV and I have an inquisitive how's-this-work gene (his much better developed and more productive than mine!), and I think it's just possible we might come up with a casual set of examples.

This is a possibly maddening project, and of exactly the type and dimension I sometimes undertake - and surely doomed ultimately to be less comprehensive and representative than we hope. (No two players ever sound just alike even on the same guitar-strings-pedals-amp-song combination, so even hearing the most meticulously arranged and recorded shootout won't tell you how you'll sound with the gear in your context.)

But as the feller points out, that doesn't mean the project is without value. It was Joao's posting of "Besame Mucho" and "Airbag" in 2005 that inspired my interest in a Dyna County Club (with Bigsby), and that guitar's been a life-changer.

In the specific context of TV Jones comparisons, I don't know if you've run across a comparison of two Caddy green Jets Scott Rust and I did at the Nashville Roundup in 2010. T-Armonds vs Seymour Dynas, in a reasonably controlled way.

It am here: LINKLINK

That's all nice & good, but I think I'd rather have my personally autographed DE poster, than another set of sound samples to wade through.

And you will. I can't promise you'll have them before the Roundup, but my part will be done by then. My deadline. Apologies for the delay.

Strummerson, it's actually a good idea. I had to buy TV Jones pickups from down in Australia, and I had trouble making choices based on the sound samples on TV's website. The problem is having so many variables it is very hard to get a really good basis for direct comparison. My can of worms post was not to diminish the value of your suggestion, but to point out the difficulties involved in the actual realization of it. Of course we have all experienced those select few players who manage to make ANY pickup sound great effortlessly, which only serves to make a choice more difficult. Good luck in progressing this concept futher.

Yep, the recordings on his website all sound thin & shallow. Really hard to tell much of a difference between them.

That's why I search uTube for samples, and recently came across a combination of Supertron neck + Filtertron bridge, and it sounds soooo nice.

Thanks for the helpful responses. I guess I was looking both for clip contributions, which could enumerate variables such as amp, pedals, and recording equipment, but also a list of 'professional' recordings that insiders know employ particular pups. While we won't be able to control for all variables, and I agree with Proteus here that the biggest may in many cases reside in the hands, musical sensibilities and aptitudes of individual players, the larger the sample size of each pickup the more useful the file will be.

A while back I asked Tavo a question about Dynas and he simply sent me a clip of Duane's classic recording of Rebel Rouser. It certainly didn't give me a full answer but it was a good place to start. I'd of course heard that tune countless times, but it never occurred to me to focus on it as a primary example of one central Dyna sound. Dynas do more than that. But it's one of the Dyna signatures. And though I couldn't sound like Duane Eddy, it helps me compile a range of Dyna characteristics in my head.

No one recording can be or need be representative on its own. But many professionals in the industry are using TVJ pups both on stage and in the studio. Given all of the threads and energy (and yes, Proteus, I've listened carefully and repeatedly to your very helpful SD/T-Armond shoot-out) devoted to trying to figure out which TVJ pups one should upgrade to, the more clips and references one could locate easily and consider carefully, the easier such decisions would be. Nothing beats a live and personal a/b with one's own rig, but for many that situation will remain out of reach.

Yep, the recordings on his website all sound thin & shallow. Really hard to tell much of a difference between them.

That's why I search uTube for samples, and recently came across a combination of Supertron neck + Filtertron bridge, and it sounds soooo nice.

Yep, the recordings on his website all sound thin & shallow. Really hard to tell much of a difference between them.

That's why I search uTube for samples, and recently came across a combination of Supertron neck + Filtertron bridge, and it sounds soooo nice.

I've spent hours searching youtube as well. That's exactly why a GDP list would prove helpful. Do you want to give us the link to that clip?

Sure thing. HERE YA GO!

Your plan sounds good Prot. Although I read many posts which stated your older "T-Armonds vs Seymour Dynas" shootout was a "T-Armonds vs Gretsch Dyna" shootout. So text labels may be important.

I understand that a dry lab situation is not ideal, Mustafa. But many wild recordings confuse me completely. Plus I really hate the fact that 90% of guitar samples are distorted. Sure I need to hear that too, but I so like clean work. (Especially clean speaker demos are hard to find) A somewhat more musical setting could also show how pickup sits in the mix but only if you can hear multiple types in the same setup.

If you can compare pickups @ neck, bridge, both, dirt and clean, all within the same setting, then you have a more valid environment to wheigh the differences. Doing the same in a musical setting would be a surplus, because you can hear how this reflects in the mix. It is more work, of course. Just some stand alone piece of music with one type of pickup, does not let me compare anything at all.

A long lost Protty demo showed me what a big difference a change of strings could make. Totally different sound. I'd like to hear that recording again, because I liked one type of strings much better than the other.

I'll be checking out the Cowtown Roundup Shootouts. A very good idea. Super neck and classic bridge: I wonder how that compares to a Classics set.

hey.. I thought I tortured you with this supertron and pwrtron in the spectrasonic (just listen to the intro tune I play "splinter" forget the rest) for a clean mix of the two.

spectrasonic has a 15" bout using a fully routed alder body with thin spruce top, mahogany neck and padauk fretboard. I use 500K CTS pots with a polystyrence .005 cap on the wiper (3 and 2) of the volume for a treble bleed with a .02 oil and foil tone cap.

Cascade Fathead II ribbon mic at 4 ft and pop filter with focusrite pre amp into Iphone. I will no longer use that bastard focusrite and am trying to get my Universal Audio LA-610 mkII back along with an empirical labs EL-9. Fathead is gonna be replaced by a Royer R-121 ribbon live mic.

http://youtu.be/rQQyhVpvCDI