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James... « Best humbucker cleans of all time. »
Published on 09/03/11 at 18:46I've been a fan of Tom Anderson pickups (not so much the guitars) for a long time now. They have a wide range out outputs and voicings for such a small company and the sheer variety is truly impressive. My favorite combo would have the be the H3+ and the H1-. It's fire and water to me. The h1- though is a very special pickup.
The first thing about Tom Anderson pickups than everyone talks about it the splitting ability, however, the H1- is not much of a splitter obviously because of how low output it really is. Think you've played some vintage pickups? This one is REALLY low output. It's so low that when you split it, it's almost like it's not even there. Very hollow and almost acoustic sounding. Honestly though, the clean sounds coming out of this pickup are so amazing, I don't see a need to split the thing. Really it's that good.
Anderson pickups are voiced entirely different than any other pickup brand I've played. And they are hard to describe in words. But I'll try. To start, they have a sort of hi-fi quality to the sound. I can only describe it by saying that the H series pickups tend to sound like they have already had the studio magic poured on. In other words they sound more "recorded" than most pickups. There's something going on in the compression that does this. Also, and this is particularly evident with the H1-, they sound a lot darker than most pickups. I don't mean bassy and I don't mean boomy. But they are indeed dark. Almost in such a way that they have an 80's gothic tonality that you hear in a lot of those guitar parts. Don't let that turn you off, it's just the honest truth about the tone. To be fair, I use the H1- in a les paul classic so that might also contribute to the dark overtones.
The bottom line is, this pickups has amazing cleans. And oddly enough, some really good lead sounds. It really won't do any king of high gain rhythm. It won't split well. But overall I love it.
The first thing about Tom Anderson pickups than everyone talks about it the splitting ability, however, the H1- is not much of a splitter obviously because of how low output it really is. Think you've played some vintage pickups? This one is REALLY low output. It's so low that when you split it, it's almost like it's not even there. Very hollow and almost acoustic sounding. Honestly though, the clean sounds coming out of this pickup are so amazing, I don't see a need to split the thing. Really it's that good.
Anderson pickups are voiced entirely different than any other pickup brand I've played. And they are hard to describe in words. But I'll try. To start, they have a sort of hi-fi quality to the sound. I can only describe it by saying that the H series pickups tend to sound like they have already had the studio magic poured on. In other words they sound more "recorded" than most pickups. There's something going on in the compression that does this. Also, and this is particularly evident with the H1-, they sound a lot darker than most pickups. I don't mean bassy and I don't mean boomy. But they are indeed dark. Almost in such a way that they have an 80's gothic tonality that you hear in a lot of those guitar parts. Don't let that turn you off, it's just the honest truth about the tone. To be fair, I use the H1- in a les paul classic so that might also contribute to the dark overtones.
The bottom line is, this pickups has amazing cleans. And oddly enough, some really good lead sounds. It really won't do any king of high gain rhythm. It won't split well. But overall I love it.