David Gilmour's Pickups

[The Doctor]

Does anyone know what Pickups Dave Gilmour uses on his black Stratocaster that he's been playing on his 2006 tour?

[dunkelfalke]

"The original Fender pickups was replaced sometime later with three singlecoils Seymour Duncan had laying around. The pickups was also rewound by Duncan although there’s no reports on whether these were were his own or Fender’s."

[Ripper]

Does Gilmour not use active pups?

[ChrisK]

He did as in the EMG DG-20 setup.

I think that he's "wandered" lately.


As we get older and wiser, we learn to avoid heavily processed foods.

Maybe he's avoiding those heavily processed sounds. ;D

[dunkelfalke]

heh heh that was a good one ;D

gilmour's sound is probably more processed than the sound of any other guitarist in the rock history. he explained that he stopped using emgs because they sound too humbuckerlike.

[otaku]

gilmour's sound is probably more processed than the sound of any other guitarist in the rock history

Except Steve Lukather

[kuzi16]

someone once told me that he (Gilmour) liked to have a very processed sound because he felt that it covered up some of his poor playing.

I guess some people are their own worst critic.

[warmstrat]

well, as a HUGE pink floyd and gilmoure fan, i will tell you that his playing really really isn't technically fantastic at all. whether that qualifies the huge effects is an interesting point, as i would actually say that they are a PART of his sound without which he would not be dave gilmoure. SO... i can believe him thinking he wasn't too great, technically at least, but oh dear lord does that man have 'feel'!! If feel could be learnt, he would be everybody's hero. Forget vai and malmsteen and co...

[Ripper]

I find the two solos on comfortably numb amazing.
Gilmour doesnt get the recognition he deserves. Hes humble about it too...refreshing.

[mattskully]

Did you know that fender has released a pickguard wired up as David Gilmour's configuration? Its going for 295 at guitar center?Looks pretty good/quiet. I'm not plugging the store, however I was looking for Fender Noiseless and saw the Gilmour package.

[andy]

I don't know about the pickups beyond the EMG DG-20's, but the 'classic' Gilmour sound must have been fairly standard Fender pickups, seeing as that is what he played most of the time!

I'm only really chipping in here to join in with the praise of the man, to be honest. There are very few guitarist these days who really make me go weak at the knees, but David Gilmour is one of the few who still has that effect. Technique means very little to me- I want to feel the music, in the way which inspired me to play in the first place, and I'm with Warmstrat. If 'feel' could be broken down into mathematics DG would be highly studied. And Deepblue- If I was on my deathbed and had one last guitar record to listen to...

[ChrisK]

I notice in the Musician's Friend catalog that the DG-20 pickguard is coincidentally going for $295. This is the EMG product with the SPC, the EXG, and three SA pickups.

[humanbn]

His neck and middle pickups are from a 50's strat. The bridge is possibly a duncan, very hot - around 9k. Not sure why it's not muddier in tone. This configuration is for his main black strat.

[ChrisK]

Gilmour doesn't get the recognition he deserves

He'$ probably getting $ome of the recognition that he de$erve$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.


The current place for my DG-20 set is in The MellowCaster Project

All that remains now is to cut the nut (I put a 1 7/8" rosewood/maple neck on it), solder a couple of wires, add the strap locks, and play it. I switched the DG-20 components to a black pick guard since the white pearloid one looked less than interesting with this body.

[newswede]

Hello! 1st post here...looks like a great site!
I see a lot of wrong information here. You can read all about this guitar on his website and on gilmourish.com. I'm not affiliated with either. There is also a bood dedicated to this guitar which can be ordered at theblackstrat.com or borders.com

For the black Strat:
The neck & middle pickups are original
The bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan SSL-1 Vintage Staggered Pickup. This was an early custom wound sample from Seymour Duncan himself.

There is also a mini toggle switch (which used to be a slider) to combine the neck with the middle or bridge pickup. In addition, the volume pot was changed to one with smoother action and the back of the pickguard was shielded with copper.

[humanbn]

Copper? What does this do in comparison with aluminum?

[sumgai]

bean,

Copper? What does this do in comparison with aluminum?

It works better.

Copper is a better conductor of electrons, so it acts more efficiently to carry off to ground whatever it catches, when it's acting like an antenna (as in, acting like a shield). Aluminum does something, certainly better than nothing, but you can see (hear) a difference in certain settings. Really noisy environments tend to make the copper show better what it can do, relatively clean home environments tend to not "overtax" an aluminum shield, so the difference is minimal...... to the ear.

Otherwise, it's a matter of cost and ease of installation, copper being a bit more pain in both the wallet and the cavity. Trade-offs, just like always........


HTH




sumgai

[newswede]

The copper was added to combat the intense interference from their stage rig. A lot of people use it to keep their single coils a little more quiet, but when you're playing in a stadium environment you have bigger problem such as lighting, lasers, walkie talkies and such. This is what eventually led DG to use the EMG active pickups for so long.

As fate would have it, as the stage environment got better and he noticed he only liked the EMG pickups for certain songs (Shine On You Crazy Diamond) so it looks like he's switched back to using his vintage black Strat and other single coils.

[brazilman222]

Hi my friends i seen him here in 07 in san francisco show.Woodstock plus KINMAN pups.I asked his roadie.And it sounded great.Also there is another great picker using them hahahha me .hahahah And I number one country guyyyyyyyyyytele master too.