Bigtone and peche Comparison Audio example

MichaelHorowitz

While it's interesting to compare the tonal qualities of various pickups, what I've found over the years is the tone is actually secondary for most people. There are a few people who are very into Django's electric sound, but they are a minority. The vast majority of Gypsy players prefer to play acoustic and would rather just mic their guitar for performances. However, with the vast majority of gigs being in noisy bars and restaurants, micing isn't possible due to feedback.

So for most Gypsy players, pickups are really just a tool, one that many use begrudgingly and are treated as such. Whether or not you like the tone of a bigtone or not is probably besides the point, the primary reasons people choose it are:

1) Very high feedback resistance, in fact there's no other piezo that can get as loud

2) Quasi acoustic tone (it captures the highs which magnetic pickups don't)

3) It reproduces dynamics so you can play more or less like you would acoustically (i.e. when you play harder, the pickup will produce more gain which allows you to "set and forget" the amp volume and adjust rhythm/lead levels simply by how hard you play.)

4) Even string balance

5) Seamless install and it's always there, ready to go.

People who choose magnetic pickups do so mostly because:

1) Extremely high feedback resistance (most can reach rock n roll levels if need be!)

2) Fat, warm, mellow tone which contrasts with more percussive tone of more acoustic sounding pickups

3) Highly compressed (you don't get much in the way of dynamics but that is often nice in noisy situations as it keeps your leads in the sweet spot above the din of crowd noise but not so loud you get fired from the gig.)

4) They sound good through anything (PA, acoustic amp, jazz amp, tube amp, etc.)

5) No modification to the guitar is required

That probably covers it. Hopefully this will give some insight into how just listening to demos isn't the best way to choose a pickup. You really have to take into consideration how and where you are going to use it. Any pickup can be made to sound good in a demo, but very few actually pass the test on the gig.