JimmyR said: I used to be a serial pickup changer. But since getting into building amps, experimenting with speakers, and using all sorts of different types of overdrive I have found that swapping pickups is one of the least effective ways of changing your tone.

YES!!! Thank you for writing this. This is spot on.

If you think you can grab Angus Young's guitar from him and sound like him, you're delusional. I once saw a very famous guitar player, who has a famous tone millions have spent trying to copy, playing a $300 guitar through a $200 amp. And he sounded pretty much the same. :bonk:

You can either keep chasing the dragon or learn how to play better. Spend more time with your hands on the guitar and less time reading crap on the internet and you might get somewhere.

I am so glad that I am old enough to have come of guitar playing age before the damn internet. We didn't have tabs for everything. We learned by ear and played it until it sounded right. :crazyguyAnd we didn't have all this stuff to read and sift through. True story, but I didn't play through a tube amp until I was playing for like 10 years. When I was in high school we guitar players never sat around talking **** about tone. We taught each other Van Halen licks on our cheap-ass guitars while playing through our crappy solid state Peavy amps with no pedals. Cut your teeth that way and you learn how to really appreciate quality gear when you come across it.

Bashing all of this really nice, high-end stuff is douchy at best. Be happy with what you have because there's too many people more into the guitar than you are, playing crap through **** and loving every minute of it.