Side by Side Comparison of: YMC vs Dean Markley

I just got these the other day, and I was very pleased with them. The cables were long enough to reach into the electronics cavity with ease. No wiring diagram, but just make note of how the old pickups were wired, and copy. The fit in my Epiphone SG-400 was PERFECT. The holes in the pickup surrounds fit perfectly into the factory drilled holes, and there was no space in between the pickups and the pick guard. I'm not going to go all "audiophile" with the sound of the pickups. They sound really good though. I pushed them through my Orange Micro Terror and BR-800, and it made had the same quality of sound as any of my other guitars. All in all, my guitar looks much better now with these flawless beauties installed. Very happy.

They're built well and they actually look very nice in the guitar. The wires have plenty of line and were easy to install.Holy moley, for the price they sound amazing. Nice solid punch and tone with plenty of output. Sound pretty good for hard rock and metal.They are not quite as articulate as name brand pickups abut they sure are better then the cheopos that came stock some entry level guitars.For the price-outstanding

I was pleasantly surprised at the sound and tone of these pickups. I have to admit, I had buyers remorse when I first ordered them. Given how cheap they were I expected them to not have the sound and tone of the pickups I was replacing. But my skepticism quickly vanished once I got them installed. Put these in an Epiphone SG. They sound every bit as good as the factory Epi Humbucker pickups.

These are great pickups. They look nice with the shiny gold. I love the sparkle and smooth sound these produce. They are a great buy too. I expect more expensive PU's to sound this good. I would buy these again for other guitars. The string alignment is a little off above the pickup poles but it sounds good. I had to boost this review up to 5 stars. After playing my guitar with these installed I've come to the conclusion that these sound as golden as they look. These pickups are fantastic.

I'm uh-... I'm gonna go with "wow", here.I didn't expect much from these, considering the price and such, but they were a LOT better than expected.Not exactly Seymour Duncans... but I didn't pay the Seymour Duncan price, now did I?I spent an afternoon doing nothing but putting these into one guitar, another pickup from the same company into another guitar, and then all night trying them out.The wiring was done nicely and weren't difficult at all to install, though I must point out, the pickup rings are CURVED, and I was putting them on an SG with a FLAT top, but I just took them off and used my old pickup rings. So all is well.They are marked "Neck" and "Bridge" by the way, so no confusion there.I was pleased with the way they were wrapped and shipped, but rather unimpressed by the packaging (Cheap cardboard box to ship in, 1 layer of bubble wrap, duct tape, zip-lock baggies). They survived shipping just fine, though.They felt sturdy and I don't have any complaints about the provided screws (2 to mount the pickup to the ring and adjust it's height, 4 to mount the pickup ring to the guitar).If you want to know about the sound, well, I swapped the Epiphone pickups from my Epiphone SG Special for these, and I gotta say it was an improvement, for sure.Higher output and a nicer tone.A great clean sound at the neck with plenty of warmth, and with a bit of distortion, the bridge position squeals when I need it to and sounds sweet and bright when I don't.I'm happy with them.

I would start off by stating "for the price..." but that would be slightly irrelevant. These pickups are BEASTLY, I soldered them in in about 20 mins and plugged them in. These didn't just do the job, they are excellent! They are not as bright as other humbuckers I have tried but they absolutely fit the bill for what I was looking for. Excellent response and if you are into metal (I am not) these would be even better. For passive pickups, these are super HOT. As stated before, metal is not exactly my genre or anything I regularly play but I will say, these pickups allow me to pinch harmonic super easily. If the price doesn't draw you in or if it creates any doubt regarding quality, then think again. These are well worth the low price. I would definitely recommend these to anyone wanting to replace existing pickups in a les paul, or any other guitar for that matter.

Best contact mic you can get.

Awesome, love the sound I get from my Mountain Dulcimer. Would definitely recommend to anyone looking for something like this.

Teamed this up with my Fender Blues Junior tube amp and the tone frequency response were excellent. Attaching it via gunk is not my favorite, but it held well and did not leave a mark, so plusses there, too. It is a pleasure not to have to remain rigid behind a mic to be heard in a band setting.

I just got this thing like 5 minutes ago and put it on my 50 dollar first act guitar, and it's amazing! It's worth every penny. I started playing about 3 months ago (a little before summer began) and I've got to say this thing sounds amazing , I recommend it to any beginner for their non electric guitar .

Ive had the pickup now for about 8 months - I love this little unit - it works great on my 12 string Guild.

About 3 months ago I picked up an old Zither and tried it out on that too.
It sounds fantastic and I am able to move the pickup around to different locations on the Zither body. I've spent hours testing different positions finding a new sound every time (depending on the pickup location).

Lately - I am running this pickup into a BOSS Guitar Multi Effect Pedal - the combo is very cool and fun to experiment with.

I recommend this product to anyone with an acoustic guitar (or zither).

I bought to replace a very very very cheap “Fake” Humbucker Set (actually a single coil within a cover) on an Encore LP Copy that I’m working on. Only issue I saw was that the mounting brackets (though tapered) are FLAT on the bottom – so they are fine on a flat top but will need “Shapped” for a LP archtop. Still comparing “Sound” wise, granted their not 59 PAF’s but not bad. Just a note of caution - no easy option for “Coil Tap”

Looks nice, ships fast! The bridge sounds like a stock BC Rich humbucker, treble and gainy, I wired the bridge pup into my Epiphone Les Paul Jr and it is great, my tone knob doesn't change a whole lot of the tone, very high output so cleans are cutting.. best for early metal, 90s stuff. Came with neck and bridge HB with two height screws each, mounting brackets and screws. Unsleeved wire is ground, sleeved wire goes to your particular connection point for the HB

I repair and refinish electric guitars and occasionally find that I need to replace a pickup. I ordered these and a couple of other sets (different colors) so I would have some on hand for quick installs. I have used these to replace a failed or flaky pickup and they seem to work quite well. Sure, there are much hotter pickups available, but the price comes with it. For an inexpensive pickup that works adequately, these have seemed to work well. In that sense I consider them good value for the price.

7-26-16. Just installed into Washburn HB-35. Seem similar to original. Camelabeled "N" for neck, and "B" for bridge, and they had different color leads from each otheras they should. Sound similar and no apparent issues.

Pickups are not "hot" or over wound like the descriptions states. These are 8K Ohm pickups (both bridge and neck) but they sound pretty good for the money.

Cut to the chase, these bad boys are pretty good. I can't say super high quality, but they do shine some light in several areas. For instance, the bridge pickup is pretty hot and gets some good tones with distortion. It's a pickup that's meant to rock out, so to speak. The neck pickup for me, has provided to some really good clean tones... If you enjoy jazz or playing jazz, this pickup is definitely worth getting. Overall, these aren't that bad. The bridge pickup gets really metal sounds and neck is really good with cleans. :)Score: 8/10

For the price, this is well worth it. I leave it set up on my mandolin now, and it's just what I needed. I still use this with a mic, for a wider, stereo sound. I like the jack, rather than the fully integrated 1/4 cord on many other models of similar product. I also tried it on a semi hollow electric baritone guitar (just stuck it on the body somewhere), running in stereo with the mag pickups and it was a huge, complex sound. Highly useful little thing.

I got this pick up to play banjo in a 6 piece country band setting without having to deal with putting a mic on an acoustic instrument. It works pretty well. It does have a few drawbacks, but if used properly and carefully it works decently, which for the price is more than enough. To use, experiment with positioning on your instrument, you get different sounds from different parts of all instruments. The best location will even vary for styles of play etc. Once you have the spot you want to tie everything down as tight as possible, it is a microphone and it will pick up the sound from wires moving around and being hit. It is a microphone and is subject to feedback like any other microphone, so you have to be aware of where you are standing and where your instrument stand is. But I was able to cut through drums and electric guitars, and it was not very expensive.

I have been using this pickup for several months with my mandolin and am pleased with it. Have a few problems volume (can't seem to get it loud enough, though that isn't surprising for an external pickup) and figuring out exactly where to position it, but it is good for the price. No problems with it buzzing or hissing and it has held up well after several uses. Would recommend it if you are playing guitar/mandolin in small settings.

Installed anyplace behind the bridge, this pickup works fine on a mandolin. Be aware that there is some line hum, and it transmits any sound you make -- bumps as well as notes. It's much fussier about position on a guitar, but with some experimenting, will give a good balanced tone. The endpin cord hanger is ingenious and works very well.

I got this for my mandolin. I was pleasantly surprised how amazing the quality of the sound so i experimented. Works just as great on my mandolin as it does on my Dreadnought, Classical and Violin. It is a bit of a feedback whore with distortion. Your volume and tone adjustments are by placement near the bridge. Treble, Full Tone, Bass. I would have given this 5 stars but there is not a volume adjustment as far as a switch.

Couple issues. 1. Neck Pickup is way too hot for my taste. It was very dark. I put my original pickup back in for the neck and reused the gold cover from this pickup. Ok bridge pickup. The color of the "gold" is more yellow than real gold. So it doesnt match my other gold parts. For the price, it seems like a deal. You can always modify the neck pickup by taking out the screw pole pieces for more vintage sound. Or get an Alnico 2 or 3 magnet + spacers to replace the ceramic if you want to open it up and modify it.

don't try and adjust the post up and down, for each string and that part is junk, some do some don't ....sound ok....I replaced these too

I ordered two sets of these from two different sellers. One set had a silver colored base plate, the other had gold colored ones. I did note that one set seemed to be a higher assembly quality (smoother edges, better solder, and better packaging) than the other. The poorly packaged set had a ding in the cover from a loose mounting screw.They were all wax potted, with metal covers, and the three undamaged ones looked good overall. Though the description states 9k for the neck and 16k for the bridge, all four pickups were between 12.5 and 14.1k. I used one of them (the 14.1k) in the bridge, and an existing 8.5k one I had with good results. I'm keeping the extras for future projects, for the price you can't go wrong.

For a measely few bucks these things are great for cheap, lackluster guitar upgrades; of course they're not Duncans or other costly pickups, thats why they're so cheap, but they certainly took this cheap ass Luna I had in the closet and made it sound really good. Damn it, man.

Output is not as high as expected, compared to hot pickups like Duncan Distortion (DD).However, it shines as a hot vintage type pickup with crystal clarity and warm depth without the harsh trebliness of the DD.No muddiness at all even on low E chords, overdriven or not.On the negative side, what you get look like used pickups with minor dents and blemishes. Soldering job on the pickup covers not so great and not flush, making pickups a little wider on the back. I had to file down some wood on my guitar bridge cavity to make it fit. Neck pup leads are too short. I had to splice wire from the old pups to reach the volume. Pup ring don't match perfectly with original... either use old rings or fit this new one (flimsy plastic so not tough to force-align).Addendum: After having these for a month I've discovered a major deficiency.Yes these are warm and fat sounding. Everything below the 15th fret sounds awesome. Where things go wrong is with when playing lead, esp. if you go above the 20th fret. Output is VERY LOW on the highest frets to a point there is no sustain at all.I'd recommend these for rhythm guitar and for leads below the 15th fret. If you want screaming leads at the upper frets, these are not it.Visually, from a couple of feet away they look great installed. And the sounds is much better than expected. For a $15 pickup set, these can't be beat (for lower fret use).

I received these very promptly, but both pickups were labeled "B" for the bridge, so they appear identical vs. being a matched set for Bridge and Neck locations. Have not yet mounted these, as I'm not sure whether they'll function properly for me. They did appear to be in good shape, no dings or gouges as others have reported.

Pretty good, but doesn't amplify all ranges equally.

Putty wears off after less than 3 months. Can't find replacement putty without going online.

a good transducer type pup. seems to offer even tone across the string spread. has the same drawback all pups of this type have..if your fingernail or anything 'hard' taps the surface of the guitar, it'll pick it up.

I am using this as a mandolin pickup. It does take some EQ work to get it sounding decent, but it works as advertised. The sound is still not as natural and vibrant as I was hoping, but at least the mandolin can be heard in the mix now.

I wish I could say. Maybe I just got a defective pickup. If not, I'd say this was pretty much worthless to me. I wanted something that would allow me to record my classical guitar. This pickup had so much noise and static that I ended up sending it back.

Squeal, squeal, squeal. The wax potting was poorly done on the pickups I received which means the PuPs squeal as the volume / gain increases (and not just at high volume or gain). Took at shot at $15. You win some, you lose some. Not recommended.

The sound of these pickups are what you would expect for the price. Not great. The neck was super muddy, but that is not really the reason for the low star count. For me they get a low count because they were not potted or at least not potted correctly. They are extremely micro-phonic. If you are not hitting a note they squeal even at low volume. Well the set I got anyway, who knows maybe I just got a bad set. These will be removed immediately from my guitar. I gave it two stars though because having the covers and pickups rings alone are worth the price. Cheaper than buying them separate. Keep the rings and covers. Toss the pickups.

These pickups are not bad for the price. They sound good however I received two neck pickups. They both have the same ohm reading and the same size bezel making this set almost useless.

Pitted/bad gold plated finish. Especially around edges.

Well, the whole story is I ordered 2 Brand New Cort X1 guitars and I love them both, however being they for the price, must obviously have inexpensive pickups in them, However, one of the two guitars sounds great, and the other is very flat and has a low tone. So after reading several reviews on these Cheapos, I came to the conclusion that I have a 50/50 chance of getting a decent sounding pair and its well worth a shot for the money.Now, my preference has always been pickups from "SeeMore Donut" and DiMarzio, like their PAF Pros, but being that a person doesn't have to spend a fortune to get decent quality (proved that with the Cort X1 which is a Great Guitar), especially if the pickup really does have Alnico V magnets.OK, so enough useless info, The Pickups arrived today, Very poorly packaged, both of them wrapped together with the pickup's faces Facing each other. When I saw this I pretty much assumed damage had been done, and sure enough. The surfaces of each pickup have rub marks from the other and one of them even has a tiny gouge on the edge (plastic), which I now realize was caused during assembly by careless handling of a soldering iron. The second has a good size gouge along the back edge, which was also obviously caused by a hot soldering iron melting the plastic.Being that it is not so simple to just swap the pickups, meaning having to replace strings and do some cutting and soldering, I decided to not be so curious to the sound or waste my time installing them, but instead send them back for a refund, and possibly take a chance at buying another pair, with high hopes of receiving a blemish free set that sound better than what I have now.It could end up a so called "Crap Shoot" and I may have to order several pair until I finally get a good one of each, Not to mention sound quality is still unknown...Last of all Id like to add that Amazon has a very good return policy and has treated me good so far, which is another reason to Not require paypal :) and that makes me very Happy !I wish you luck if you decide to purchase these.-V-

Act as if they are not potted at all. Sound good, but are microphonic

adhesive not very dependable

The pickup worked fine for the first four weeks (used once a week) but the connection went bad after that and was unreliable. I expected better quality from this brand. Don't waste your money, this is worse quality than the $10 bottle cap transducer I bought 10 years ago, which still works fine by the way.

I would never recommend this pick up to anyone.
very low output and the all around sound stinks, I've heard better from a Radioshack tie clip mic.
I'd expect better from Dean Markley.

I should have just bought the pick up that fits in the sound hole. This pickup works fine, but the sound varies hugely from guitar to guitar depending on the placement. Also, I found that the putty really stuck to the finish on one of my guitars, and it was not easy to get off.

I got this instrument pick up primarily for using on a double bass and a mandolin. Unfortunately, it picks up more noise outside the instrument than the tones you want. Little clicks and taps against the body of the instrument tend to get super amplified, while the sounds of the strings are somewhat weak. I suppose it might work for acoustic guitars a little better, but in my experience I just can't recommend it for either Mandolin or Double Bass.

Incredibly noisy/microphonic with any gain/distortion. Noise somewhat reducible when turning volume or tone down. I opened up one of the pickups and was surprised to find that they were actually potted, even though they were microphonic. Only redeeming quality is that the pickup covers are nice.

very disappointed. these pickups were advertised as 9k and 16k. at best they were 7.9k DONT waste your money. FALSE ADVERTISEMENT.

Pickups were NOT as pictured, I needed the black ones for a build, what I got was a standard chrome set, these will be going back immediately!

Seller had picture of chrome covered humbuckers. Sent me a set of black epoxy filled pickups. Nothing like the picture nothing like the description. This was the exact opposite of what I wanted and what was showing.

Not as listed ! The output is not as listed .cheap price cheap tone. How can you sell a item with false listings.

Big problem here! This is the 2nd set I ordered that when I measured the ohms value on each pickup, they measured at less than 8kohm each! I'm not sending these back but I refuse to buy any product from this manufacturer again! Lesson learned and thank my stars I didn't pay more!

cord shorts out! - brand new right out of the box, stick on guitar, short in cord! The soldering inside the piezo must be very cheaply done. I've had several of these and although they can sound good, they almost always short out - too bad : (

Unit I received is broken — no audio at all, zilch, radio silence. I suspect faulty wiring inside. From other reviews, this seems like a recurring problem. I'm sending it back and am unsure whether to buy another.
The adhesive is basically a wad of that putty for sticking posters to the wall (only gray not blue.) It stuck fine; left a smear on the finish of the guitar, but I wiped that off easily.

Pickup sounds great when it works ...

Bought this new for use with a stand up bass and a banjo. Failed on me first time using it at a gig. The construction is poor and the wires were making intermittent contact with the piezo piece inside the wooden end cap. I could get it to work from time to time by jiggling and playing with the wire. Tried to take it apart to resolder the contacts but destroyed it in the process. It's in the garbage now with a epm bottle cap replacement on the way ...

Save your money and buy something with a better build quality.

The sound is fine. What I'm extremely disappointed in is the fact that half of the adhesive remained on the instrument after the first use. It is the exact consistency of gum on your shoe. I took a picture to prove it, but I don't see any way to share it at the moment. It's really a shame. This is one of the more expensive piezo mics I considered, and one of the biggest selling points was that the adhesive is supposedly, impressively clean.

Also, I thought I was getting the model with the 1/4 inch female end that connects to the rear strap post -- seems like a clever design -- not what I received, though. It's possible I made a mistake when I was ordering, but the model I received has a skinny, 7-ish foot cord which I'm not too enamored with.

I play in a church band. Best sound is into a condenser mic, but must have a great sound tech on board to boost without getting feedback or even worse, won't get me in the mix. This pickup provides a decent solution. I don't
want to alter my instrument so the tacky stuff is working. I don't recommend leaving it stuck on for a long period of time, like over night, as it does seem to leave an oily trace on the top, but I can live with that as opposed to drilling or putting something inside my mandolin that wasn't constructed there in the first place. Don't know how long the tacky will last but I've used it for several months and so far the original dab of tacky is still working. This is a great cheap solution for me and my situation. I adhere it below the high side and the sound man slightly cuts the top and adds a bit of reverb.

Update: Marred the finish on my natural colored Gibson A9 mandolin. Left a permanent oily shiny spot. Dissatisfied.