There are many times when we decide to buy a piece of gear, the first thing that comes to our mind is probably the brand name of a product that we usually associate the product with. This is hardly a surprise and this is pretty evident in especially in Singapore. When I started changing the pickups of my first guitar, i wanted the best pickups with the amount of money I have. I bought a pair of Dimarzio Evolutions and don't take this in a wrong way. Dimarzio Evolutions are really good and probably still is my favourite pickup up till today. However, contrary to my believe at that time, installing Dimarzio Evolutions didn't make me sound or play anywhere closer to Steve Vai, as much as I would have liked.
However, there are many times when we make our decision relying too much on the brand image that we are being conditioned with and we make our decisions picking up those costly "branded product" without giving other lesser brands a chance. Guitar pickups are definitely one of those that are always being overlooked.
Thanks to a few local shops (namely Tymc and SVguitars), they have provide our market an alternative voice in the choice of lesser priced pickups; namely Tesla and Artec Giovanni. I personally believe that products of lesser brands should be given a chance instead of being bash and shove aside due to it's lesser known brand name and country of origin.
Next time, before anyone of us decide to buy any product be it pedals, pickups or tunners, do our necessary research on what's available to us and what exactly are we looking out for, before we make our final decision. We might just pick up a golden egg while saving a lot more money in the progress.
