A Question about Pickups

[kaiju01]

I just recently returned to my guitar after I gave up 4 years ago. I've been playing it all summer, but I had left it unattended for most of the time in between my first attempts at learning and this summer. There are dots of rust on the exposed coils of my 3 single-coil pickups. I don't want to try and remove them because I would probably mess the pickups more. I was just wondering if anyone knows how much rust on the tops of the coils will affect the sound of the guitar. I've had a feeling my guitar sounds ****ty, but I have no way to find out specifically and I don't have the money to buy a new set of pickups. Thanks in advance, I hope.

[ESP_Viper]

Well to be honest, I don't know if rust will mess up your sound. But, I have played guitars with rusty pole pieces and they sounded fine. I can't compare their current sound to their original sound, but they sound fine now.

For new pickups, look at all of your options for replacements, and shop around. I got a pickup online from drumcityguitarland.com and the guy gave me a good deal on it (65 bucks total for a duncan sh-5 humbucker)... that's after tax and shipping and all that fun stuff. Try www.gtrheaven.com also. They are pretty good as well. If you can't afford pickups now, choose what you want and then save up for it.