Umpteenth "What pickups for my Epi Les Paul" thread

[agentzero12]

Re: Umpteenth "What pickups for my Epi Les Paul" thread

I'll drop my vote in for the prails set. Single coils, p90 and hums together. Maybe even the phat cats. They are hum sized p90s.

[agentzero12]

Re: Umpteenth "What pickups for my Epi Les Paul" thread

Also I'd like to say that I find epis to be fantastic guitars. They need a good setup and good pups but I'm a big fan of them.

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Umpteenth "What pickups for my Epi Les Paul" thread

I play a lot of CCW, so my usual gain structure is ultra-clean, to the point of playing through a bass amp most days. So, I need a pickup set that sounds good even in these more "transparent" (some would say "sterile") conditions. However, it's also gotta crunch nicely through a pedal; I have the Hardwire Tube OD and Valve Distortion pedals on my board, and when the situation permits I'll click 'em on and jam. My Strat behaves nicely in these situations, going from spank and quack to scream. The stock Epi pickups have a reasonable crunch, but they don't clean up well, and I need to change that.

Currently, from the sound samples on this site, the Pearly Gates sounds like my neck pickup, with a nice airy treble sparkle and a present but not in-your-face midrange. I'm on the fence between the Jazz Model and Seth Lover in the bridge; both have a good balanced clean bridge tone in the demos, not too nasally, but they also dirty up nicely. The Dimebucker sounds better in full crunch (as it should), but its clean tone is a metric ton of everything I don't like about my stock bridge, so I'll live with rolling off the treble or tone a little to tame these hairier pickups. The question is, are these nice, sparkly pickups going to sound too harsh in the high end when you replace the warmth and natural compression of a tube combo with the faithful transparency and headroom of a bass combo? Or, given that these are going into an all-mahogany axe, no maple cap, should I be aiming for bright anyway to supplement the natural warmth of the tonewood?

I'm not sure of the band reference (CCW). But the Jazz neck will do great cleans, and since it's wax potted, will hold up better than the Seth if you ever need to play through high wattage amps at high volumes. As for their EQ, the Jazz will do you fine. It's not as bright as the EQ curve suggests, at least to me, but you can adjust your brightness as needed on it, especially with a tone knob, so it will be fine. The Jazz or '59 should be good. I've never played on the Dimebucker. However, if it ends up like the Full Shred, I've noticed that at least with the Full Shred, it still sounds rather nice with a mild overdrive. I was expecting it to sound only good with distortion, but that was not the case. So I would say you can try the Dimebucker, if that's what your ears like, and if it don't work, use the real world exchange plan to select a different pickup.

[Liko]

Re: Umpteenth "What pickups for my Epi Les Paul" thread

I'm not sure of the band reference (CCW)

CCW = Contemporary Christian Worship genre. Basically adult contemporary/modern country with the appropriate message. I'm Lutheran, and that denom has a rich musical tradition, but is very traditional about it, so I gotta be careful bringing in an electric in the first place. God does do overdrive, but the same can't be said for all the faithful.

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Umpteenth "What pickups for my Epi Les Paul" thread

CCW = Contemporary Christian Worship genre. Basically adult contemporary/modern country with the appropriate message. I'm Lutheran, and that denom has a rich musical tradition, but is very traditional about it, so I gotta be careful bringing in an electric in the first place. God does do overdrive, but the same can't be said for all the faithful.

Oh, then that's right up my alley. Get the Hot Rodded Combo: it works great (Jazz/JB). Another set that works great for this, believe it or not, is the Full Shred combo (neck and bridge). I wouldn't go with the Distortion because you'll lose your cleans, but that's just me. Also, the '59/Custom combo would probably work great as well. You can also do the Seth Lover neck if you want, because usually at church you won't run enough wattage to notice the lack of wax potting, but me, I prefer to stay with wax potted pickups. I would also imagine that any of the Custom series bridge pickups (Custom/Custom 5/Custom Custom) should work fine. Good luck!

I played for years in church with the Hot Rodded Combo and the '59/JB combo. Recently I went with the Jazz/FS in my Showmaster and so far that works great for CCW.

[agentzero12]

Umpteenth "What pickups for my Epi Les Paul" thread

God does do overdrive, but the same can't be said for all the faithful.

I love that. I play worship a lot with the jb/jazz set. It does good.

[jball85]

Re: Umpteenth "What pickups for my Epi Les Paul" thread

Imo Nothing sounds better with overdrive and a wah through a marshall than a pg in the bridge of a les paul (maple cap). It was bright played clean though, so use your tone pot. I've found that pickups like antiquitys that sound great clean, leave a little to be desired when trying to get some crunch or grind out of them, though too not bad. I say go with antiquities or seth lovers if you are playing clean. 59s as well. If you use the middle position on your les paul a custom 5 bridge with a 59 neck has to be heard to be believed. Its great.