Below are the guitars I have and their current pickups. I would love to hear any thoughts / suggestions.
Gibson SG. I have to finish wiring. I ditched the stupid Gibson PC board and have CTS pots to replace them. I'm only using a master volume and master tone. I'm going to put a phase switch where one of the knobs was, I may just put a dummy pot and knob where the other was.
Bridge - Pearly Gates w/ triple shot
Neck - Gibson Iommi w/triple shot
Hamer Echotone (nice imported 335 copy)
Z-90s. Unlikely I change the bridge, and I'm definitely not changing the neck.
Epiphone Slash Special AFD.
Stock pickups. The bridge sounds better than I thought, the neck is meh...
Cheap Samick
1 pickup - stock humbucker
A partscaster with
Alnico 2 (aps1) neck (staying)
GFS "Jimi" middle - reverse stagger (staying)
Some Wilkinson ceramic in the bridge
Here are the pickups I have laying around:
GFS Veh Neck (w triple shot)
Dragonfire matching "Gates" set - Pearly Gates copies I have triple shots for these but haven't soldered them yet.
Gibson 490 set.
I'm leaning towards this:
SG
Pearly Gates Bridge
Iommi neck for now, but it may overpower the PG
Epiphone Slash
"Gates" bridge
VEH neck
Samick that looks like a metal SG. It actually plays well and holds tune, so I'm putting one of the leftover humbuckers in it after I have the other guitars in their final (for now) pickup configuration.
Echotone
Z-90s are staying. They're amazing in a semi hollow.
Partscaster
Replacing bridge pickup with the "Gates" neck
I wired a system like the GFS Quik Connect using 4 conductor 1/8" cables I bought on Amazon. I solder the Triple Shot out to a female jack and have a male plug coming from the selector / toggle / phase reverse toggle depending on which guitar. So I'll probably move all the pickups around a lot anyway. It's not that much more convenient, but I had a lot of covid boredom and thought it would be fun.
I also have a GFS onboard wah kit I may install in the Epiphone, but I'm not quite ready to route the back and drill a bunch of holes in the front. It would be cool to use in a cocked wah kind of way to get that nasally sort of Vox sound. I'll probably wait to rewire this guy anyway until I replace the pots & toggle.
I bought it as a screw-around guitar but it plays great out of the box (although the G string bridge saddle needs to be filed a little more)and is beautiful. My dad was an Epiphone dealer back in the 90s and they have seriously, seriously upped their game since then. Their $250 guitars back then were mostly junk. The bolt on neck is weird, but other than the pickups and electronics it's a solid guitar and will be in my regular rotation.
I'm basically just bored and looking to talk shop.
Other axes include
A 22 string Tele I built from a kit (from Pitbull in Australia)
Another partscaster built from mostly GFS parts for my son. He loves Queen and this uses the Brian May wiring.
An old resonator which I play a lot
A Fender acoustic 12 string
An old beat up Teisco Del Rey. It has a repaired headstock and plays like ass. I doubt I've played it in the past 20 years, and back then I only used it for slide. I'll probably sell it the next time I build a kit.
A clue of old Epiphone 3/4 student "Les Pauls" . I may trick one of those out for craps and giggles if they hold tuning. The tuners were pretty janky to begin with and close to 30 years old.
FWIW My main amp is an Ampeg SJ12t and I also have one of the Monoprice 5 watt tune amps.
Gibson SG. I have to finish wiring. I ditched the stupid Gibson PC board and have CTS pots to replace them. I'm only using a master volume and master tone. I'm going to put a phase switch where one of the knobs was, I may just put a dummy pot and knob where the other was.
Bridge - Pearly Gates w/ triple shot
Neck - Gibson Iommi w/triple shot
Hamer Echotone (nice imported 335 copy)
Z-90s. Unlikely I change the bridge, and I'm definitely not changing the neck.
Epiphone Slash Special AFD.
Stock pickups. The bridge sounds better than I thought, the neck is meh...
Cheap Samick
1 pickup - stock humbucker
A partscaster with
Alnico 2 (aps1) neck (staying)
GFS "Jimi" middle - reverse stagger (staying)
Some Wilkinson ceramic in the bridge
Here are the pickups I have laying around:
GFS Veh Neck (w triple shot)
Dragonfire matching "Gates" set - Pearly Gates copies I have triple shots for these but haven't soldered them yet.
Gibson 490 set.
I'm leaning towards this:
SG
Pearly Gates Bridge
Iommi neck for now, but it may overpower the PG
Epiphone Slash
"Gates" bridge
VEH neck
Samick that looks like a metal SG. It actually plays well and holds tune, so I'm putting one of the leftover humbuckers in it after I have the other guitars in their final (for now) pickup configuration.
Echotone
Z-90s are staying. They're amazing in a semi hollow.
Partscaster
Replacing bridge pickup with the "Gates" neck
I wired a system like the GFS Quik Connect using 4 conductor 1/8" cables I bought on Amazon. I solder the Triple Shot out to a female jack and have a male plug coming from the selector / toggle / phase reverse toggle depending on which guitar. So I'll probably move all the pickups around a lot anyway. It's not that much more convenient, but I had a lot of covid boredom and thought it would be fun.
I also have a GFS onboard wah kit I may install in the Epiphone, but I'm not quite ready to route the back and drill a bunch of holes in the front. It would be cool to use in a cocked wah kind of way to get that nasally sort of Vox sound. I'll probably wait to rewire this guy anyway until I replace the pots & toggle.
I bought it as a screw-around guitar but it plays great out of the box (although the G string bridge saddle needs to be filed a little more)and is beautiful. My dad was an Epiphone dealer back in the 90s and they have seriously, seriously upped their game since then. Their $250 guitars back then were mostly junk. The bolt on neck is weird, but other than the pickups and electronics it's a solid guitar and will be in my regular rotation.
I'm basically just bored and looking to talk shop.
Other axes include
A 22 string Tele I built from a kit (from Pitbull in Australia)
Another partscaster built from mostly GFS parts for my son. He loves Queen and this uses the Brian May wiring.
An old resonator which I play a lot
A Fender acoustic 12 string
An old beat up Teisco Del Rey. It has a repaired headstock and plays like ass. I doubt I've played it in the past 20 years, and back then I only used it for slide. I'll probably sell it the next time I build a kit.
A clue of old Epiphone 3/4 student "Les Pauls" . I may trick one of those out for craps and giggles if they hold tuning. The tuners were pretty janky to begin with and close to 30 years old.
FWIW My main amp is an Ampeg SJ12t and I also have one of the Monoprice 5 watt tune amps.
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