Lewguitar
New member
After all these years I finally got a chance to really check a set out.
A customer brought me a Les Paul that he'd installed AII Pros in. Needed some fret work and a set up but mostly it had a bad hum that needed correcting. He'd made a mistake wiring it the first time and had spliced extra length onto the wires of both pickups and had neglected to extend the bare ground wire so he could connect it to the back of the pots.
I disassembled both pickups, separated the coils, removed the stock cable, and installed new single conductor shielded cable like you'd find on a vintage paf and put it all back together.
Did most of my playing through my '66 blackface Deluxe Reverb with the 25 watt Celestion G12 Silver Alnico. No distortion, overdrive or boost pedals.
Wish I still had a guitar with some Pearly Gates so I could compare them but the Alnico II Pros strike me as being somewhat similar.
The bridge pickup has a nice grainy texture to the treble. Very easy on the ears.
The neck pickup has a nice clarity to it that again, reminds of the PGn. Bell-like, full and clear, but with that same textured quality I hear from the bridge AII Pro.
I would say that the lows are not as spongey as with some alnico 2 humbuckers, and that the neck & bridge pickups seem very well balanced volume wise.
I played the guitar before working on it and liked what I heard and it came to me with a .047 cap on each tone control. I changed those to .02 caps and it was interesting to hear the difference.
When I rolled the tone control down with the .047 caps the treble rolled off until the tone got quite dull and wooly. After removing the .047 caps and replacing them with .02 caps the tone had more of a plucky "OW" quality to it when I'd turn the tone control down. I like that vowel like "OW" sound better.
Makes me wonder why these pickups are not more popular because I could certainly gig with them and have a good time.
I was never a Guns N Roses or Slash fan so I was never drawn to check them out before. But they strike me as being the logical pickup to recommend if a player has tried the Pearly Gates model and found them to be to trebley or "bright" for his or her tastes.
Anyone else have more experience with the Alnico II Pros? They're new to me so I'd like to get some feedback from you all.
Thanks!
A customer brought me a Les Paul that he'd installed AII Pros in. Needed some fret work and a set up but mostly it had a bad hum that needed correcting. He'd made a mistake wiring it the first time and had spliced extra length onto the wires of both pickups and had neglected to extend the bare ground wire so he could connect it to the back of the pots.
I disassembled both pickups, separated the coils, removed the stock cable, and installed new single conductor shielded cable like you'd find on a vintage paf and put it all back together.
Did most of my playing through my '66 blackface Deluxe Reverb with the 25 watt Celestion G12 Silver Alnico. No distortion, overdrive or boost pedals.
Wish I still had a guitar with some Pearly Gates so I could compare them but the Alnico II Pros strike me as being somewhat similar.
The bridge pickup has a nice grainy texture to the treble. Very easy on the ears.
The neck pickup has a nice clarity to it that again, reminds of the PGn. Bell-like, full and clear, but with that same textured quality I hear from the bridge AII Pro.
I would say that the lows are not as spongey as with some alnico 2 humbuckers, and that the neck & bridge pickups seem very well balanced volume wise.
I played the guitar before working on it and liked what I heard and it came to me with a .047 cap on each tone control. I changed those to .02 caps and it was interesting to hear the difference.
When I rolled the tone control down with the .047 caps the treble rolled off until the tone got quite dull and wooly. After removing the .047 caps and replacing them with .02 caps the tone had more of a plucky "OW" quality to it when I'd turn the tone control down. I like that vowel like "OW" sound better.
Makes me wonder why these pickups are not more popular because I could certainly gig with them and have a good time.
I was never a Guns N Roses or Slash fan so I was never drawn to check them out before. But they strike me as being the logical pickup to recommend if a player has tried the Pearly Gates model and found them to be to trebley or "bright" for his or her tastes.
Anyone else have more experience with the Alnico II Pros? They're new to me so I'd like to get some feedback from you all.
Thanks!
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