Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

[Mac-P]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

My take:

If you want to stay Duncan go JB. I find it to have a nice healthy midrange which adds "fatness". It can be played clean as well as dirty. It will definitely fatten up your bridge slot.

I find the CC to be to "pushed" sounding. It distorted too easily for my taste and ironically had this bright "rasp" in the top end of the distortion that I hated (as did my bandmates).

If you want the warmest, fattest bridge HB that can stay clean if need be, try the Rio Grand BBQ Bucker. It is like a JB with more bass, and less treble. Many people think it is TOO warm, but I love it.

 

[dr.barlo]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

How would a CC pair with a paf style neck pickup thats 7.9k with an alnico 3 magnet?

Would one overpower the other? Would I get a good middle tone?

Do you have voodoo pickups in your guitar now? A3 is not that common that's why. And voodoo bridges are bright (I had a set, loved the neck, but had to let it go on account of the bright, brittle, thin bridge pickup).

B

 

[dr.barlo]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

I never said that. If people would at least look at the tone chart they could see those pickups are bright. And I've tried those pickups and yes they are on the brighter side of things without a doubt.....the chart is fairly accurate.

Even if I didn't try them though I would hope that people at the bare minimum would use the tone chart as the tool that it is. Some of the advice on this forum bewilders me sometimes.......although your advice of things to try before swapping I actually agree with.

Two statements that make NO sense here are:

"Seth's or PG's will get the job done in a Paul." - What Les Paul??? Custom?? Standard?? Dont' forget that these are two VERY different sounding guitars IMO. The Custom is a good bit brighter.

"Check out the Alnico II Pro. Slash has used them in his Les Paul's for years." - As far as I know Slash doesn't use Customs hardly at all...I usually see him with Standards or more importantly something with a rosewood fretboard. Again...different sounding guitar....

I think it's good to help people but I think statements like that completely mislead people and steer them in the wrong direction.

I don't think tone charts are enough summary to base a decision on. Even if the eq were to be plotted in a more detailed fashion, still you cannot discriminate between softness and punchy tones. What I am saying is that you might get 2 different pickups with the very same eq yet very different from each other.

BTW a2p is not that bright, not like a 59b that is. But check the chart. It says A2p is brighter than a 59b. Well yeah might be considering only the amounts, YET the highs of A2p is much softer, thus those of 59b is way more well pronounced. Now which is is brighter? See the point. you gotta hear a pickup, or have some solid base point for futher references.

B

 

[dr.barlo]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

And BTW I am of course not debating the effect of the body wood on the tone. Here check my wood test done on strats:

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?t=33

And I have 3 LPs now (95LP standard, R7 and R8), and sold 2 others before getting my ideal 3. Those 2 were a custom and a R8. All of them sounded different, some really bright, some lacked bass, some where throaty some were hollow whatever....

The whole issue is to match pickups with the body one has to get the most out of it. Only then I'd sell a LP if this whole searching were not to end with a satisfactory result. The 3 of mine now had many pickups in them. Now 2 of them employ timbuckers, and the R7 has rolphs. And I am done searching for pickups for those LPs!

B

 

[IndieRock]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

Do you have voodoo pickups in your guitar now? A3 is not that common that's why. And voodoo bridges are bright (I had a set, loved the neck, but had to let it go on account of the bright, brittle, thin bridge pickup).

B

Thats exactly what I have! You're the man! The neck is amazing with overdriven jazzy chords\arpeggios and smooth liquid\blues solos.
Although, the bridge is too bright! Its partly my fault, I shoulda ordered something different. The bridge would probably rock in a dark guitar.

Yea so now I need to match something up with the neck. I would like a good sounding and balanced set, so I can have a nice rhythm middle tone.

Peace

 

[dr.barlo]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

Thats exactly what I have! You're the man! The neck is amazing with overdriven jazzy chords\arpeggios and smooth liquid\blues solos.
Although, the bridge is too bright! Its partly my fault, I shoulda ordered something different. The bridge would probably rock in a dark guitar.

Yea so now I need to match something up with the neck. I would like a good sounding and balanced set, so I can have a nice rhythm middle tone.

Peace

Cool Bro! My voodoo 59 was also quite bright even for me, I like bright bridge position. Seriously, there are some options you might wanna consider: (assuming that your neck is like 7.90K, no?)

1. SD custom shop, get a pickup made for you. If you don't wanna wait like 4-6 weeks you can get an antiquity with gold plated covers (they might have it in stock, so you would not wait), or as I said before call John at BlackRose, he is the man. He has a large inventory, and chances that he has a 8.50-70K ant bridge, and a gold plated cover is quite high. BTW I love my a5 modded ant bridges, yet in your case I'd say the dun-aged a2 would be the best deal. Hear it for yourself.

2. Since Tim White has an insane long waiting list (like a year or so) I would not consider his pickups for your case. Instead try Jim Rolph's pickups. I replaced my voodoo first with an a5 modded ant, and then with a set of timbuckers. But the second set of my timbuckers were beaten by rolphs on my bright R7. So I guess you'd love the rolphs, anyway he winds them to your specs. If you wanna talk to him, he is a very cool person to talk to very informative. What I have is a 8.35K Rolph's 59. It is a great pickup. He delivers very fast, and don't worry he is not that expensive.

B

 

[dr.barlo]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

Or swap the a5 in your bridge HB with an a2. That might be the cheapest solution.

B

 

[papersoul]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

Another thing you can do is order an aluminum tail from Pigtail = much warmer/rounder tone! this made a larger difference for me than the pickups.

This plus a Rio Grande BBQ will put you in tonal heaven.

 

[Wattage]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

I used an A2P in my old LP Custom for years, it took the edge off a fairly bright guitar. Jangly? Not really my thing with a 'bucker but I would agree with Robert that Ant's are probably the closest I've gotten to jangly with a humbucker, though you could certainly split a 4-wire and give your self a lot more options that way.

The CC is far thicker sound than the A2P, I guess more compressed would be a good way to describe it, certainly not a pup I would put a "jangly" tag on by any means.

 

[papersoul]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

I have found it best to find a guitar that sounds good off the shelf to save a lot of headaches in pickup swapping. Why mess with a good thing. Nothing wrong with swapping to find the right pickup which can be rewarding but it is so nice when it sounds great off the shelf. That is what I found with my LP and PRS McCarty. I swapped plenty of p'ups in my LP but non were better than the stock p'ups, just a little different. I am finding the guitar itself will have more impact than what pickup is in the guitar. I have had guitars that sounded thin no matter what! I had a Hamer Studio that sounded thin with the JB, then Rio BBQ, then C-5, Custom and so on. I sold it. Now, I buy guitars that sound great off the shelf and changing pickups can only add to that if you like. An example is if there is something specific you want with the tone that the stock p'up aren't getting for you.

 

[IndieRock]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

I think the CC might be too compressed and not clean up well enough...
I like varying shades of sound through pick attack\strumming.
I've heard a ton of soundclips of the CC and in my opinion they sound somewhat processed, its hard to explain but...I like the dynamics of a paf but this guitar doesn't really like pafs in the bridge. What are some other suggestions, I am open to all brands...

Thanks bros'

 

[IndieRock]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

Just to add to the above, any alnico5 pickups that keep the responsiveness I like but aren't too bright?

 

[brisk]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

I use C5 and roll down the tone little bit

 

[IndieRock]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

Has anyone played\used\own the gibson 57 classic plus and the Rio Grande BBQ bridge pickups could you please compare and contrast them for me?

I want a responsive pickup that is cleaner with lighter strumming\picking and overdriven\crunchy with stronger attack.

THANKS

 

[midnite_man]

Re: Bridge Pickup for Bright Gibson Les Paul Custom?

Hi, hows' it going?

The bridge position in my Gibson Les Paul Custom is very lively yet at the same time seems too bright.

I play through an EL84 style amp and love its overdrive tones.

I am looking for a bridge pickup that can give me jangly\semi-dirty rhythm tones and smooth, somewhat thick overdrive with a bit more volume and mostly picking\strumming technique.

Thanks!!

My first thought when I read your original post was that I was wondering how a Gibson Les Paul could be so "bright?" Could you possibly have your pickups adjusted too high?
I just installed a JB/Jazz set in my '95 Les Paul, and for strumming and rhythm they sound great together or alone. But those pickups will also give me every bit of high-end frequencies I desire for lead work. There are 3 different sets of pickups I like in a Les Paul, and I've used them and a few other combos so far:
1) The JB/Jazz
2) Custom/PG or '59n (nice warmth in the Custom bridge pup, but still enough treble to cut through the mix for leads. The PG is just a little brighter than a '59, but still has nice warmth and mixes well with the Custom, IMO. I may go either back to a '59 in the neck or try something totally off the wall like a Duncan Distortion)
3) PG/PG ( Texas sizzle....you want ZZ Top? You got ZZ Top)

But at the top of my list for pickups I wanna try, it would have to be the Antiquity. I use the single coil versions in a Strat, and knowing what those sound like can only mean that the humbucker version would sound no less as excellent. Nothing but vintage sound, all the way.


...Bob