'cross-breeding?'

[tilneverbegins]

hey, i'm a new member but ive been reading the forum for a while; its always been a pleasure.
to be honest, i know VERY little about pickups and guitar hardware.
on that note:
i just bought an epiphone les paul custom, alpine white.
one of the most beautiful guitars ive seen.
however, the pickups are the only thing preventing it from being as strong as a gibson.
i was wondering if itd be possible to put tele pickups on the LP in an attempt to get a little more 'western' sound while retaining the look that i love about the alpine white custom. is that even possible mechanically? will it sound horrendous? im looking for a kind of beachy, slightly twangy sound, but nothing too hot- i need to be able to have distortion without my amp going crazy with feedback. any hints/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. i also have no clue what kind of pickup to look for, so if you could suggest one, thatd be awesome!
thanks so much for your help,
sean.

 

[heavydutysg135]

Re: 'cross-breeding?'

I would not put tele pickups in a les paul. It is routed for humbuckers so it would look horible with single coil pickups. Your best bet would be to go with 4 wire humbuckers and wiring them to split with a push pull pot or a switch. This would make for a very versitle setup because you would have the humbucker sound or the single coil sound with the split coil. Jimmy Page did this on his les Paul with great results. I think that a great combo would be the JB bridge and 59 neck. I have this in my eclipse with only the front pickup splitting. It gets a very good single coil sound and GREAT humbucker sound. I have heard that the JB has a very nice split sound since it is a hot pickup, and would surely produce the twangy sound that you are after in the bridge. Hope this helps.

 

[southadc]

Re: 'cross-breeding?'

You could wire split, maybe parallel, or you might be able to put in single coils under humbucker covers.

 

[sweet_lou]

Re: 'cross-breeding?'

I just put the Phat cat P90s in my Epi Limited. I Should say had them put in. You might Look into them or other P90s. Check out tone wizard.

I am sure some of the guys here will weigh in and help you.