astrozombie
KatyPerryologist
I decided that the burstbuckers 2 and 3 were just not cutting it in my Les Paul. The tone wasn't tack sharp and I couldn't get my guitar to inhibit the "singing" tone I heard in a friends R9.
I know what you're thinking. An R9? The guitar IS the singing tone. That may be true... but I needed to try. I needed to work and try to make it as close as i could to the sound that I heard coming back from my bandmate's guitar.
After some research and some guidance from some members of the forum, FunkFingers and Blueman, I searched for the magnets I wanted on eBay and found two AlNiCo 4 magnets for $7 a pop shipped.
Then I took my humbuckers apart..
The burstbuckers have two stickers on the back, one is a very funny joke in the shape of a PAF sticker. The other states that these pickups are older than I believed them to be.
Here you can see the original rough a2 mag as well as the wooden spacer. I'm not educated on the spacer. Are these necessary or a tradition sort of thing?
Here you can see the original rough a2 magnet on the left as well as my replacement roughcast a4 magnet on the right.
The pickup sans magnet.
The new magnet in place. I payed close attention to the polarity of each magnets and made sure they were oriented correctly.
Finished product.
How does it sound? U-n-b-e-l-i-e-v-e-a-b-l-e.
The nasty boomy low end is gone and the top is controlled. The tone seems so much more "transparent" as if the pickup wasn't adding it's own flavor but instead amplifying the sound of my guitar. I needed to re-equalize the sound on my amp since the tone coming from the guitar changed so much.
At first I thought, "oh no, it sounds so thin! What Did I do?"
But then I realized that what was happening is that the guitar was no longer "masked" by the stock magnets in these humbuckers. I noticed that the sound was pure, and the neck pickup gained that singing quality I lusted for since hearing my friend's R9.
The bridge pickup is aggressive but controlled, very tight on the bass side of things. I was able to crank the distortion on my amplifier without it ever farting out or going to mush until only much higher settings than usual.
This opened up a whole new perception of my Marshall combo's modern "red" channel.
Journey, Van Halen, Guns N Roses, Mr Big... I was finding all of these tones in my guitar without even changing the amp settings. The guitar gained versatility that I honestly didn't believe it posessed. Cleaner settings yield wonderful chimey tones akin to the late great Les Paul's tone. There is a great video on youtube of him performing "Sleepwalk". The tone of my guitar now has a similar tonality.
Switching between pickups no longer yields great changes but rather differences in texture, a wonderful array of personalities as if the guitar expressed different moods through different positions on the switch.
I highly recommend this mod. Just be careful and you won't hurt anything. For $7 I did not expect such a drastic change in my guitar's sound, you won't either but I promise that if you make an educated selection regarding replacement magnets you can completely change your perception of your rig, hopefully for the better. Hopefully enough to inspire you to pick up your instrument and grow.
I know what you're thinking. An R9? The guitar IS the singing tone. That may be true... but I needed to try. I needed to work and try to make it as close as i could to the sound that I heard coming back from my bandmate's guitar.
After some research and some guidance from some members of the forum, FunkFingers and Blueman, I searched for the magnets I wanted on eBay and found two AlNiCo 4 magnets for $7 a pop shipped.
Then I took my humbuckers apart..
The burstbuckers have two stickers on the back, one is a very funny joke in the shape of a PAF sticker. The other states that these pickups are older than I believed them to be.
Here you can see the original rough a2 mag as well as the wooden spacer. I'm not educated on the spacer. Are these necessary or a tradition sort of thing?
Here you can see the original rough a2 magnet on the left as well as my replacement roughcast a4 magnet on the right.
The pickup sans magnet.
The new magnet in place. I payed close attention to the polarity of each magnets and made sure they were oriented correctly.
Finished product.
How does it sound? U-n-b-e-l-i-e-v-e-a-b-l-e.
The nasty boomy low end is gone and the top is controlled. The tone seems so much more "transparent" as if the pickup wasn't adding it's own flavor but instead amplifying the sound of my guitar. I needed to re-equalize the sound on my amp since the tone coming from the guitar changed so much.
At first I thought, "oh no, it sounds so thin! What Did I do?"
But then I realized that what was happening is that the guitar was no longer "masked" by the stock magnets in these humbuckers. I noticed that the sound was pure, and the neck pickup gained that singing quality I lusted for since hearing my friend's R9.
The bridge pickup is aggressive but controlled, very tight on the bass side of things. I was able to crank the distortion on my amplifier without it ever farting out or going to mush until only much higher settings than usual.
This opened up a whole new perception of my Marshall combo's modern "red" channel.
Journey, Van Halen, Guns N Roses, Mr Big... I was finding all of these tones in my guitar without even changing the amp settings. The guitar gained versatility that I honestly didn't believe it posessed. Cleaner settings yield wonderful chimey tones akin to the late great Les Paul's tone. There is a great video on youtube of him performing "Sleepwalk". The tone of my guitar now has a similar tonality.
Switching between pickups no longer yields great changes but rather differences in texture, a wonderful array of personalities as if the guitar expressed different moods through different positions on the switch.
I highly recommend this mod. Just be careful and you won't hurt anything. For $7 I did not expect such a drastic change in my guitar's sound, you won't either but I promise that if you make an educated selection regarding replacement magnets you can completely change your perception of your rig, hopefully for the better. Hopefully enough to inspire you to pick up your instrument and grow.
