Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

gripweed said:
How does the cover affect the tone --- or does it?


I put covers on the PGs I had... Ran them both ways and didn't notice any difference with the covers.
 
Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

I have a N/B set. Both are covered and fully potted - No difference whatsoever.
 
Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

the covers cut back a small bit on the overall sound, but not too much where it is really noticable. Happy shredding
 
Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

The covers affect the tone...and not a little!

Without the covers the pickup sounds brighter, livlier and has more presence.

That's why Clapton and Beck removed the covers on the pafs in thier 50's Les Pauls (they could hear the difference and talked about it alot in interviews at the time) and why guys with golden ears like Eddie Van Halen don't use covers on thier HB's: cuz they sound "better" without 'em!

People who say they can't hear the difference are entitled to thier opinion...but even if they can't hear any difference there are plenty of people who can.
 
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Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

I noticed a pretty big difference as Lew described when I took the covers off my Les Paul pickups. Certainly more top end maybe a little less 'honky'.
 
Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

Lewguitar said:
The covers affect the tone...and not a little!

Without the covers the pickup sounds brighter, livlier and has more presence.

That's why Clapton and Beck removed the covers on the pafs in thier 50's Les Pauls (they could hear the difference and talked about it alot in interviews at the time) and why guys with golden ears like Eddie Van Halen don't use covers on thier HB's: cuz they sound "better" without 'em!

People who say they can't hear the difference are entitled to thier opinion...but even if they can't hear any difference there are plenty of people who can.

Lew,

I don't think I have EVER disagreed with you. :D

Till now... :rolleyes:

In my experience, covered pickups only APPEAR to change the tone of the pickup.

The cover makes the pickup look "as close" to the strings as an uncovered pickup, when actually the cover is the same distance but the pickup is further.

This results in less highs, output, etc.

But obviously you can get an uncovered pickup closer to the strings, so that can be a difference if you like to set your pickups REAL close ...... but aside from that...


Getting back to the original question: I have an uncovered Pearly Gates neck and a nickel covered Pearly Gates neck and they sound EXACTLY the same when the covered pickup is raised enough to compensate for the cover's space.


Just my lying ears doin their evil thing.....

:dance:
 
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Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

Not a problem disagreeing with me! :laugh2: But you're disagreeing with Eddie Van Halen, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck too... :saeek:
:laugh2: :laugh2: :laugh2:

Lew
 
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Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

It wasn't a PG, but I recently took the cover off a PAF clone and didn't notice a difference. I did it so I would stop thinking about it...if you are leaning one way or the other based on stuff you have read, just go that way so it won't be in the back of your mind.
 
Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

I didn't mean to start a debate :)! I am wondering what I'm going to put in my Flying V --- the Seth in the lead position is for certain. I'm probably going to put a Fralin in the neck, but in case it doesn't work for me I'm considering the Pearly Gates which is brighter (or so I've heard.) I want to have a cover on it but if I'm only gonna get a slightly hotter Seth with little difference in sound, I'm not interested. I'm gonna try the Fralin first.

BTW so much of what some guitarists believe about the way their equipment sounds is based upon things that they've convinced themselves of and they really believe they hear a difference. I wonder how true that would be if they were able to do blind taste tests. I also wonder for example how much of Eric Johnson's peculiarities about equipment have a basis in fact. I'm not here to cause trouble though so I won't go on any longer about that.

Go ahead now, finish your debate :laugh2:
 
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Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

gripweed said:
Go ahead now, finish your debate :laugh2:

Nah....debate over stuff that's been covered thousands of times with the same conclusions gets boring. :)

Lew
 
Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

Just go with whatever looks cooler. In a V I would vote for covered. :)
 
Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

I'll agree again with Lew on this one...I'm always a fan of nickel covers on my Gibson SG and my Tokai Love Rock..The difference between covers vs no covers is this....Take the cover off and you get an ever so slight increase in the highs and a sense of a bit more overall presence...It's slight,but if you have good ears,there is a difference...I agree that Clapton,Page,Beck,and EVH removed their covers to get more presence from their humbuckers...Notice it's normally the bridge pickup cover they removed.

John
 
Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

I bought a set of Pearly Gates with nickle covers because I had read a lot of comments that said they are brighter without covers. Now, I haven't compared them with models without covers but all I know is - mine rock!
I personally think they look cool with nickle covers too.
 
Re: Does anyone own a covered Pearly Gates?

spidey said:
I bought a set of Pearly Gates with nickle covers because I had read a lot of comments that said they are brighter without covers. Now, I haven't compared them with models without covers but all I know is - mine rock!
I personally think they look cool with nickle covers too.

I Love the PG pickups,in fact I also keep a PG+ here with the A5 magnet...I have quite the collection of Duncan humbuckers!
:dance:
 
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