I have been looking for the right pickups for an old "Drifter" DES-335 that I got back in the 90s.
It's an *imitation* of a Gibson ES-335, but unlike the Gibson, which is a semi hollowbody, the Drifter is a *full* hollowbody.
Anyway, it's always sounded great *acoustically*, but never sounded good plugged in.
It turned out that the original pickups weren't actually even Humbuckers.
Underneath the full size humbucker covers, they just had one coil in each pickup.
Anyway, I'd heard some Epiphone Dots in some videos that sounded pretty good, so I got a pair of used pickups that were Epiphone 57CH and HOtch pickups. They were listed as being from an Epi Les Paul, but *supposedly* (according to various things I read back before I got them) the Dot used the same pickups. But, when I tested them in the guitar, they sounded *horrible*.
They were grainy and their sound reminded me of cheap pickups that tended to be labeled "High Distortion Pickups", that were trying too hard.
I was expecting, and wanting, something more BB King ish. Cleaner, but could still have some bite if you wanted it.
I *like* high gain, and most of my guitars are set up for that, but for *this* guitar, I didn't want something like those, that start out grainy before you even turn up the gain, can't clean up if you back off the volume control, and go muddy if you aren't running a lot of gain.
Anywho, tonight I stumbled across a video where a guy has some Full Monty pickups (from Monty Guitars in the UK) and was doing an experiment where he swapped the magnets between the neck and bridge pickups.
But the default setup, with the alnico 2 monty in the bridge position, and the alnico 5 monty in the neck position sounded *Perfect* to me.
Well, perfect for *this* particular guitar anyway ;P
So, I wondered if Seymour Duncan had made anything with sound/performance/response characteristics similar to those.
Not so much how they sounded at high gain (which sounded very similar no mater what config they were in), but how they sounded sounded at lower gain, which was *quite different* with the a5 in the neck and a2 in the bridge. The same pickup with the a2 in the neck would go muddy at lower gain.
Of course, it's probably not easy to tell about the sound without an example, so I'll try and link the video here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjGv89QmSQg [TABLE="class: spec-list"]
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It's an *imitation* of a Gibson ES-335, but unlike the Gibson, which is a semi hollowbody, the Drifter is a *full* hollowbody.
Anyway, it's always sounded great *acoustically*, but never sounded good plugged in.
It turned out that the original pickups weren't actually even Humbuckers.
Underneath the full size humbucker covers, they just had one coil in each pickup.
Anyway, I'd heard some Epiphone Dots in some videos that sounded pretty good, so I got a pair of used pickups that were Epiphone 57CH and HOtch pickups. They were listed as being from an Epi Les Paul, but *supposedly* (according to various things I read back before I got them) the Dot used the same pickups. But, when I tested them in the guitar, they sounded *horrible*.
They were grainy and their sound reminded me of cheap pickups that tended to be labeled "High Distortion Pickups", that were trying too hard.
I was expecting, and wanting, something more BB King ish. Cleaner, but could still have some bite if you wanted it.
I *like* high gain, and most of my guitars are set up for that, but for *this* guitar, I didn't want something like those, that start out grainy before you even turn up the gain, can't clean up if you back off the volume control, and go muddy if you aren't running a lot of gain.
Anywho, tonight I stumbled across a video where a guy has some Full Monty pickups (from Monty Guitars in the UK) and was doing an experiment where he swapped the magnets between the neck and bridge pickups.
But the default setup, with the alnico 2 monty in the bridge position, and the alnico 5 monty in the neck position sounded *Perfect* to me.
Well, perfect for *this* particular guitar anyway ;P
So, I wondered if Seymour Duncan had made anything with sound/performance/response characteristics similar to those.
Not so much how they sounded at high gain (which sounded very similar no mater what config they were in), but how they sounded sounded at lower gain, which was *quite different* with the a5 in the neck and a2 in the bridge. The same pickup with the a2 in the neck would go muddy at lower gain.
Of course, it's probably not easy to tell about the sound without an example, so I'll try and link the video here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjGv89QmSQg [TABLE="class: spec-list"]
[TR="class: collapsing-list__item"]
[TD] [/TD]
[TD] [/TD]
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[/TABLE]
