Gibson Nighthawk Special Pickups

[Odge]

Hi,
I've got the Epiphone version of the Gibson Nighthawk Special 3 pickup guitar. It's pretty unique and is very versatile for creating Les Paul and Fender tones.

I think the neck pickup is faulty as when I move the 5 way selector all the way to the front without the coil tap there is no sound. When I switch the coil tap on it seems to kick into a quiet single coil mode. Perhaps I should get a tech to look at it. I am interested in pickup replacement options and while I'm there I might as well check the rest. As it is an Epiphone the pickups are not the original as were installed in the Gibson model. They're OK, I'm no expert, but if I can track down pickups that are similar to, or better than, the Gibson pickups, without having to modify the guitar too much to accommodate, and improves my tone it would be really excellent. The tricky thing will be locating a slanted humbucker for the bridge pickup.

From the research I've done the following pickups were installed in the Gibson model:
M-Series Mini-Humbucker (Neck)
NSX Single-Coil (Middle)
M-Series Slanted Humbucker (Bridge)

I've searched to see if I could find these exact pickups but it has been challenging. Gibson seems to have removed reference to this model guitar etc from their site.

I'd be grateful for any advice. Thanks

Description
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_Nighthawk

Reviews
http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar/product/Gibson/Nighthawk+Special+(3+Pickup+model)/10/1

 

[jeremy]

Re: Gibson Nighthawk Special Pickups

welcome to the forum!!

a good friend of mine steve katz, rest his soul, had the gibson version and it can be a very nice sounding guitar.

the mini in the neck and the single coil in the middle shouldnt be too hard to replace and you have lots of options. i would suggest an antiquity II firebird pup for the neck, a antiquity texas hot for the middle.

the bridge is obviously the hard part. my suggestion would be to get the duncan custom shop to rewind the existing pup. it is about the same price as a good bridge bucker but you can have it made to any spec you want. there are fairly limited options available for drop in replacement pups, gibson made some but not sure if they still do.

 

[blue_riders]

Re: Gibson Nighthawk Special Pickups

I believe this is similar to the Gibson M-III pickup wiring, two humbuckers with a middle single coil. A five-way (strat style) selector switch and a coil tap switch. there are basically 9 sounds with the furthest humbucker position meant to be like a standby or kill switch, no sound will come out of that position.

With the coil tap switch down, you get bridge humbucker: neck and bridge humbucker: neck humbucke: neck humbucker with enhanced tone (a LC circuit) and the standby, no sound position.

With the coil tap switch up, you get all single coil sounds, bridge/bridge + middle/middle/middle + neck/and neck only. Only the outside coils in the humbuckers work in the coil tap mode.

Good luck. Your neck pickup is not faulty, just designed to be no sound. You get 5 single coil sounds and 4 humbucker sounds.

 

[JHN]

Re: Gibson Nighthawk Special Pickups

Yeap the switching system works exactly as described by BLUE nothing wrong with the dead position it was intended that way.With the right pickups this Epiphone variant of the Nighthawk should sound surprisingly good I have sold many of the some years ago while working in a guitar shop and they were decent and interesting instruments.

 

[JohnnyGuitar]

Re: Gibson Nighthawk Special Pickups

The middle pickup would actually be a little problematic to replace because it is not a regular single coil. If it's like the one on my guitar (I own a Gibson Nighthawk ST3) we're talking about a different shape:
http://www.blueshawk.info/nighthawk_family.htm
It is screwed to the guitar like a P90 and not like a Strat pickup... (unless the Epiphone model has different specs).

Rio Grande Pickups supply replacements for the bridge pup. With the price they want - I think you can do better with the Duncan custom shop...

I have love hate relationships with the neck mini humbucker but I couldn't bring myself to replace it...

 

[nvilletele]

Re: Gibson Nighthawk Special Pickups

I am a bit confused by the description of the various pup combinations provded by Blue Rider . . . the description that I found over at the blueshawk.info site (apparently originally from a gibson ad, manual or publication) has it somewhat different.

http://www.blueshawk.info/nighthawk_cst3.htm

It seems to be:

with coil tap down: bridge humbucker; neck and bridge humbuckers; neck humbucker; bridge humbucker and middle; bridge and neck split

with coil tap down: bridge split; bridge split with middle; middle; neck split and middle; neck split.

I just purchased an ST3 on ebay, and it hasnt arrived yet, but I am hoping it has the ten usable sounds indicated in this document rather than the nine mentioned here. I can report again after it arrives, if anyone still cares (or is even still following this thread).

 

[dr. ad]

Re: Gibson Nighthawk Special Pickups

i haven't checked the link out yet but the above description of the MIII wiring's correct
bridge and neck split's not a bad idea, is it...
:scratchch

EDIT - looks like it man, the ST3 info suggests it's the one you described and not the MIII switching i've seen