WoodyTone
New member
As I believe I've mentioned here, I've had a Les Paul Classic that just didn't want to sound good thru my plexi relica (+ 4x12 greenbacks). It came with the stock ceramic-mag pickup which sounded okay, but I wanted more organic -- and less bright/one trick pony (much of which is the amp). I tried a Pearly Gates (liked the Alnico 2 but too much high-mids), a WCR Darkburst (too trebly and the attack was too fast for me), a Seymour Duncan "blackback" (sounded okay, but...) -- and was about to try a vintage Super Distortion when I figured why do that when the stock pickup sounded like that. (In no way am I thumbs-downing these pickups -- they just didn't work with this guitar and amp to my ears.)
I finally switched the preamp tubes which helped a little, but that Les Paul still wouldn't sound good -- with vintage-output pickups. So for the hell of it, since I love the pickup so much, I took the EVH Frankenstein out of my super strat and stuck it in the bridge of the Les Paul. The result floored me: fat, clear, powerful -- sounded great (if a little hot)!
I asked the experts on the MetroAmp forum, and here is an interesting answer: "back when plexi's were being produced, most humbuckers had covers, which shaved off a good deal of high end. you get a similar effect with higher resistance pickups. more turns of wire increases capacitance and thus reduces high end response. you mentioned mostly PAF type pickups, which would have far less capacitance due to their lower number of wire turns. probably the reason the frankie pickup worked for you is because of it's weaker magnet (less highs) and high resistance (also less highs)."
Does this make sense to the pickup experts here, and has anyone else experienced higher-output pickups/warming phenomenon?
Edit: I know there are a lot of fellow EVH-heads here, so just wanted to mention my two most recent blog posts:
Examples of Ed's super early VH playing
http://www.woodytone.com/2009/09/21/super-early-evh-its-all-there/
Ed talks about how Blackmore inspired him to use the bar
http://www.woodytone.com/2009/09/18/evh-started-using-the-bar-because-of-blackmore/
I finally switched the preamp tubes which helped a little, but that Les Paul still wouldn't sound good -- with vintage-output pickups. So for the hell of it, since I love the pickup so much, I took the EVH Frankenstein out of my super strat and stuck it in the bridge of the Les Paul. The result floored me: fat, clear, powerful -- sounded great (if a little hot)!
I asked the experts on the MetroAmp forum, and here is an interesting answer: "back when plexi's were being produced, most humbuckers had covers, which shaved off a good deal of high end. you get a similar effect with higher resistance pickups. more turns of wire increases capacitance and thus reduces high end response. you mentioned mostly PAF type pickups, which would have far less capacitance due to their lower number of wire turns. probably the reason the frankie pickup worked for you is because of it's weaker magnet (less highs) and high resistance (also less highs)."
Does this make sense to the pickup experts here, and has anyone else experienced higher-output pickups/warming phenomenon?
Edit: I know there are a lot of fellow EVH-heads here, so just wanted to mention my two most recent blog posts:
Examples of Ed's super early VH playing
http://www.woodytone.com/2009/09/21/super-early-evh-its-all-there/
Ed talks about how Blackmore inspired him to use the bar
http://www.woodytone.com/2009/09/18/evh-started-using-the-bar-because-of-blackmore/
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