JB in my Les Paul is the bomb

weepingminotaur

weepingminotaur

Well-known member
Tweaked the metal settings on my newly purchased Katana Gen 3 100. Adjusted the bass end of the pickup to be a bit higher, plugged in, and wow. Instant Rust In Peace and Countdown To Extinction Megadeth at my fingertips. Everything I want the JB to be for heavy music: organic but detailed, nice chunky mids and all the chugga-chugga for palm-muted riffs. There's a kind of squishy liquid goodness to riffing that I'm quite taken with, and single-note treble lines really do "sing," to use the overused term.

You know a guitar is sounding good in your hands when you keep playing without a particular purpose after your regular practice is done, just because you want to keep hearing it!

Interesting side note: my Les Paul is tuned in E standard and has 11-52 strings. My thinking was to use heavier strings so drop D wouldn't flub out and I could do the Alice in Chains special if needed (half step down with bottom string tuned to D flat). I was wondering how it would feel to do fairly fast thrash riffing in E standard with that string gauge (in particular, the opening section to "Holy Wars", the main riffs to "Master of Puppets", etc.). Well, it felt great. I didn't feel any loss of speed or encounter any increased resistance. I've been a proponent of lighter strings for a few years now (I'm in the B.B. King "why you working so hard" camp), but I may go a tad heavier on string gauge for a couple of my other guitars just to see how it sounds.

Lastly, it's funny that I'm even posting this, because I plugged in, not having played this guitar in probably a month (a long time for me), with the intention of seeing whether I wanted to swap out the JB for that shiny new Black Winter rails pickup that's about to be released. Hard nope on that now. The JB stays in this here guitar. :)
 
I don't like JB at all, it has a honky ness I cannot support. But I listened a recent YT from Phillip McKnight on Fender Limited Edition Tele with 2 humbuckers (JB and Jazz) and I liked the JB for a first time.
 
I tried the JB in a Les Paul 2 different times. Didn't care for it both times. In my Kramer Baretta it's glorious, had both a post 2000's and an 80's JB in it but I like lower output pickups so I put the other "JB" in it, the Jason Becker Perpetual Burn. :)
 
donaldr said:
I don't like JB at all, it has a honky ness I cannot support. But I listened a recent YT from Phillip McKnight on Fender Limited Edition Tele with 2 humbuckers (JB and Jazz) and I liked the JB for a first time.
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You can dial back the honky mids if they really bother you. And yeah, JB-Jazz is a classic combination. I currently have a '59 in the neck of this Les Paul but I will likely swap it out for a Jazz. The '59 is too dark for this guitar.
 
ErikH said:
I tried the JB in a Les Paul 2 different times. Didn't care for it both times. In my Kramer Baretta it's glorious, had both a post 2000's and an 80's JB in it but I like lower output pickups so I put the other "JB" in it, the Jason Becker Perpetual Burn. :)
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Guitars are finicky like that. In my Epiphone Les Paul PlusTop Pro, it sounds killer. I don't know that it would sound that great in, say my Schecter.
 
I like the JB for certain sounds (90s DM, 80s thrash, grunge), but it's not crisp enough to be an all rounder in any of my guitars. String separation with high gain always feels like a fight. Of course the converse of that is, it delivers a consistent tone with a lot of body, which makes it good for leads and more forgiving/present for certain kinds of riffs. I'm considering the rails version for one of my guitars that could use a bit more beef.
 
Seashore said:
I like the JB for certain sounds (90s DM, 80s thrash, grunge), but it's not crisp enough to be an all rounder in any of my guitars. String separation with high gain always feels like a fight. Of course the converse of that is, it delivers a consistent tone with a lot of body, which makes it good for leads and more forgiving/present for certain kinds of riffs. I'm considering the rails version for one of my guitars that could use a bit more beef.
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Oh yeah, for me, no pickup does everything and no guitar does everything. I play a lot of hard rock and thrash, and some grunge, so the JB fits me perfectly. But I'm certainly not going to choose it for funk or neo-soul applications.
 
The secret to the JB is to use a 250K volume pot (with a 500K tone pot). This tames the upper midrange slightly and makes it a lot smoother. That's my secret sauce. YMMV.

And also a series/split/parallel switch makes it one of the most versatile pickups ever. Turn down the tone knob and switch to split or parallel...perfect vintage output tone.
 
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Love the JB. Whenever I can't find a pickup for a guitar... after I've swapped multiple pickups through it... I throw in a JB and it just works.
 
The JB in Les Paul's has been a widely known and debated topic on this forum. From MY experience, multiple factors are at play. I have a JB/Jazz Antiquity set in a 77 Les Paul custom that just sounds PERFECT. Something about the combo of the maple neck and softer delivery of the Antiquity set. It just WORKS. I have an old JB-M in a routed-out 76 LP Deluxe and pretty much the same-maple neck makes it snap. I have a set of 35th Aniv in a 96 LP Standard (Mahogany neck) and the mids are MUCH more pronounced-not an annoying "honk" but still very present. I recently purchased a cool yet cheap 2001 Epiphone Nuclear Extreme LP and plan to put in a JBJ/JNJ with covers. We will see how that turns out.

With that said, i have found MOST post-2000 JB's to be dark, muffled and "honky" so to say. I have had limited success in some of the modern Charvel San Dimas MIM guitars-some sound better than others. As i said before, the JB is VERY wood-dependent on its tone whereas other mid-high output pickups seem to just plow through any body/neck material without much discrepancy.
 
STLMTLHD79 said:
The JB in Les Paul's has been a widely known and debated topic on this forum. From MY experience, multiple factors are at play. I have a JB/Jazz Antiquity set in a 77 Les Paul custom that just sounds PERFECT. Something about the combo of the maple neck and softer delivery of the Antiquity set. It just WORKS. I have an old JB-M in a routed-out 76 LP Deluxe and pretty much the same-maple neck makes it snap. I have a set of 35th Aniv in a 96 LP Standard (Mahogany neck) and the mids are MUCH more pronounced-not an annoying "honk" but still very present. I recently purchased a cool yet cheap 2001 Epiphone Nuclear Extreme LP and plan to put in a JBJ/JNJ with covers. We will see how that turns out.

With that said, i have found MOST post-2000 JB's to be dark, muffled and "honky" so to say. I have had limited success in some of the modern Charvel San Dimas MIM guitars-some sound better than others. As i said before, the JB is VERY wood-dependent on its tone whereas other mid-high output pickups seem to just plow through any body/neck material without much discrepancy.
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This is interesting, because my Les Paul has a mahogany neck, so the mids are more pronounced, but I'm fine with that. I am definitely a mid-forward guy. And anyway you can always EQ the mids out if necessary.
 
I used JB in an ash strat for years. But as I progressed I grew to dislike them. I recently had a basswood strat with one and I actually HATED it, I didn't even want to play the guitar at all. Traded that guitar for a neck for a loaded body I had with a Gibson T top and love that guitar. And it's not cause of the T Top craze thst pickup was installed back when I was told it was on off Hamer pickup and I needed to fill the hole.lol
Any T Tops 490s PAFs for me. I like swirly ringy harmonics, dont want huge body.
 
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