Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

Z

Zacker

New member
So, my friend recently sold me a Black Beauty LP for 400 bucks.Nice!
Until I plugged it in.The neck sounded too muddy,the bridge's mids are a jangly mess, and the most OK sounding pup was the middle.Not too muddy, not too jangly in the mids.
So, I want to replace the pickups in it.But I can't make up my mind.Either JB/59/Jazz, Distortion/Custom/Distortion, or Dimebucker/59/Pearly Gates.
Oh and should I use the stock pots or get new pots?
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

For some reason, Epi's still using the cheap PU's on Black beauty's. If you're playing hard rock and metal, a Custom (SH-5) would be a great bridge PU. JazzN would be very good for the neck ('59N's tend to be boomy in LP's) as it has more high end and clarity than most neck HB's (and holds up to distortion well). If you want a warm, fat neck PU, go for a PGN. JB's are at their best in bright-toned super Strats, and while they sometimes work well in LP's, they will sound different than if they were in a Strat.

I leave the Epi pots in unless they're shorting out. The various brands of pots and caps have little (if any) impact on tone, you're just getting more reliability.
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

What about the distortions n custom middle?Oh and btw, do covers have any impact on tone?Because I might be wanting to use covers to give the un-modified look XD
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

Covers will add a little capacitance and a slight roll off in highs. 59's in my Custom only worked clean or with a Tubescreamer into an overdriven amp. Customs are generally fat sounding, so like Blueman335 suggested, I'd go with bright and clear pickups. Custom and Jazz work fine. Black Winters look interesting too, though I've not tried them myself yet.
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

I am in the same boat. My Epiphone Black Beauty 3 is muddy also. Blueman 335's suggestions sound good to me. I am also considering the EMG 66/57 set with a 58 in the middle. The SH5 sounds great in bright or muddy guitars. Lots of chunk as Aceman would put it and goes great with the Jazz or 59.
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

Here is my suggestion for a triple. And for the record - I have never done this….

Neck: Pearly Gates. Lower bass, cutting upper kids. Just the right eq shift for a neck position on a muddy/boomy Les Paul

Middle: Distortion Neck model. hotter than a regular neck, but not stupid hot. Tight bass, pushed miss and treble. It will sharpen and tighten the PG when combined (depending on wiring). It will add bottom and mids to the bridge when combined with….

Bridge: Custom. Big thumping bottom, scooped but present kids, and screaming highs, all at scorching output.


Wire the guitar with three volumes and a Master tone. Just blend the middle in when you want it, to the degree you want it. Or, get a 5 pos rotary for the Tone perhaps, PRS style…If you switch a lot on the fly.

Also - Can't hate on the Jazz neck.
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

i second the pearly gates, maybe a pearly gates set for the neck and middle so you don't loose the vintage lp vibe and a hotter pup for the bridge like a Custom or a Distortion, the Dimebucker is the hottest passive in the production line, almost as hot as the blackouts but totally old school voiced, the only drawback is that the thing needs a guitar with either a strong bottom or a dark/mid heavy tendence to don't sound thin....

also do as ace says and wire the thing with 3 volumes and a master tone (doing this will require at least 1Mohm pots to avoid the guitar sounding muffled)
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

EDX said:
i
also do as ace says and wire the thing with 3 volumes and a master tone
Click to expand...

They come wired that way from the factory, and have four 500K's. The pot values are fine as is. I'd eliminate the neck from the master tone, to give it more clarity and bite, especially if you go with a PGN, which is much warmer than a JazzN.

In a HHH, the middle HB doesn't sound anything like it would if it were in the bridge or neck. It's not an ideal location for a HB due to how it sits under the string nodes, and six coils laying side-by-side may cause some magnetic field overlap that impacts the tone (which may have something to do with fact that almost no one besides Gibson and Epiphone make HHH's). In any event, middle HB's tend to sound thinner and have less output, so using a higher output there would be a good idea, like a Distortion neck model.

Covers make a difference in tone, taking off a very small amount of high end; you can compensate for that by adding a hair more presence or treble at the amp. An ebony LP Custom without covers loses a lot of it's classy look.
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

The Epi Custom comes with 500k's? Cool…


By the way Rick. I completely agree with your assessment of improved reliability vs tone on the Epi controls. I see no reason to mess with them if they aren't broken - or you don't need 500k vs 250 etc….

Never had any problems with any myself. And yes - the PG will be much nicer with a 500k in the neck.


I think the Middle + neck and middle + bridge (especially) combos can sound fantastic. That said - it isn't generally wired that way.


And let's not forget the possibilities of adding a Phat Cat to the middle for some P-90 goodness. That IS a supremely usable sound!


But yeah - Duncan does not make a ton of "ideal output" pops for the middle that are not hot or standard. DiMarzio has a way better selection there. I'd be putting PAF pro's in the middle if I went DMZ.
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

Aceman said:
The Epi Custom comes with 500k's?
Click to expand...


I've seen inside dozens and dozens of Epi's, and the only one that wasn't 500K's all-around was a Lucille, that had two 500K's and two 250K's. Since the early 2000's, they've been using full-size pots.

Another interesting thing to do with all those coils is to use a push pull for coil cut on each HB. That way you have 20 or 30+ potential coil pairings, with either one PU, two PU's, or three PU's. Wire the bridge PU for the slug coil to stay on during coil cut, and the neck to have the screw coil stay on; that way you also get a 'virtual HB' when they're on together in coil cut (same theory as a Strat in positions 2 and 4). That's versatility. If you have an HHH, you might as well get your money's worth with all the tones it can produce.
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

blueman335 said:
I've seen inside dozens and dozens of Epi's, and the only one that wasn't 500K's all-around was a Lucille, that had two 500K's and two 250K's. Since the early 2000's, they've been using full-size pots.
Click to expand...

Ahhh…mine is circa 93 or so….
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

Aceman said:
Ahhh…mine is circa 93 or so….
Click to expand...

The Epi's I've seen and worked on have all been from the late 1990's to the present, so I can't be sure of what they did before that. Because of concerns about fretwear, I've always avoided any older than that. I'd have thought the older ones would be all 500K's, but maybe for a while they were influenced by Gibson's using 300K's.
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

Somebody needs to try three p rails in one of these. Not me. Somebody else.
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

tubecrunch said:
Somebody needs to try three p rails in one of these. Not me. Somebody else.
Click to expand...

There's enough coils in a Back Beauty as it is, and dozens of potential tone combinations if wired that way. I don't see any point in putting a P-Rails in one of these. It's bordering on absurd.
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

To heighten the absurdity, put them all in Triple Shots.
 
Re: Need pickups for Epi LP Black Beauty

I agree with blueman. Put a custom and a jazz in that LP. 59 would be great but he's right, it does get boomy. You could do a mag swap in the 59 and put A2 or A4 and should be fine. But jazz pairs up nice with the custom. And if you are really feeling froggy, order a double thick ceramic magnet and pop it in that custom and you have a les paul killer!

I would however swap pots. I have a LP standard and I swapped out the pots with RS guitarworks pots and there was a difference in sound. It was worth it to me but not necessary.

Aceman had a good suggestion and put a distortion neck in the middle. That would sound cool. Also, how bout a custom/59 hybrid in the middle?
 
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