Pearly Gates troubleshooting

[ledzepp29]

hey I have a pearly gates set in my les paul classic and I really dig the tone but lately I've realised that the bridge gets a pretty unpleasant buzzy, bright, brassy sound on open chords when distorted, but I really like the tone from it especially for lead. I love the neck pickup, i've heard that cutting the treble and cranking the mids on your amp with this pickup gets rid of the brassy sound, I will try this I will also mess with the pickup height. I was just wondering if anyone else has experienced this with their pearly gates. If I can't find a solution then you can expect to see these in the trade section. They were pretty expensive and i think I've passed the 21 day swap deal. Could someone recomend a pickup that has qualities I'm getting at, clear and balanced but defined and low output(what I thought the pearly gates were). I'm thinkin either aph2s, seths or antiquities although the later are too pricey and I'm lookin to trade. Thanks

 

[ledzepp29]

Re: Pearly Gates troubleshooting

anybody?

 

[ledzepp29]

Re: Pearly Gates troubleshooting

I tried the dropping of the treble and the crankind of the mids and it just didnt sound that great so I put everything on my favored setting which is everything on 6(including gain) the tone was still to bright on open D and A chords etc. so I lowered the pickup on the G,B,E strings and it improved greatly its kinda late so I couldnt crank my amp to see how it really sounds but I think I will mess with it more tommorow and see. I really don't wanna go through the trouble of selling/trading and installing new pickups if it isnt neccesary, although I am very curious about the alnico pro 2, seth, 59, and antiquities.....

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Pearly Gates troubleshooting

The PG's take a lot of twweaking. I too have a set in my LP and it took me a bunch of tweaking to get them exactly right.

 

[ledzepp29]

Re: Pearly Gates troubleshooting

what exactly did you do?? I've tried lowering them which makes them better but not that great. The bridge pickup in my les paul special faded(stock) sounds better than the PG bridge but the PGn is the best in both guitars. the PGb just sounds thin with less balls and less sustain and an annoying treble in open chords than the stock 498t in the faded. I want to keep the PGn but I think I wanna swap the PGb.

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Pearly Gates troubleshooting

I just messed with the height until it sounded good. You can also try using a 250k pot just for the bridge pickup. it should help tame the highs on this pickup. I have a 250k tone pot in ine and it works great.

 

[jimlp]

Re: Pearly Gates troubleshooting

I had this pickup in my Dean Caddy and I thought it sounded thin for single notes in the second octave, it has a great overdriven sound for chord work though. What type of sound do you want? Maybe the PG isn't the bridge pickup that will get the sound you want. I switched it out for a Custom and that solved the problem as it has a much fuller sound to my ears, sometimes the PG sounded like a big single coil instead of a humbucker.