Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

N

Navin

New member
Hi Guys,

This is my first post on this forum. I have searched the forum to see if my question has been asked before and while it has there has been NO definite answer in most of the threads I read, besides I did not want to gate crash someone else's thread.

I have just purchased a used Les Paul Studio 2011. The stock pickups are 490R/498T. I don't like the sound and find them too thin and lifeless. I am looking for something beefier with a touch of rudeness as well as figured I would stick to pickups that could be split wired to bring in some flexibility. Since I live in India exchanging pickups even if SD is willing to do so is not possible thanks to import/export limitations of India. This means I have to "get it right" the first time.

The guitar is Mahogany with what I assume to be either a Rosewood or Grandillo fret board and I intend to use pickup covers for cosmetic purposes (I like the look of these covers). My amps are a Marshall Studio 15 (6V6), a Marshall Lead 12 (solid state for night practice), and a Marshall 1974 (18W EL84) clone, and sometimes I use a friend's Fender Twin Reverb or my teacher's VOX AC30C2 (2x12).

From the sound samples I have heard I like the Phat Cat, Pearly Gates, Whole Lot of Humbucker, and the Alnico II Pro (APH-1) and while all these pickups sound different I would like to try and incorporate as many options into this guitar. I also did check out the P-Rails but am not totally convinced that these will give me the HB sound of the WLH, PG, or A2Pro (APH-1).

What should I look at? options include using the WLH or A2Pro in the neck with a Pearly Gates in the bridge as recommended by SD (see below)

"Use the Whole Lotta Humbucker set for the “original” sound or try the bridge with an Alnico 2 magnet neck pickup, like the Pearly Gates, for a distinct in-between position tone. Utilize the 4-conductor cable on each pickup with push/pull pots or mini-switches for complete flexibility.

Often the APH-1 is used in both neck and bridge positions. Or, in the neck with a higher output pickup like an SH-11 Custom Custom or SHPG-1b Pearly Gates for heavier rock or hotter blues sounds from the bridge position..

Pearly Gates Can be used in the bridge with an APH-1n Alnico II Pro in the neck for smoother tones...."

Like I said, I gotta get it right the first time. So please help.

Thanks in advance.
 
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Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

My choice would almost always be the WLH set, though I'm quite partial to the Slash set in one of my Tokai's too.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

Thanks Chris, much obliged. Maybe I should have had a poll with options listed below.

WLH set
WLH neck + Pearly Gates bridge
APH1 neck + Pearly Gates bridge
P-Rail set

So far we are most inclined towards the WLH + Pearly combo for the flexibility it might offer but I believe the Pearlys are not hot enough to work with the WLH. The impedance of both the WLH neck and Pearly bridge is about 8.2k and usually the bridge pickup needs to be a bit hotter than the neck. is this right?

Oh and while I am changing pots to push-pull should i get 300k or 500k for these pickups? Thanks.

OT warning:

I would like to add that I am 50 and my son is 12. We share guitars as well as our taste in music. Most of what we play is vintage AC/DC, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath etc and my son has taken a liking to some 80s Bonjovi of late. While I cant expect a Les Paul to sound like an SG or vice versa it is nice to have guitars that are versatile. We don't like to process the sound much but we do have a Boss GT10 and a home made overdrive-fuzz pedal for when the occasion demands it.

Our other electric guitars are a Holy Grail (Lace) equipped MIJ Fernandez from the mid 80s and a HSH Floyd Rose equipped guitar I made in 1988 and uses DiMarzio Dual Sound (bridge), Chopper and Fast Track (neck).

Thanks again.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

I'm not a big PG fan, so take anything I say with a pinch of salt. As a set, I find them too different from one another; the bridge is bright, and the neck I found muddy. It could have been the guitar though, an SG, but for me it didn't work. The WLH neck would work better, but I'd still take the WLH set for preference.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

There are some players who don't care for PG's (I'm another one of them, for the same reasons Chris of Arabia mentioned), but everybody loves WLH's.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

Chris of Arabia said:
I'm not a big PG fan...The WLH neck would work better, but I'd still take the WLH set for preference.
Click to expand...

blueman335 said:
There are some players who don't care for PG's (I'm another one of them, for the same reasons Chris of Arabia mentioned), but everybody loves WLH's.
Click to expand...

Many thanks, Chris and Blueman!

Good to know. Until I chanced upon this forum, I did not have access to other opinions. WLH seems to be the way to go. I believe they have Alnico 5 mags, while the PGs have Alnico 2 mags. Hence I assumed the A2 equipped PGs would be less bright in the bridge than the A5 equipped WLH. Does this make sense?

When I order my WLH pickups, should I also include a set of triple shots, a Liberator or two and some A2 mags in case I need to tone down the WLH? Where does one get Alnico 2 or Alnico 8 Magnets for pickups?
 
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Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

I don't think you want the A2P's at all.

WLH set, or WLH/PG

I love a PG or PG set….So does that guy who plays guitar in ZZ Top.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

Aceman said:
WLH set, or WLH/PG

I love a PG or PG set….So does that guy who plays guitar in ZZ Top.
Click to expand...


Well, there's this guy on the other side of the pond whose tones the WLH's were modeled after, you may have heard of him, played guitar in the world's biggest rock band.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

Navin said:
Good to know. Until I chanced upon this forum, I did not have access to other opinions. WLH seems to be the way to go. I believe they have Alnico 5 mags, while the PGs have Alnico 2 mags. Hence I assumed the A2 equipped PGs would be less bright in the bridge than the A5 equipped WLH. Does this make sense?
Click to expand...

It makes sense, but in practice the PG bridge is both brighter and more ouput, probably due to other factors such as the wind. The WLH uses a rough cast A5 which warms it up a bit compared to a polished A5.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

Oh and while I am changing pots to push-pull should i get 300k or 500k for these pickups? Thanks.
Click to expand...
With WLHs go 500k to start with. If you go a PG bridge then I would start out with a 250k or a 300k.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

Gee, thanks a lot guys. Blueman, Chris, Ace, Lake Placid, thanks.

Ace, yes even as I put down those 4 options I was debating between either the safer WLH set or the WLH/PGb combo. Thing is I like both the ringing singing blues that Page did with Led Zepp as well as the rude grungy solos Gibbons does with ZZ as well as Aerosmith pre-Pump work, AC/DC's Back in Black, Sabbath's Iron man era, hope that gives you an idea of where I

Any opinions on other options like Seths or Ants? BTW I read some nice things about PGs here
https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?280191-Seth-Neck-VS-Other-A2-Duncan-Pickups

As is usual my son and I were discussing the pickup choices last night and he suggested trying to include an "acousticy" tone so that the intros for songs like Dream On, Stairway, and Dead or Alive (Bonjovi) can also be produced. Thst got me thinking...does it make sense to include a piezo with a stereo jack into the bridge? It wont emulate an acoustic but it may provide another usable voice.

LR Baggs and Fishman seem to be the most popular with Graphtec's Ghost coming in third. I know this is very OT and a non-SD question but what are the opinions on piezos on a LP? Switching could be managed with either a combination of triple shots and push-pull pots or Stew Mac's 6 way swtich (3 ways would be wired without the Piezo and 3 with). Should a piezo be attempted? And if so which of the 3 systems integrates best? I am leaning towards the LR Baggs system partly because it's bridge looks simpler to install and partly because we use an LR Baggs Acoustic pre-amp/DI for our Acoustic guitars and are happy with the product.

Thanks again guys, and sorry for going OT.
 
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Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

Lake Placid Blues said:
It makes sense, but in practice the PG bridge is both brighter and more ouput, probably due to other factors such as the wind. The WLH uses a rough cast A5 which warms it up a bit compared to a polished A5.
Click to expand...

+1. PGB's are a lot brighter than many players expect them to be. To me, PG's are an odd 'matched set' because of the differences in EQ between bridge and neck. Not as extreme as the often frustrating 498T/490R, but still not as close as often assumed.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

Chris of Arabia said:
I ordered another set of WLH yesterday for my PRS CU22 - should be good...
Click to expand...

Thanks Blueman, so the WLH set it is. Does SD supply these with nice Gold covers? Now since we are modding this Studio, the goal is to make it look nicer too. So I hope to add some binding, a new TUSQ nut, push-pull pots, a new gold bridge, and to top it off a Tronical Tune for the tuners. Should I add liberators and triple shots to this list?

Is Stew Mac a recommended source for the pots and capacitors? Are there better sources? I used to buy from a place called Antique Electronic Supply when I built amps but since I was getting the binding and other parts from Stew Mac I figured I'd combine as much as I could into each shipment.

What did you guys think of my idea of incorporating a piezo in the bridge? Any recommendations there? Like I said earlier I am leaning towards the LR Baggs. Stewmac's 6 way switch could be use to switch the piezo in and out of circuit.

Chris, really a second set? You like them that much? Which guitars have you equipped with WLHs?

Thanks guys.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

I got mine from here. My CU22 is an Artist model, so I need the ones with gold covers too to keep the look intact - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Seymour-D...167?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item1e801b0c5f

My others are on a PRS Korina SE. As far as I can make out, I was the first one on the forum to have a set of the WLH, as they were originally sold in the UK only. The Korina SE was originally picked up as a test bed for different things, the WLH being the first set into it, but they've not moved and it's probably the guitar I play most.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

blueman335 said:
Well, there's this guy on the other side of the pond whose tones the WLH's were modeled after, you may have heard of him, played guitar in the world's biggest rock band.
Click to expand...

Yeah - but most of what he recorded was with Teles, and Dano's and such. And his wiring scheme was all over the place.

I just use 59'as to sound like him.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

I have a set of Whole Lottas in my Studio Satin right now and they make a $500 guitar sound like a $2000 guitar. I will admit, they are somewhat specific in sound - everything Jimmy Page perfectly, but I'm not quite getting other PAF tones out of them, can't quite get Paul Kossoff, Joe Walsh, Clapton/Beano, etc. out of them so far. I need to play with them some more and try other amps. But they do sing and have some chime to them. Seths or Antiquity Humbuckers get me a little farther music-wise, but Seths don't quite overcome the hollow Studio body - they help, but they really need to be in a better guitar. The Whole Lottas seem to be a bit more immune to body/wood differences to me, so I'm not taking the Whole Lottas out any time soon. I do love the Seths also though.

FWIW - I put a Pearly Neck in an SG recently and so far I'm not happy with it. It's too fat and mushy. I'm not getting top end or clarity out of it unless I back the volume way off, and I've got it way down at the bottom of the screws, as far away from the strings as it will go. Don't know if it would fare better in the Studio. I need to work with this one a little more.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

Dear OP, my son and I share Les Paul Studio. The best compromise I found was the Antiquity set: Jazz and JB.

Pearly gates was unsatisfying for both of us. We play similar kinds of music as you listed.
 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

Here is a demo I did that incorporates Pearly Gates with Triple Shot rings. This will give you a good idea of what variations you can get out of the PG set. Also I did 50's wiring. This is a good idea if you are gonna split coils, since you will maintain your high end, when you turn down you volume knob.


 
Re: Pickups for Les Paul Studio 2011

Aceman said:
Yeah - but most of what he recorded was with Teles, and Dano's and such.
Click to expand...


Oh, you know better than that. 9 albums while the band was together and he was already using an LP on the 2nd album.
 
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