RCA5 or other in old T-Top

S

SJ318

New member
Good evening or noon,
I have 2 T-Tops from my '66 or '68 Les Paul Custom. I also have a couple others, and one of them sounds better than the other 3. Surprise. When pickups became available that had PAF intent on them, all of them sounded better to me. Stated w/BB1,2,3. Then found Duncan, tried several boutiques, but Duncans remain my 1st choice.
This took about 15 years to get where I am happy with my p'ups now. Why the short history? To set up my question. Now that I know what I like, could I resurrect my "meh" T-Tops with a good AddictionFX mag? Thinking of my favorites: RCA5, A4, UORCA5. Anyone tried that? Or do most folks like T-Tops as is. Main reason is to beef 'em up a little, make 'em a little more Seth like or 59 like, if a good mag can do that, all the alloys are about 50 years old, plates, slugs, poles, keeper bars, not sure the gauge of wire, never new much about that.
Be much cheaper than buying a new one. I have enough parts to actually make a new guitar, not fancy, but good for home, keep my occasional "stage" guitars from fret wear. I must play everyday as I love it so much, like you guys.
Thanks for reading.
Steve Buffington
 
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Re: RCA5 or other in old T-Top

Hi Steve,

It's funny to see that you describe your Patent Sticker T-Tops as "meh" while I've found some of these pickups absolutely gorgeous. It's not only that "one man's trash is another man's gold" but it also recalls how the variability of guitars and their components leads to widely different musical experiences.

Regarding your question: if these pickups were mine, I would forget theory and swap magnets until it sounds good to my ears. That's what I do usually, with a sample of AlNi(Co) bars.

Reason of my statement: IME, a same magnet can give a spendid sound to a pickup and kill the tone of another one. One AlNi(Co) bar might fit a brand or model of pickup and sound radically different in the next one (not to mention that bar mags of a supposedly "same" AlNi(Co) are rarely created equal: I've been in situations where a long A5 bar was the darkest sounding compared to AlNi(Co)'s of a lower grade from another supplier).

Within these limits, I've got a good tone with UOA5 in old T-Tops or similar underwound HB's but it led some of them to squeal (squealing being another unpredictable consequence when mags are swapped IME, whatever is the alloy used: it depends on how the bar fits physically under the coils and next to the pole pieces)... A4 was good in neck position but not for the bridge PU, IMHO. For me, the "typically" best match for such pickups was still a short RC A5. Now, my choice might have been different with the same transducers in other guitars.

YMMV. Good luck in your experiments!

Food for thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iL8eWtF-YU
 
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Re: RCA5 or other in old T-Top

Well, it was certainly not a '66 LP, thats for sure.

But its funny how these things go. People drool over tones of mid 60's ES 335's, and yep, from 64 sometime they're a T-top in all but a marking on a bobbin.

One of the things about the pat# stickered pickups are that they have the same sort of roughcast short mag that would have been in the late PAF through the real PAT#.....short A5 or in some cases short A2. In research done by one winder, the magnet source seems to have changed about the time that the baseplate went to the stamped patent.......mid '74 some time.
The newer magnets made the sound a little more focussed and middle heavy......and less open. The test said winder did was to swap mags between stickered and stamped T-tops and the tone swapped also.

If I had a your t-top, I would not feel confident that the generic magnet castings would do better than the original.....but your description of 'meh' is about as useless as it comes - sorry.
Freefrog's testing he has es-postulated might give you hope of course, as it can be hard to predict what will work. But I'd be going to Throbak for mags if I was wanting to work with a nice old pickup like that.
 
Re: RCA5 or other in old T-Top

Thanks,
I do have short A5 I got from Throbak. Sorry if my use of meh is useless. I have seen it here many times so I thought it would be OK. So, by "meh" I meant that they seem kind of lifeless, really a flat type of sound. Not "lively", no real attack, man, it is a fools errand to try and explain sound with words sometimes when speaking in generalities to put to in a way that might be
useful. Sorry. The Duncan's (Seth, Hybrib, JazzB ) sound better to my ears.
Steve
 
Re: RCA5 or other in old T-Top

Stock T-tops can make a great neck pickup in the right guitar. Just my two cents. If you want Seth-or-59-like, I'd get one of those for the bridge and try pairing it with a T-top at the neck.
 
Re: RCA5 or other in old T-Top

SJ318 said:
Thanks,
I do have short A5 I got from Throbak. Sorry if my use of meh is useless. I have seen it here many times so I thought it would be OK. So, by "meh" I meant that they seem kind of lifeless, really a flat type of sound. Not "lively", no real attack, man, it is a fools errand to try and explain sound with words sometimes when speaking in generalities to put to in a way that might be
useful. Sorry. The Duncan's (Seth, Hybrib, JazzB ) sound better to my ears.
Steve
Click to expand...

Thats ok Steve....its those details that are the key. Meh certainly usually means generally uninspiring, but there are a couple of ways that they can be so.
You see I have 72 T-tops and early 1980 t-tops......the 72's will share the same type of tone as your 68's - and both sets have sounded awesome in the right guitars. I just really wonder if this is not the bit that has been missing so far. Even my 80's I'd put next to any of my PAF clones in terms of their ability to reproduce nuance, depth and dynamic range. Albeit with a slightly different base tone.
 
Re: RCA5 or other in old T-Top

Steve, just to be clear: I've played myself stamped T-Top's one full year with hard rock bands in the early 80 and I also remember of these pickups as basically lifeless, flat, weak... or, IOW, "meh".

But the past weeks, I've restaured / reset a 3 PU's 1976 Black LP Custom and its original stamped T-Tops sound really good now, even though they are still covered and pretty degaussed.

To unlock their potential, I've just changed their tone controls for home made no load pots. I hadn't to swap their mags nor even their 300k volume controls (whose total load is the same now that if the guitar was initially fitted with 4 600k pots). It's a totally reversible mod and in this case, it was enough to awake the sleeping black beauty. My Flying V with uncovered late 70's Seymourized SH1's doesn"t sound better. In fact, their sounds are surprisingly close now.

Retrospectively, I think that my "meh" T-Tops of the early 80's were probably limited by 300k pots with a lower DCR than mentioned (I was already modding my axes but didn't dare yet to tinker with expensive Gibson's ).

FWIW.
 
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Re: RCA5 or other in old T-Top

Thanks, Alex, f-frog, eclectic,
Good, I understand all that you guys have said. I had to stop using my LPC (it must be a 68, as I get corrected every time I say 66-68) early on and get a lighter guitar, (busted up spine) that is when I learned about pot values, etc. as I had to build it from pieces, and with help from this forum I can do what I want and need, with better info.
I want a push/pull coil split, but the plans would have me bending over too long. I'd kill my back. So, repair guy I guess.
So as of this moment, 1:30am my time, I have no idea what the inside of my retired LPC looks like, what pot value, etc.
I went straight to "meh" in my Paul to a self made guitar with only the neck and body, I put in 500k pots on, got a BB1, and the rest is history. So, you are correct, for all I know, those T-Tops could sound great in a newly wired guitar. I like to add 500K smooth turn Duncan pots in everything, wire as simply as possible, and use 22 caps between vol and tone (.022?) not the 47. I have 2 never touched, and the 2 out of the LPC. Somehow, along the line, I've picked up over the years a few more, but they are missing things, poles, one has no mag, the other has no slugs, I have no memory of dismantalling these p'ups.
So, a lot to work with.
I remember a buddy of mine, we would speculate whether the T's facing each other or facing away was a clue they were different. We had no forums or even smart music store clerks in those days. Each shop had a mystery guy you couldn't talk to unless something needed fixing. That 1 T Top that sounded better, had the T's facing each other. We were sure it was a clue. How's that for not knowing anything?
Thanks, this makes more sense now.
Steve Buffington
 
Re: RCA5 or other in old T-Top

Its funny about the T's, and its really odd that the pickup was known for something somewhat 'accidental' in the bobbin construction.
My t-tops from 1980 are actually in a LPC from 1975. At one stage I'd changed the pots to all 500's, but there was something not quite right about it even with the unoriginal pickups that I bought that guitar with (Tom Holmes PAF clones). The original 1975 vol pots went back in and it sounded better with both Holmes and now the T-tops. I am assuming that era has 300k pots as the tone did shift from the 500k ones.

As to Frogfur's anecdote......perhaps back in the 70's to 80's most people's amps were somewhat bland as well. I remember recently the local shop having a JMP head on trade-in that once fired up was toppy and bland too.
Hard for me to know as the 1990 was when I started guitar playing, so I can only comment on the pickups I personally have through the nice amps I own - which are clones of 60's era ones.
 
Re: RCA5 or other in old T-Top

It's possible the original magnet is heavily degaussed, which definitely fits the description of "meh". Another possibility is it has one of the occasional short A2 mags, and you don't care for it. The Throbak short A5 is very, very close to the original Gibson A5s; I have compared them. Unless there's something wrong with the magnet, either the original or the TB will be far better than any of the import mags available, IMO.
 
Re: RCA5 or other in old T-Top

SJ318 said:
Thanks,
I do have short A5 I got from Throbak. Sorry if my use of meh is useless. I have seen it here many times so I thought it would be OK. So, by "meh" I meant that they seem kind of lifeless, really a flat type of sound. Not "lively", no real attack, man, it is a fools errand to try and explain sound with words sometimes when speaking in generalities to put to in a way that might be
useful. Sorry. The Duncan's (Seth, Hybrib, JazzB ) sound better to my ears.
Steve
Click to expand...

First of all, as a T-Top owner, let me say that I COMPLETELY AND FULLY understand "Meh" about that. My bridge T-Top was as meh as meh can be in a 79 Les Paul. Replaced with Duncan Distortion - never looked back. If someone doesn't know what Meh means regarding a T-Top, they have either never tried playing anything other Paul Anka songs with it or never owned one!

eclecticsynergy said:
Stock T-tops can make a great neck pickup in the right guitar. Just my two cents. If you want Seth-or-59-like, I'd get one of those for the bridge and try pairing it with a T-top at the neck.
Click to expand...

I will NEVER remove the neck T-Top from my 79 Les Paul. It is more Slash than Slash could ever hope to be. It is Sweet Baby Jeebus tone.
 
Re: RCA5 or other in old T-Top

Thanks everyone -
This info is interesting to me. I found a TTop with no mag in it, so I think 'll start there with that TB short A5.
Aceman - Paul Anka - really funny reference, I laughed out loud. Points on that and Sweet Baby Jeebus tone.
Funny guy.
Steve Buffington
 
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