replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

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ghostlyskies

New member
Hi I have an Epiphone Les Paul Junior which is a great little guitar it only has one humbucker and I was wondering if anyone had found a Humbucker that would swap right over that would give me very clean, warm, fat sustain tones?

It is very good at present thought I think we can improve on what is there, many thanks Michael H
 
Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

Custom Custom?

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk
 
Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

ghostlyskies said:
Hi I have an Epiphone Les Paul Junior which is a great little guitar it only has one humbucker and I was wondering if anyone had found a Humbucker that would swap right over that would give me very clean, warm, fat sustain tones?
Click to expand...

I had one, I was looking for the same tone: I used an APH1b, it worked.

That said, after that I decided to use it detuned to C, the best match I've found for that was the SD Custom, not really warm but it worked astonishingly good with my rig, I supect it would work that good with standard tuning too.

I haven't that guitar anymore.
 
Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

Yeah, I'd check out 3 of em, the Custom Custom, the APH-1, and APH-2. Listen to clips, read descriptions, and make an educated choice. Buy from a place with a good return policy (or if you live in the US, take advantage of the 21 day exchange policy).
 
Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

So basically people recommend everything/. Nice job guys.

CC is too hot in mids for great cleans and is a peculiar pup
Distortion, fat? Seriously?
PG is sweet but not fat
PATB- another for real? Great pup, but unclog ears!

59 is a maybe….
But an A2P - that's the ticket.

You mention sustain. Thbis could be an issue with a poor setup, bad pup adjustment, amp pedals or who knows what.
 
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Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

why is the 59 a maybe but the patb3 unclog your ears?

an aph1 is a great choice though. low output and nice warm clean tone and nice fat overdriven tone, obviously your amp will make a big difference. fair warning the aph is probably lower output than whats in there now
 
Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

What amp are we talking about? Are we sure we aren't trying to solve an amp problem with a pickup simply because it's the cheaper scapegoat?
 
Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

At about 1:50 you'll hear the bridge Pearly Gates. That's with a nickel cover of course. Uncovered they're brighter and some find them too bright. So I recommend the covered version.

 
Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

Thanks heaps for all of your advice I have a Blackstar HT5-RC tube amp and a Vox VT20X single push/pull tube amp, The Blackstar are very similar to Marshall amps as some members of the Marshall Research and Development team jumped ship and started up Blackstar amps. That is how the story goes anyway. I paid about $1000 Australian Dollars for the HT5-RC - RC stands for Reverb Combo, so I basically have a HT5 head screwed into a cabinet with a terrible I think it is a Blackbird speaker, it is an absolute shocker, so I tend to, at this stage, use the Vox amp much of the time. I intend buying a new 12 inch Celestion Ceramic Vintage 30 - 60 watt speaker and install that in the combo and apparently if I upgrade the Vacuum Tubes (they are Ruby brand at present) with some TungSol or Mullard tubes for the pre amp (12AX7) and perhaps an Electo Harmonix tube in the power amp side the amp may be useable for my purpose which is not full on heavy metal distortion which is the only thing it does well at the moment. I really don't know how the could have got this speaker problem so far from where it should be. Everyone that owns a HT5-R says the same thing to me you have to do the speaker and tube upgrades or they sound awful. So that is the amp situation. Hope that bit of information helps you to pick a pup for my unreal Les Paul Junior, a great guitar.
 
Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

ghostlyskies said:
Thanks heaps for all of your advice I have a Blackstar HT5-RC tube amp and a Vox VT20X single push/pull tube amp, The Blackstar are very similar to Marshall amps as some members of the Marshall Research and Development team jumped ship and started up Blackstar amps. That is how the story goes anyway. I paid about $1000 Australian Dollars for the HT5-RC - RC stands for Reverb Combo, so I basically have a HT5 head screwed into a cabinet with a terrible I think it is a Blackbird speaker, it is an absolute shocker, so I tend to, at this stage, use the Vox amp much of the time. I intend buying a new 12 inch Celestion Ceramic Vintage 30 - 60 watt speaker and install that in the combo and apparently if I upgrade the Vacuum Tubes (they are Ruby brand at present) with some TungSol or Mullard tubes for the pre amp (12AX7) and perhaps an Electo Harmonix tube in the power amp side the amp may be useable for my purpose which is not full on heavy metal distortion which is the only thing it does well at the moment. I really don't know how the could have got this speaker problem so far from where it should be. Everyone that owns a HT5-R says the same thing to me you have to do the speaker and tube upgrades or they sound awful. So that is the amp situation. Hope that bit of information helps you to pick a pup for my unreal Les Paul Junior, a great guitar.
Click to expand...

Vintage 30's can have too much treble and not enough bass. I like the Anniversary G12H30 more.

Pickup? Who's your favorite guitarist and what's your favorite tone?

And what does that person use?

My favorite humbucker players are BB King and Eric Clapton and both used vintage output (about 8K) PAF style pickups to get my favorite tones.

Eric Clapton probably used an alnico 4 PAF set with the Bluesbreakers and on Fresh Cream but Duncan doesn't make one.

He probably used an alnico 5 Gibson T-Top with Cream for Wheels of Fire and Disraeli Gears, and Duncan doesn't make one of those either.

Which is why I suggested a nickel covered Pearly Gates bridge pickup which is another version of the '59 Gibson Les Paul pickup and sounds great to me.

But with a nickel cover - that's a must. And it's the way Billy Gibbons, the man Seymour Duncan created it for, uses it.

So nickel covered Pearly Gates. That's my suggestion.
 
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Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

Ok - reality check; we are talking about upgrading tubes to tweak the tone on a low end Epi.

Step one - get a decent pickup. IMO, that amp is fine. And a speaker will change the tone as much or more than the tubes. You are talking 'brand' of tubes here. pretty far down in the weeds when you consider the guitar could be made of old chopped up table tops.

Then, get a better guitar.
 
Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

Lewguitar said:
Pickup? Who's your favorite guitarist and what's your favorite tone?

And what does that person use?
Click to expand...

Interesting, but I never approached any of my pickup/guitar/amp choices like that. I know that sells a lot of gear, but I was more interested in getting the sound in my head, not someone else's.
 
Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

Mincer said:
Interesting, but I never approached any of my pickup/guitar/amp choices like that. I know that sells a lot of gear, but I was more interested in getting the sound in my head, not someone else's.
Click to expand...

For a beginner or novice, someone who owns an import single pickup Epi as his main guitar and a Blackstar as his main amp, and who appears to be a beginner from the language and descriptions he uses, the sounds in your head are usually the sounds of your favorite guitarists.

They certainly were for me 50 years ago when I was a beginning guitarist.
 
Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

Hi I am a 55 year old beginner and have only been playing for about 18mths but I can find my way around most chords and tabs. I used to play keyboards in a band so I can read music. So I don't like the crunch or heavy metal tones. I like warm, clean tones - it is hard to describe a noise in your head lol. Try again I like the tones that Carlos Santana plays. I also like the clean tones that slash plays at times during his long solos. I am not a big Fender fan. I have a new PRS SE 245 Santana Artists guitar but it hasn't been set up properly yet. I actually really enjoy playing the little Les Paul Junior that cost me about $350 Australian and a new set of Schaller tuners. It is a great little guitar. I just thought that rather than buying every guitar I can get my hands on it might be better to upgrade what I have. I have a permanent neck and left shoulder injury the Les Paul Junior is the lightest guitar I own so I favour it as it doesn't cause me no where near as much pain as say my Telecaster. I would love to buy a carbon Fibre electric guitar like Chris Stein from Blondie uses but they are $10,000 Australian and the cheapest skeleton guitar I have found is still $5000au.

So I am open to all or any suggestions I appreciate your assistance. Cheers, Mick
 
Re: replacement Humbucker for Epiphone Les Paul Junior

ghostlyskies said:
Hi I am a 55 year old beginner and have only been playing for about 18mths but I can find my way around most chords and tabs. I used to play keyboards in a band so I can read music. So I don't like the crunch or heavy metal tones. I like warm, clean tones - it is hard to describe a noise in your head lol. Try again I like the tones that Carlos Santana plays. I also like the clean tones that slash plays at times during his long solos. I am not a big Fender fan. I have a new PRS SE 245 Santana Artists guitar but it hasn't been set up properly yet. I actually really enjoy playing the little Les Paul Junior that cost me about $350 Australian and a new set of Schaller tuners. It is a great little guitar. I just thought that rather than buying every guitar I can get my hands on it might be better to upgrade what I have. I have a permanent neck and left shoulder injury the Les Paul Junior is the lightest guitar I own so I favour it as it doesn't cause me no where near as much pain as say my Telecaster. I would love to buy a carbon Fibre electric guitar like Chris Stein from Blondie uses but they are $10,000 Australian and the cheapest skeleton guitar I have found is still $5000au.

So I am open to all or any suggestions I appreciate your assistance. Cheers, Mick
Click to expand...

IMO, the nickel covered Pearly Gates is a fantastic pickup. If I had only one guitar I'd put a set of nickel covered PG's in it.

And I'd use 500K pots and a .02 tone cap.

My PG guitar is a PRS SE Singlecut. Pots are just what I described.

Just got home from rehearsal and can't wait to get it onstage Saturday. Simply fantastic.

All this talk about it being to thin and too bright is BS.

I've never heard a better pickup.

But you have to go with the covered version, not uncovered, to get that fantastic tone.

IMG_0574.jpg
 
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