I am the lucky owner of a beautifully aged 1974 Wine Red Gibson Les Paul Custom 20th Anniversary. When I bought it in the mid 80's it had already had the pickups swapped out for a set of cream Di Marzio dual sounds and two mini toggle switches added to facilitate coil tapping, a la Al Di Meola. The old pickups had did not come with it unfortunately.
This was my main gigging and recording guitar of the last 20 years and I have predominantly used the pickups in single coil mode with the tone knob usually rolled off about 25% more or less, to take off some top end.
This produces a sound that is a bit like a combination of a warm powerful telecaster or a P90 guitar with top end cut and edge with all the warmth and sustain of the mahogany neck and body. The pickups, when set to full humbucking mode, have always seemed to me to be too thick, middly and "closed" with insufficient upper frequencies, so I've only occasionally use them like that, or with an EQ top boost. I go through a late 60s VoxAC30TB and a 65 Fender Deluxe Reverb RI.
Two things have changed
1) I've acquired more guitars that given me a wide variety of sounds and I especially enjoy my P90 guitars.
2) more and more I'm thinking that I want to return this lovely guitar to its original Les Paul Custom aesthetic and period / type authentic look and sound.
So I'm planning to replace the pickups with some kind of vintage spec gold covered humbuckers preferably not new bright and shiny when the rest of a the hardware is aged.
There is also the matter of the mini switches for the coil tap. These switches have been very professionally executed and I'd opt to keep them rather than remove and fill the holes for obvious reasons.
So, the question is, what pickup would you recommend to replace the Di Marzios with and why? While the somewhat obvious answer is "period correct original Gibson humbuckers", they're pretty hard to get hold of these in the UK, at a sensible price certainly - but also the coil tap switches would then be void whereas it would make sense to make use of them if at all possible. All your considered thoughts much appreciated.
This was my main gigging and recording guitar of the last 20 years and I have predominantly used the pickups in single coil mode with the tone knob usually rolled off about 25% more or less, to take off some top end.
This produces a sound that is a bit like a combination of a warm powerful telecaster or a P90 guitar with top end cut and edge with all the warmth and sustain of the mahogany neck and body. The pickups, when set to full humbucking mode, have always seemed to me to be too thick, middly and "closed" with insufficient upper frequencies, so I've only occasionally use them like that, or with an EQ top boost. I go through a late 60s VoxAC30TB and a 65 Fender Deluxe Reverb RI.
Two things have changed
1) I've acquired more guitars that given me a wide variety of sounds and I especially enjoy my P90 guitars.
2) more and more I'm thinking that I want to return this lovely guitar to its original Les Paul Custom aesthetic and period / type authentic look and sound.
So I'm planning to replace the pickups with some kind of vintage spec gold covered humbuckers preferably not new bright and shiny when the rest of a the hardware is aged.
There is also the matter of the mini switches for the coil tap. These switches have been very professionally executed and I'd opt to keep them rather than remove and fill the holes for obvious reasons.
So, the question is, what pickup would you recommend to replace the Di Marzios with and why? While the somewhat obvious answer is "period correct original Gibson humbuckers", they're pretty hard to get hold of these in the UK, at a sensible price certainly - but also the coil tap switches would then be void whereas it would make sense to make use of them if at all possible. All your considered thoughts much appreciated.
