Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

[Nostalgic Distortion]

I'm looking to install some Pearly Gates in my L.P.M. pretty quick but I'm a little torn between the A2 P.G.B. & the Pearly Gates Plus? I know the Pearly Gates Plus is sorta intended for Stratocasters but at the same time I've kinda always been partial to a A5 bridge and a A2 neck in my H/H Mahogany guitars?

Have any of you tried a P.G. Plus in a L.P. running of the standard 500K pot harness? Just off the cuff I'm guessing the standard Pearly Gates "Mid bump" would be lessened because more than a bit of that comes from the A2, but not completely gone or to the point where the pickup's E.Q. would be considered scooped. If so it wouldn't be much of a Pearly Gates anymore? Furthermore, I'd expect to gain a small amount of output as well due to the characteristics of Alnico 5's. Which, at least on paper, sounds pretty perfect as long as it retains some of that P.G.B. rudeness!!!

Any input is more than welcome & certainly appreciated!!! I'm really hoping to get some feedback from people that have actually tried it in the same kind of format that I'm planning on trying, but if you have one in a Fender & you think you can relate it's tone to that of a set neck Mahogany slap that would do just as well!!!

Thanks for reading....

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

The PG+ is alnico 5 and would be too bright for me.

The regular PG is alnico 2 and fat and thick with a nice sparkle to the top end. Bright enough.

To me, the regular PG is all about responding to picking dynamics.

If you're the kind of player who likes to "squeeze" those notes out like toothpaste from a tube or use, not just the tip of the pick, but the side to get pinch harmonics and other effects you'll like the PG.

I think some of the guys who claim the PGb is too bright are guys who can't do that. Perhaps they also don't know how to use their guitar's tone control during a solo to get wah wah tones and "woman tones" like Clapton used to.

The PGb is my favorite version of the '59 PAF.

 

[Nostalgic Distortion]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

The PG+ is alnico 5 and would be too bright for me.

The regular PG is alnico 2 and fat and thick with a nice sparkle to the top end. Bright enough.

To me, the regular PG is all about responding to picking dynamics.

If you're the kind of player who likes to "squeeze" those notes out like toothpaste from a tube or use, not just the tip of the pick, but the side to get pinch harmonics and other effects you'll like the PG.

I think some of the guys who claim the PGb is too bright are guys who can't do that. Perhaps they also don't know how to use their guitar's tone control during a solo to get wah wah tones and "woman tones" like Clapton used to.

The PGb is my favorite version of the '59 PAF.

Oh, I have plenty of experience with the original P.G.B., it's definitely one of my favorite 59/PAF spinoffs as welll although a little more output would be awesome!!! It's the P.G. Plus that's a bit of a mystery to me...

I definitely do get your point about the added brightness from the A5 though! If it were going into my other L.P. the brightness might not be such a issue because it is 100% Mahogany & doesn't have a Maple cap so it's a inherently dark L.P.? I guess with this one it very well could be? Usually I really like brighter pickups but the Maple cap & Maple neck both add a touch of brightness to this guitar's acoustic/natural signal already & I'm not sure how far I can push it before it's just over the top?

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

I always thought of the PG+ as being a bridge humbucker designed to be as bright as the Fender Strat single coils it was originally used with.

That brightness may not be needed if you're going to use it with a regular neck humbucker.

 

[lemonman]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

I have one in a fairly dark LP where it works very well; I've taken it out a couple times, but it usually ends up back in. It might be too much in a brighter LP, like one with an ebony board, etc. If you like bright A5 tones, it's definitely worth a try.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

I always saw the PG as being the one humbucker sounding most like a p90 (as thats seemingly what PG sounds like in Gibbons' hands). The A5 might take it a bit far......into bitey rather than rich. But we all have our own rig and fingers to consider.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

One customer recently told me he bought a new PG trembucker and always thought it sounded off. Like it wasn't an A2. He pulled the mag and it had the black mark of an A5, not the blue mark of an A2. He said he put an A2 in there and it sounded the way he expected it to sound.

So...maybe if you find the right PG, it might already come as a PG+. You never know.

 

[LtKojak]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

I've kinda always been partial to a A5 bridge and a A2 neck in my H/H Mahogany guitars?

I wonder how you manage to tonally balance an A2 neck p'up with an A5 bridge p'up when changing p'ups in the middle of a song?

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

I wonder how you manage to tonally balance an A2 neck p'up with an A5 bridge p'up when changing p'ups in the middle of a song?

It's not a problem for me. I have a PRS Singlecut with an A2 neck and UOA5 bridge. It's just not an issue.

I used to use an A2 PGn neck and ceramic Duncan Custom bridge in my Strat. That created no problems either.

 

[Aceman]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

Where is Blueman? He needs to get in here and correct Lew - because Lew's views on the PG are all wrong according to Blueman...

 

[Securb]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

I wonder how you manage to tonally balance an A2 neck p'up with an A5 bridge p'up when changing p'ups in the middle of a song?

Not everyone is looking for tonal or even volume balance when switching pickups. I for one in many cases am looking for a drastic change in tone. My Tele has a Hotrails in the bridge and a TV Jones Classic + in the neck. I love the versitility of that guitar.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

^ You get tonal shift just with going neck to bridge anyhow. But yes, there can be many solutions to tonal goals.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

I thought the only difference between a PG and PG+ was that the PG+ was 4-con?

 

[Mincer]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

My choice is the regular Pearly Gates. Have an A5 on standby if you need it, but I doubt you will.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

i love the normal pg, the pg+ loses what i love about the pg

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

I thought the only difference between a PG and PG+ was that the PG+ was 4-con?

PG+ has not just an A5 mag instead of the A2, but it's wound hotter too. I read an origin story for it once, where one of the developers said the A5 was chosen to offset the darker characteristic of the overwound coils and bring the tone more back in line with the original PG voicing. I think it's still a bit brighter though.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

I looked it up out of curiosity: nominal spec for a regular PG bridge is 8.21K; my 1995 PG+ reads 8.76K.

 

[Aceman]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

Not everyone is looking for tonal or even volume balance when switching pickups. I for one in many cases am looking for a drastic change in tone. My Tele has a Hotrails in the bridge and a TV Jones Classic + in the neck. I love the versitility of that guitar.

I personally like an A2 neck w/ Ceramic Screamers.

My music rarely uses neck and bridge, or neck for metal. So I play metal/hard rock on the bridge, and blues on the neck.

A2+ ceramic = cool tone for middle.

 

[Aceman]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

By the way....9k Pearly w/ A2. Just saying....

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: Should I Use A P.G. PLUS Or Regular Pearly Gates In My L.P.???

Yah, I've considered an A2 for the PG+. Might give it a try one of these days.