Urgent help with pickup selection

[7001]

my 21st birthday is soon approaching and i am getting new pickups for my epiphone black beauty. It has three humbuckers and i was wondering if anyone can give me any advice with changing them to some SeymourDs. At the moment i am frustrated with the current pickups as they sound pretty muddy and dull at one extreme or too high pitch crashy on the other. In terms of style/sound i am open to suggestions, willing to try something new, would like a unique sound. I dont know exaclty what i am after but i know what i do not want, and that is the typical rock les paul/through a marshall sound. As i am not very good with my ear i have had little luck with picking pickups using the audio samples available, please help!

thanks for your time and patience!
any input would be extremely appreciated
light and love
ivan

 

[tone4days]

Re: Urgent help with pickup selection

welcome

hmmm ... your post reminds me of alice in wonderland a little ... if you don't know where you want to go, it doesnt matter much which road you take

that said, how about a PG neck and CC bridge ... i have no idea what to recommend for a middle pickup .. i was going to say '59, but that is pretty traditional and you seem to want to stay away from that

i know - how abotu a jazz neck, PG neck (for the middle) and a custom custom for the bridge

good luck
t4d

 

[BachToRock]

Re: Urgent help with pickup selection

Imagine this this:

BRIDGE - Custom Custom
MIDDLE - Phat Cat
NECK - Pearly Gates

The whole guitar will be voiced with A2 magnets...

Wire coil taps on the neck and bridge... you will get almost strat like in-between tones when combined with the Phat Cat...

You could dial in an extreme wide range of tones with this setup!

 

[tone4days]

Re: Urgent help with pickup selection

BtR Rules ... killer idea

how is a 3 humbucker guitar wired up with a 3-way switch ... does the middle position of the switch get you the middle pup all alone? ... or is it all three pickups? ... i was wondering how he'd wire that with the taps ... of course, done right, the taps combined with the phat cat could give hum cancelling too, huh?

 

[revolution]

Re: Urgent help with pickup selection

Phat Cat or a Stag Mag in the middle. The CCb/PGn would work great w/ either.

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Urgent help with pickup selection

If I have one suggestion it would be to make your choice of pickups around what type of music you listen to. Pickups are surprisingly versatile and with enough equipment and tweaking someone can cover a lot of styles. But for a new player it should be from the perspective of k.i.s.s and the guitar should be ready to play whatever musical style with the minumum of tweaking. The suggestions here are usually from the viewpoint of what that perticular player likes and what works for them. It is very much from the point of view "if it was my guitar".

 

[7001]

Re: Urgent help with pickup selection

thanks for your advice amigo

 

[7001]

Re: Urgent help with pickup selection

The wiring is as follows, switch up, neck only, switch in middle, middle and bridge pickup, and switch down, only the bridge pickup, however my switch as with most epips is dodgey and i will be replacing it and possibly rewiring it.

 

[D-EJ915]

Re: Urgent help with pickup selection

You should have the guitar rewired as to a normal LP with regards to the switch at the top then have a mini-switch installed at the bottom to turn the middle pickup on or off, thus you can have it in any pickup configuration, voila!

Anyway, you should have a Full Shred in there, period. It's my favourite LP pickup and gave me such a defined and crunchy distortion. I really would get one of those, however I was playing through a solidstate with the distortion cranked doing some killswitch engage riffs so that's gonna tell you where that's coming from.

I think you should do what I said with the switch though, or at least something like it.

 

[7001]

Re: Urgent help with pickup selection

You should have the guitar rewired as to a normal LP with regards to the switch at the top then have a mini-switch installed at the bottom to turn the middle pickup on or off, thus you can have it in any pickup configuration, voila!

Anyway, you should have a Full Shred in there, period. It's my favourite LP pickup and gave me such a defined and crunchy distortion. I really would get one of those, however I was playing through a solidstate with the distortion cranked doing some killswitch engage riffs so that's gonna tell you where that's coming from.

I think you should do what I said with the switch though, or at least something like it.

thanks mate, sounds like a good option for the wiring! much appreciated

 

[7001]

Re: Urgent help with pickup selection

Imagine this this:

BRIDGE - Custom Custom
MIDDLE - Phat Cat
NECK - Pearly Gates

The whole guitar will be voiced with A2 magnets...

Wire coil taps on the neck and bridge... you will get almost strat like in-between tones when combined with the Phat Cat...

You could dial in an extreme wide range of tones with this setup!

i didn't know you could wire tap the PG and CC?

 

[tone4days]

Re: Urgent help with pickup selection

i didn't know you could wire tap the PG and CC?

easily ... just be sure they are 4-wire and use the red/white wires to split (not tap) the coil of your choice ... you can split the PG and the CC each on their own 'side' of the same DPDT on/off mini toggle (or push/pull pot) switch ... piece of cake

t4d