Which pickup combo to use?

romdos

romdos

New member
I need some advice. I have a bunch of SD pickups and I'm redoing my Les Paul. I want a more vintage sound but also a little hot. I really like the Jimmy Page sound. After reading the forums here and elsewhere, I realize no one truly knows what he's using. He may not even know :)
Anyway here's what I have:
1980s Full Shred bridge
1980s Custom bridge
Seth Lover bridge
SH-1b '59
Some old Schaller pickup

Can anybody suggest a good combination, or even a mix/match custom setup that would get me close to "that sound"?
Thanks for any suggestions/help in advance!
 
Re: Which pickup combo to use?

I think for a Jimmy Page sound the 59'(b) is your absolute best bet. Really, the majority of pickups he would have had available to him in the late 60's and early 70's were PAF's from the major guitar makers, so they all really had vintage output, just like the 59'. I think the 59' is the best standard production bridge pickup Duncan makes. The Antiquities and Brobucker are good as well, but they are pricier than the Seth and the Brobucker may be a bit hot for what you want, at 10k.

You don't really have anything specific for the neck, but the closest to match would be the Seth Lover. If you had a Seth Lover neck, I would say you had a nearly perfect setup, at least in my opinion. Some folks have used 59'(b)'s and Seth(b)'s in the neck position with good results, so maybe that would work for you. The 59' is tight and crunchy, with plenty of lows and highs and handles gain well while giving good clean tones. The Seth in the neck will give you all of the "woman" tones from the 60's and 70's with the tone rolled down and plenty of other great rock lead tones and clean rhythm tones you could ever want. I really like the APH neck pickup, but the Seth is very very close. The Seth is a bit more open and vintage compared to the APH.

Well, that's what I have to say. Lets see what else gets suggested and what you finally decide upon.
 
Re: Which pickup combo to use?

Forgive my ignorance, but are the "neck" pickups the same as the "bridge" pickups, except the slug coil is on the opposite side so the wires come off a different side?
Could I flip the Lover around and use it in the neck position?
What do you think about mixing the coils? Like one coil from the custom and another from the 59?
 
Re: Which pickup combo to use?

In older guitars, neck & bridge were often supposed to be wound the same (but tolerances were loose and they didn't test, so you could wind up with a hotter neck and cooler bridge, resulting in a guitar that probably wound up changing hands a lot until pickup swapping began...).

Most people prefer a lower wound neck, as it results in a brighter, less woofy tone that balances better against the bassier tone that naturally results from that pickup position.

Page had a number of different sounding LPs, if you want his later 70s LP tone, that's different from his earlier one. People trying to get a bit of each sometimes do a '59 bridge and Jazz neck, or a Jazz bridge and '59n.

A '59 set is cheap and with a bit of amp EQ twiddling can cover most of Page's Les Paul sounds more than accurately enough for rock and roll.
 
Re: Which pickup combo to use?

A lot of modern pickups are designed for either the neck or bridge position, and are wound accordingly. All of the Seymour Duncan pickups you have are made that way, and are designated with a (b) for bridge or a (n) for neck. As a general rule, neck pickups are not as hot as bridge pickups, because the string vibration over the neck spot is much greater than at the bridge. Some companies, like some of Dimarzio's pickups, are not specified neck or bridge.

In the end, it all comes down to personal preference. You may find that you like one of your bridge pickups in the neck position just fine. You may have to set it a bit lower than a true neck pickup to get a volume balance with the bridge pickup, but you may like the tone.

Also, yes, you just turn the pickup around. The screw coil in the bridge spot generally goes towards the bridge of the guitar and the neck screw coil generally points towards the fretboard. However, some guys turn both around, or one around. There really is no right or wrong.....just what sounds good and is right to you.
 
Re: Which pickup combo to use?

Would putting a cover on the neck pickup tone it down as well as lowering it?
 
Re: Which pickup combo to use?

Sometimes a cover will cut out some of the high frequencies, but it won't change the basic character of the pickup. It certainly, IMO and experience anyhow, wouldn't make very much of a difference. Your best bet is to just try it, play with the pickup height and see how you like it. The Seth bridge is rated at 8.1k and the neck at 7.2k, so the difference isn't huge. There are a few neck humbuckers that are rated at nearly 8k, like the new Slash APH set, so you're certainly not out of the range of output for designed neck humbuckers.

Give it a shot and see what you think. It should only take about 20 minutes of your time...at most.
 
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