Guitar Pickup upgrades

Right- I've got a few guitars that all need upgrading/repairing/just some tlc. One thing I'd like to look at is pickups- so here's the plan-

Strat plus- got silver lace sensors at the moment- thin as hell. Looking at Fender Noiseles Hot pickups- designed for Jeff Beck. Watching him on telly right now- sounds great. No brainer!

Ibanez- RG550. Original pickups are OKish, but not nearly fat enough. I did want some diMarzio Evolutions on them- but I fear the neck may not be chunky enough. Maybe a Paf Pro and a Fred. Any ideas? I want something toneful and articulate, but chunky enough to chug in a Metallica kind of way.

Epiphone LP Black Beauty- in all honesty, I like the tone on this- may just get the wax potted to remove hi gain squealing. I'd love some Bare Knuckles, but a bit pricey...

Probably gonna start with the Strat in the new year- money pending. Gotta get it on the Plek as I ballsed up a fret dressing effort of my own (not disastrous, but some bits of the neck are less than pleasant) and get it from 11s down to 10 guage strings.

[Wideboy]

so you reckon the Epiphone has a nice tone?

your not the first one to say this

Move 'em all on & Buy a Gretsch

Originally Posted by Interceptor

Move 'em all on & Buy a Gretsch

Played a Gretch years ago- couldn't get on with it at all! Just not my thing.

Yeah Wideboy- my Black Beauty has a lovely sound to it- wax potting give more bass definition too, apparently. The standard Epi. Les Pauls from that time weren't so good- a bit thinner sounding.

A mate's got a double neck SG (Pagey style)- that's got great pickups on. Nice guitar too- bit neck heavy, mind- you have to support it, or have a grippy strap and/or counterweight!!

[Wideboy]

yeah epi been getting good rep at the mo, i was going to get a LP few years back and was told to change the pick ups didn't know why as everyone was rating them

[BanannaMan]

Buy a Gibson Les Paul.
Keep your amp and 1 cord.
Sell everything else.

It always sounds like you want it to.

[northwind]

I'm a bit out of date now, probably, it's years since I was doing this stuff.

I always liked Kinman single coils, they're sort of the holy grail- noiseless but still authentic. My own strat had Dimarzio Virtual Vintages though, a VV2 and a 54 if I remember rightly, which I chose for versatility more than for pure sound quality. Also, the logos matched its bridge humbucker But also, coil tapping the 54 gave the best classic single coil pickup sound I've ever had. They were good overall, but not as good as the Kinmans- but had a wider range. I've not tried the Fender Hot noiseless ones but the standard noiseless are a bit sterile to my ears, don't like 'em at all. They sound like traditionalists think all noiseless single coils sound

As far as I'm concerned nothing's better for a neck humbucker than the Duncan 59. Fantastic pickups... So versatile, but you get all those classic sounds as well. You're spoiled for choice for the bridge of an RG but I like Duncan Distortions- they don't clean up too well but they do everything else brilliantly, and who uses an RG for cleans? You could go mad and heavy with a Dimebucker or Invader or something but the Distortion's a great balance. If you like your huge chunky palm mutes the Invader is still awesome though. JB is one of the recommended ones, but I don't like them in anything but big solid guitars, they're a bit thin and cold I think. I don't think they work well at all in floyd rose'd guitars but then I didn't get to see that many. And I'd whack a Hot Rails into the middle, just because. Or a quarterpounder maybe but they're better in the bridge.

Not sure for the LP... Bare Knuckles do some great pickups, what was the mad heavy one, the War Pig? That's a beast. Couldn't believe it wasn't active when I first met one. If you only had the one humbucker guitar I'd say Distortion/59 or maybe Custom/59. What do you want it to do? A pair of PAFs in an LP is always a contender. I wouldn't want to put anything but a PAF of some sort in the neck, it's just right for the LP, classic sound but also versatile. But what pickups does it have in it? The old Epi humbuckers were fairly nasty but they got very good eventually. Some even come with the Gibson ones as standard. it's the hardware in the Epis which is mince- has your switch broken yet? It will...

There's no one right answer though... I liked to swap them around, I had an SG Special that I could never get to sound how I wanted and it had about 15 pickups in it over the space of 2 years Some were customer pickups being "tested" before installation but lots I just bought off Ebay- used pickups are cheap.

I've got a 59 in my hot rod strat- it's a fantastic pickup. Great, fat sound and always clear. And a DiMarzio in the bridge (came with the guitar- not sure what model). That guitar needs proper repair- needs a block of wood sinking into the body as there's a split under the floyd posts.

I have heard that the 59's are better when mounted on a scratch plate, like on strats etc than they are in the les paul mounts or direct in the body. Though that shop was trying to sell me the bare knuckles...!

Bare Knuckle Mules would probly be what I'd go for in the les paul- but to replace all 3 pickups with gold covered, wax dipped would be about £180. A lot of cash. The hot noisless fender pickups

LOL bananaman. One day, I'm gonna have a gorgeous cherry burst Les Paul. But not for a while....! 'sides- I love my strats and ibanez.

My bass is the only instrument I have that is working fine at the mo. I really wish I could afford to get all my guitars fixed up good and proper- but I'm gonna get started soon, as I'm getting back into doing musical things.
\

BTW- just finished watching that Jeff Beck show- I had tears in my eyes in places. Absolutely F*cking stunning!

[Wideboy]

Originally Posted by BanannaMan

Buy a Gibson Les Paul.
Keep your amp and 1 cord.
Sell everything else.

It always sounds like you want it to.

but us brits are poor cant afford proper LP's

[northwind]

Originally Posted by thedonal

I've got a 59 in my hot rod strat- it's a fantastic pickup. Great, fat sound and always clear. And a DiMarzio in the bridge (came with the guitar- not sure what model). That guitar needs proper repair- needs a block of wood sinking into the body as there's a split under the floyd posts.

Ah, you're the other guy with a Hot Rod Reissue It's a Dimarzio Super 3... Nice pickup IMO.