Epiphone dot pickup change for gibson ones.

[Noe79]

I recently bought a 2nd hand epiphone 335 dot and thought about changing the pickups as I had a pair of origional gibson ones I took out my 1991 les paul classic plus years ago.

Upon finding them I found something eregular about them now I'm confused.

They both seem to me to be bridge pickups to me fir the way the wires are situated (bottom right with poles facing the bridge).

One pickup has the gibson usa stamp on the bottom with a 13.78k output. The other looks like a 'tarback' with a 7.30k output. ( this pickup must of been changed in my les paul before I bought it).

My question is are these pickups suitable for my epiphone 335 dot? And what ones should I use for neck/bridge pickup?

My thinking is the 13.78k for bridge and 7.30 for neck?

When reading other posts they say the neck pickup should be brighter but from my playing experience the neck pickup always sounds trebleler and the neck more fuller, this has also confused me?

Thanks in advance for any help. As I want to be right before I start soldering ☺

Mark

[*BLEEP*]

They both seem to me to be bridge pickups to me fir the way the wires are situated (bottom right with poles facing the bridge). My thinking is the 13.78k for bridge and 7.30 for neck? Mark

 

 

 

My guess is that you have a 490T and a 498T.

 

And, yes, the 13.78k (498T) pickup will work just fine in an ES-335. If it was a full-hollow like an ES-175, possibly not so much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[badpenguin]

Shouldn't have any issues what so ever. go for it, and enjoy the new tones!

PS, the lower in the neck btw!

[*BLEEP*]

 

By the way, if you really do have a pair of bridge pickups, you can install them like what was done in the photo below.

 

Peter Green and many others have rotated the neck pickups 180 degrees in their Les Pauls, SGs, etc.

 

I've done such once and it didn't seem to hardly make a difference, but it does indeed look... unique.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[WRGKMC]

You just have to try them and see what you get. Stock Dot pickups really aren't that bad. You can get good cleans and driven tones with pedals from them.

 

I did a whole lot of swapping on my dot when I was looking for a tone improvement. I must have swapped out pickups at least a half dozen of more times. I didn't like hot wound in mine. The guitar sounded real muddy and lacked the kind of acoustic jangle I wanted. I eventually used a pair of mini Humbuckers with adaptor rings instead of full sized HB's and I was able to get that middle of the road tone between clean and driven I was looking for.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

The tarbacks were produced in the 70s, found mainly in SGs, but only because a lot of 70s LPs had either P90s or mini hums.

 

Try it and see what you think, I've personally had to bin three, as they have a tendency to be less than reliable and once they go open are completely unworkable, but anyway, see what you think.

 

If as BLEEP suggested the stamped pickup is a 498T, again suck it and see, depends what you play on it.

 

Personally I'd stick some low-medium wind Alnico II pickups in there

[Noe79]

Thanks you guys for your advice and help.

I've not got round to it yet due to time and I had to do a repair job on the 498t, the earth wire some how came off inside. So took the pickup apart and re-soldered it.

I'll use the 498t at the bridge position and the tarback at the neck.

I wouldn't need to rotate it as seen in the photo above just have the wire coming from the top and have it facing normal way towards the neck?

I let you know how it goes.

 

Mark

[Willyguitar]

I like low output pickups in 335 style guitars. I have to say, 335s TOTALLY kick LPs and SGs into touch

[WRGKMC]

Definitely. Once you go above 8K or so you loose that upper frequency response and all acoustic harmonics. If you play only overdriven stuff it wont matter. You don't hear the acoustic tone when you flat line the waves with allot of drive. If you want to be able to clean it up, a vintage wind is always better. You can always gain it up with pedals as much as you need.

[DeepEnd]

A typical pickup has a peak at 2-5KHz with a dropoff above that. Response at 8KHz is already down 10dB or more. Turn down the Volume control(s) and you lose even more high end, which is why some folks install treble bleeds. Realistically, an electric guitar doesn't have much output above 5KHz or so, so there's little ''upper frequency response'' to lose.

[GAS Man]

I agree with the other comments and I would use lower output pickups. The '57 Classics, Burstbuckers 1 & 2, Seth Lovers, maybe the 490s - or some other brand's similar version. But usually the Les Paul Classics used the hotter ceramic pickups, which can sound great, but my experience is that you need more meat (wood) under the pickups to make the hotter ceramic p'ups work well. But the 7.3 output p'up should work fine. You want you hotter pickup at the bridge because there's less string energy there for the pickup to pick up. Single coil pickups are also very cool sounding on a 335 style guitar.

[Rada]

I'm debating doing the same with my Epi Dot... please let us know how this turns out