"Odd couple" pickup combo

[Karma1]

Seymour Dunan Jazz/ neck

Gibson 500T/ bridge

 

I recently installed this combination of humbuckers in a mid-70's Ibanez "lawsuit" Les Paul Custom copy. I wouldn't have normally thought about putting these two pickups together, but I had them sitting around taken from other guitars, so I figured I'd give it a shot. The stock Ibanez pickups weren't cutting it for me and I wanted a change.

 

The Gibson and Duncan were both open coil pickups, but I installed chrome covers on them before putting them in. Anyway, this turned out to be a fantastic combination. The Jazz is just one of the sweetest neck pickups ever. It's got great clarity and note articulation and works well for clean rhythm guitar. You would expect a pickup called "Jazz" to be more warm and muted, but it's actually quite clear and bright, but can be rolled off for a warmer tone.

 

I've heard the 500T in a Gibson Les Paul years ago and I remember not being that impressed with it. But for some reason, it sounds incredible in this guitar. Perhaps putting a cover on it smoothed it out a bit and tamed some of the edginess I didn't like originally. I should point out that I only use the bridge pickup for high gain distorted leads. For clean sounds I wouldn't rate the 500T as highly. But for hot leads, this thing is smoking - sustain for days.

 

They actually sound pretty nice together in the middle position too, although I don't use that as much. But all in all it was an interesting experiment putting these two together and I'm happy with how it turned out.