Members billybilly Posted February 13, 2015 Members Share Posted February 13, 2015 Every guitar has an inherent sound and requires a particular pickup to bring out the sound you are chasing. Never, have two guitars (even made out of the same woods), sounded the same to me. Examples... I like a pickup with more mid-range when using Ash to compensate. My Alder Strat has a very full inherent tone so I require a pickup with articulation. My Les Paul without a maple cap sounds great with Burstbucker Pros, some find them harsh on the highs but without a maple cap, they are gold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wankdeplank Posted February 13, 2015 Members Share Posted February 13, 2015 Yep there's an art to matching pickups to a guitar, that's for sure. I had to remove a GFS 60's repro from the bridge of my 89 American and replace it with the modded HS-3 (converted to true single coil ala Eric Johnson) from my 93 MIM because the guitar is inherently bright. So I now have one GFS and one Dimarzio in each guitar (the neck slot in each has pickups from boutique builders). It actually worked out extremely well, though if you look closely you can see that the pickup covers are shaded a bit differently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members knotty Posted February 13, 2015 Members Share Posted February 13, 2015 Every guitar has an inherent sound and requires a particular pickup to bring out the sound you are chasing. Never, have two guitars (even made out of the same woods), sounded the same to me. Examples... I like a pickup with more mid-range when using Ash to compensate. My Alder Strat has a very full inherent tone so I require a pickup with articulation. My Les Paul without a maple cap sounds great with Burstbucker Pros, some find them harsh on the highs but without a maple cap, they are gold. Welcome back, forum wrecker! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted February 13, 2015 Members Share Posted February 13, 2015 Every guitar has an inherent sound and requires a particular pickup to bring out the sound you are chasing. Never, have two guitars (even made out of the same woods), sounded the same to me. Examples... I like a pickup with more mid-range when using Ash to compensate. My Alder Strat has a very full inherent tone so I require a pickup with articulation. My Les Paul without a maple cap sounds great with Burstbucker Pros, some find them harsh on the highs but without a maple cap, they are gold. Some guitars can be fairly predictable and some a real bastard to match. I usually make good choices predicting what might work well when I build a guitar, but a few wind up being radically different. I have a DOT and I really wasn't impressed with the stock pickups. The logical solution might have been to get some good Gibson pickups used in an ES335. I Knew the stock pickups were pretty close to those and I wanted something a little more unique. I used to own a 60's Epi Riviera and was looking for a sound along those lines. I tried about 7 or more different sets including EMG. Dimarzio, Duncan, A number of GHS and Filteron type pickups. None were giving me the right semi hollowbody tones I've known from having owned several. Some were to hot, had too much midrange, too much bass, too thin. I finally bought some full sized pickup adaptors and put Vintage Wound mini humbuckers in there and that was it. I got the Clarity, Drive, and overtones that sounded right for that guitar. It can clean up and jangle for chords and get smooth driven tones cranked along with endless sustain from the body resonation. I suspect P90's which have a similar tone might sound good in that guitar too. I had a Moserite Celebrity for about 5 years and the pups in those were P90 like single coils that made that semi sounded really good. I've read many have used HB sized P90's in DOT's and liked the tone they get so I have another possible option to try if I want but I like the Mini's drive so I'll stick with those awhile. Ric toaster type pups might work well too, but you can spend allot of time and money chasing that dragons tail. Dots are a pain in the butt pulling the controls through the F hole to rewire too. to rewire too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted February 13, 2015 Members Share Posted February 13, 2015 Dots are a pain in the butt pulling the controls through the F hole to rewire too. Can you not go in and out through the treble pickup cavity on those guitars (like a 335)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted February 13, 2015 Members Share Posted February 13, 2015 Can you not go in and out through the treble pickup cavity on those guitars (like a 335)? No. The Dots are semi hollowbody and have a wood plank of mahagony down the center. The Epi Riviera and Gibson ES335 also have the same wood plank build and the wiring is not accessable from the pup cavities. These guitars are closer to Les Pauls' original "Log" on many ways. The wings give some acoustic tone but the plank is around 4" wide to at least the stop bar tail piece. The pickup routes are virtually the same as any solid body. I believe the Plank ends after the stop tail. Last time I was fiddling around wiring the pots in on the DOT I kept loosing a pot behind the stop bar area so the entire tail end is likely open. The stop bar is the key item however. It needs a solid block of wood to mount so the string tension doesn't pull it over. The exception is a Riviera which uses a tail piece. It has a center plank but the "Frequensator" Tail piece seem to conduct more sound down to the hollow tail end so it has a little more acoustic tone then a Dot. Epi Casino, on the other hand has a true hollow body interior. They produce a much louder acoustic tone as well. I have a generic version of a Casino an you can get to the wiring quite easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted February 13, 2015 Members Share Posted February 13, 2015 Gibson ES335 also have the same wood plank build and the wiring is not accessable from the pup cavities. My ES335 (1966 "pencil neck") and all of the 335s I have ever worked on have an opening between the treble pickup cavity and the control cavity that is big enough to pull the entire wiring harness out of the guitar. Most of the models I have worked on, however, are from the 60s and early 70s. Perhaps the newer ones are constructed differently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarcapo Posted February 13, 2015 Members Share Posted February 13, 2015 This whole business about the species of wood is overblown. It's mostly about the scale length and the pickups position along that scale length that you are "matching" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted February 13, 2015 Members Share Posted February 13, 2015 My ES335 (1966 "pencil neck") and all of the 335s I have ever worked on have an opening between the treble pickup cavity and the control cavity that is big enough to pull the entire wiring harness out of the guitar. Most of the models I have worked on, however, are from the 60s and early 70s. Perhaps the newer ones are constructed differently. There were allot of different versions. The most common had the hard tail stop piece and wood block made of either mahogany or maple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members billybilly Posted February 13, 2015 Author Members Share Posted February 13, 2015 LOL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members billybilly Posted February 13, 2015 Author Members Share Posted February 13, 2015 no Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarcapo Posted February 13, 2015 Members Share Posted February 13, 2015 yep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted February 14, 2015 Members Share Posted February 14, 2015 That being said, I did find some pictures where the treble pickup cavity does not open up into the control cavity but I have never actually seen a Gibson ES335 that was built that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members billybilly Posted February 14, 2015 Author Members Share Posted February 14, 2015 deaf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AJ6stringsting Posted February 14, 2015 Members Share Posted February 14, 2015 Recently, I took out a Fender Custom Shop 69 bridge pickup due to it screechy ice pick tone, I replaced it with a Schaller S6 ( 13.6k ohms) .... much better lows, lower mids, great upper mids and bearable highs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members HoobaStunk Posted February 15, 2015 Members Share Posted February 15, 2015 tonewooddeaf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members HoobaStunk Posted February 15, 2015 Members Share Posted February 15, 2015 Recently' date=' I took out a Fender Custom Shop 69 bridge pickup due to it screechy ice pick tone, I replaced it with a Schaller S6 ( 13.6k ohms) .... much better lows, lower mids, great upper mids and bearable highs [/quote'] A steel base plate might cure the ills on your Custom Shop 69. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AJ6stringsting Posted February 15, 2015 Members Share Posted February 15, 2015 A steel base plate might cure the ills on your Custom Shop 69. Where do you solder that ground wire, to hot or ground ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Marko Posted February 15, 2015 Members Share Posted February 15, 2015 This whole business about the species of wood is overblown. It's mostly about the scale length and the pickups position along that scale length that you are "matching" Yep... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members billybilly Posted February 15, 2015 Author Members Share Posted February 15, 2015 Where do you solder that ground wire, to hot or ground ? http://www.fralinpickups.com/bplate.asp I've tried them a couple of times and the difference was negligible. Wouldn't try it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AJ6stringsting Posted February 15, 2015 Members Share Posted February 15, 2015 Funny, even a micro millimeter makes a world of a difference like pots and caps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted February 15, 2015 Members Share Posted February 15, 2015 You've always been a believer that almost nothing makes a predictable or obvious difference, particularly woods. I get that and disagree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Ratae Corieltauvorum Posted February 16, 2015 Moderators Share Posted February 16, 2015 Where do you solder that ground wire, to hot or ground ? The answer is in your question.......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Ratae Corieltauvorum Posted February 16, 2015 Moderators Share Posted February 16, 2015 I agree somewhat/hardly/mostly The pickup that seems to ignore wood species, construction or scale is the P90, it changes it's inherent nature with the aforementioned variables but never sounds bad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members knotty Posted February 16, 2015 Members Share Posted February 16, 2015 If all these influences are true is there a possibility we could change the tone of a guitar by mounting the pup on different materials?metal/rubber/various woods or plastics in the cavity? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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