gibson V with ceramics, too much

[raulduke1952]

i try to play blues through a blues junior most of the time. not totally clean but not way dirty. the ceramics are just too hot. any suggestions? i have swapped pickups many times and i am skeptical the project is worth the trouble. first hand info please. thanks.

[cratz2]

Yeah... my suggestion is ANYTHING other than those pickups.



Gibson Burstbucker 1&2 combo
Gibson 57 Classics
Duncan Seth Lovers
Duncan Antiquities
Dimarzio 36th Anniversary
GFS Alnico IIs on a tight budget
BG-pups PUF or Lizard

Those are the usual suspects unless you are considering HB-sized P90s.

I'd also replace the speaker in that amp with a... a... anything else as well. Weber 12F150 or a Blue Dog if you play with a decent amount of gain or breakup.

[ubernerd]

I swapped the ceramics in my V with a 498/490 set and really liked the results. It took away the harshness and brittleness I was hearing when the V had the ceramics.

[pixelchemist]

lower them abit... i have those same pickups in my zoot... they can sound great if you give a bit of breathing room

[=JL=]

I put HB-sized P90s in my SG, it allowed some of the twang back into my Blues Jr, and got rid of the muddy rock sound. Still never had much clean headroom though, they just don't.

[raulduke1952]

let's see. i have lowered the pups a bunch. still hard to find a good bluesy tone. rock tone yes. the BJ i use has the jensen in it. much better than the emminence. thanks for the suggestions and advice.

[zuzuman]

For some reason, the 500/496 pair sound much better (to my ears) in the Explorer than the V. Probably has to do with body shape/body size/pickup rout location and shape, etc. I can't get anything but in-your-face hard rock tone with my V, but I could get some sweet tones with my Explorer.

[Ancient Mariner]

Because of the construction, Vs tend to be quite bright. That's probably why that pickup combo work better in the explorer.

[EADGBE]

DiMarzio PAFs.

[GAS Man]

 

Because of the construction, Vs tend to be quite bright. That's probably why that pickup combo work better in the explorer.

 

 

 

Totally!

 

I was going to add that but a couple of you were beating me to it.

 

But it's a fact.

 

Chopping a huge pie piece out of the middle of the tone wood of a guitar right behind the bridge does drastic {censored} to the tone.

 

Believe it or not, I've bought two Epi Korina Vs that I much preferred the stock tone over the 3 Gibson Vs I've bought (2 of those were with the same pickups - one I returned, the other for my son and he's into death metal right now anyway). The Epi's pickups that tend to be a bit muddy anyway, are kind like putty filling back in that missing tone wood. You kinda end up with a real nice tonal balance especially from the bridge.

 

But also, that's a bad amp for that guitar with those pickups. But that Weber suggestion above is a good idea to warm it up a bit. I have a BJ myself, but prefer to use it with my phatter sounding guitars.

 

You might want to experiment with leaving the neck pickup in place and just trying to find the warmest fattest alnico pickup you can find for the bridge. Or buy a Marshall stack and become one with crunch.

 

I'd probably recommend a BB2 if you aren't afraid of no wax potting.