Members LR Weizel Posted October 9, 2009 Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 These have to be about the darkest, gnarliest sounding pickups ever... I bought my Dad one but I think he'd honestly prefer brighter pickups that sound a little more acoustic like. The PAF style HBs in my Sheena are good for this. I was thinking maybe a HB sized P90 in the neck might work well. Maybe swap out for a brighter tone pot too. What do other people put in their Dots? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 211dave112 Posted October 9, 2009 Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 they are pretty good for stock pickups, they are supposedly epiphone's "copy" of the gibsons 57 humbuckers. its been a while but i definitely remember seeing "57" written on the back of the pups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members monzablue Posted October 9, 2009 Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 When I find time to troubleshoot my wiring mess I'll let you know how BG Pure 90s sound in a DOT. I was never impressed with the stock humbuckers in that guitar. Mine is a mid-90s, so the stockers may be different from your dad's. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LR Weizel Posted October 9, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 They just sound so dark is my main problem. It's hard to get a good plonky clean tone out of them. I know they're HBs but this is ridiculous. And this was into my Lunchbox too which is a bright amp with little bass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mikesr1963 Posted October 9, 2009 Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 So even when you cranked your bass down and your mids and treble up you pickups are dark sounding. That's really difficult to believe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Elias Graves Posted October 9, 2009 Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 The one I pulled out of the bridge of my Alleykat was labeled "Les Paul bridge, Dot neck, bridge."So I'm assuming it has to be the same. I didn't find it dark in my Kat or the Epi SG that its in now. Probably a lot of variability in those I guess. I replaced it with the BG Pure 90 and couldn't be happier. The Kat is different construction than the Dot so the sound is somewhat different, but the Pure 90 is a much brighter, more responsive pickup without a doubt. Pretty common to drop Burstbuckers or Gibson 57s in there too. EG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LR Weizel Posted October 9, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 So even when you cranked your bass down and your mids and treble up you pickups are dark sounding. That's really difficult to believe. Only one "Tone" knob on the Lunchbox bro. Was still really dark even with the tone up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members theboywho Posted October 9, 2009 Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 Yeah, I've got a pair of these I ripped from my Dot to replace with GFS mean 90's. They say they are Les Paul Pickups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators BATCAT Posted October 9, 2009 Moderators Share Posted October 9, 2009 I used to have a Dot and while I liked it, yeah, I found them dull and muddy. I ended up trading it towards a Jag, but before that I was gonaa thros some GFS HB-sized Filtertron copies in. I bet that would have rocked! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jrockbridge Posted October 9, 2009 Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 One cheap way to brighten up a pickup is with a potentiometer swap. If the stock ones are 300K, swap for 500K pot. Or, perhaps even consider a 1000K volume pot. If you are trying to REALLY brighten up a pup, you could even rewire to bypass the tone pot completely. Or replace the standard tone pots with ones that have a built in bypass position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stormin1155 Posted October 9, 2009 Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 I used to have an early '90s dot and those pickups were very dark and muddy... sound quite different than the dots I've played lately. I'm quite happy with the GFS Dream 180s I put in my Ibanez AS73 (similar to the dot). I can get some nice bright and jangley tones out of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BIGD Posted October 9, 2009 Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 My mid 90's Dot had pickups that were microphonic poop. They're sitting in the bottom of my spare parts bin and haven't seen the light since the year 2000!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Elias Graves Posted October 9, 2009 Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 Epi uses 500k pots, but I find them to be pretty dark. That could be as big a pert of the problems as the pickups themselves. Replacing those on a Dot is not much fun though. EG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LR Weizel Posted October 9, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 I'm not great with soldering {censored}. Would a pot swap be easier than a pickup swap? Should I swap both tone and volume and what should I use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Elias Graves Posted October 9, 2009 Members Share Posted October 9, 2009 A pot swap in a Dot is a bitch. Everything has to come out through the pup cavities. You have to do all your work externally then feed them back into place. Not fun. Leave that to a tech if you are unsure. I replaced the pots on my Epi SG with Gibson 500s, which are CTS built. I had already replaced the pickups with good ones and the guitar still sounded horrible. After the pot switch it came to life. I have heard stories from other folks that switching pots didn't make much difference so I'm guessing that there is a lot of inconsistency in those Epi pots. Some good, some not. I measured the ones I took out at 350 and 400k ohms resistance. That's off the scale for acceptable variation. Perhapssome are closer to the actual 500 they are supposed to be. Maybe with the Dot you start with the pickups and see how it sounds before you gut it with open heart surgery. A good set of HBs or some 90s would brighten it up a lot. The 90s certainly will have the biggest change in sound but a good set of HBs would be good too. EG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LR Weizel Posted October 24, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 24, 2009 Turns out the strings were dead. Gonna replace them tonight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BoneNut Posted October 24, 2009 Members Share Posted October 24, 2009 When I find time to troubleshoot my wiring mess I'll let you know how BG Pure 90s sound in a DOT. I was never impressed with the stock humbuckers in that guitar. Mine is a mid-90s, so the stockers may be different from your dad's. . . You'll be a hapopy, happy man once you get it working. Pure 90s work very well in semi hollows. I had a set in my Sheraton and it sounded sweet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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