RICH

[Marshallhead]

dude,i trust your judgement-i recently scored some real 50's gibson pots and caps-and other misc gibson electronics/wiring etc-i have 4 pots i'm going to put in the r9 and the caps as well-heres the deal-what do you have for p/u's and electronics in your lp's i know about the duncans and 500ts-how about antiquities or even gibson t tops?-dont get me wrong the r9 sounds great but im bored and im looking to do a little experimenting for the hell of it-i do like the aggressive edge of the classics but they dont balance as well from neck to bridge as i would like and i need some opinions about different pickups-thanks

 

[RICH]

Damn this is a tough one. Unlike the V's which all get the combat issue pickups, I kinda set the LPs up from mild to wild, mostly because the LPs get double cream, and anything decent in double cream takes a little work to get, so I usually take what I can get and match them to the right guitar. The end result is I have been playing around with alot of neck pickups lately.The Y2K lemon burst is the metal monster, it has the CTS pots, (unhooked tone pots ), a cream duncan distortion in the bridge, and an old cream dimarzio paf in the neck that seems to work a tad better than the seth that was in there. The seth was good, but just a tad weak sounding in the lemon burst, and for $20 the cream dimarzio was worth the experiment. The best pickup I used yet for the old Rush tones is the new dimarzio virtual vintage PAFs, I put a pair of cream ones in a Y2K R9 with the CTS pots and black beauty spragues, and its just unreal, it has a big open sound with a full range. It feels powerfull because it has a good bottom , and all the notes are clear all of the time. My other guitarist put a set in his 01 aged model and they just sing. That pickup combo gives me an "old" sounding LP for certain things. I made a sleeper out of the 01-58, I stuck a distortion/'59 combo under aged covers on it when I aged the rest of the hardware, and that screams, but that still has the stock pots ( not for long, they're dying). I tried a T-top in the neck, and that wasn't too bad, but the '59 sounds better. The rest of the LPs have the 57 classics in them. I'm not THAT critical of my neck pickups, probably because I don't use them for much other than shred leads at full volumes, so that low volume mud thing people complain about doesn't affect me, so its not uncommon to find varying PAF type pickups in the neck of my LPs. Right now there are 57 classics, duncan 59s, a seth, and 2 different dimarzios in the neck positions. Half of the LPs don't have connected tone pots, so I'm gaining more brightness there alone for the few times I do actually roll the volume back on the neck pickup, and any of my player LPs with connected tone pots have the CTS pots and the spragues, so that helps too. I know the covers on the 57 classics kill them dead, major frigging difference without the covers, the covers just suck the tone out of them pickups. What tone are you looking for?

 

[nicholas]

RICH, whats the difference, if any, to your ear that you can tell between the 59 neck and the Dimuddio virt vint neck ?

 

[RICH]

Well they sound kinda the same, there is a hollowness to both, but on the '59 when you hit a note the pick attack is loud, but then when you hold the note, the note will sustain at a slightly lower volume. The virtual vintage doesn't drop in volume, you hit a note and it sustains at the same volume it is picked at. The virtual vintage also seems to have a wee bit more snarl, and has a blossoming thing happening. Man, normally I hate weak pickups, and in general I think dimarzios blow ass, but there is something to these virtual paf things, its pretty much my favorite neck pickup at this point. They seem to have a much less flubby bottom, which is my main complaint against weak pickups. In the bridge they sound good to, real ballsy, but very articulate. they are loud sounding, so its easy to fly with them, because the pick attack is loud on them.

 

[Marshallhead]

tones

RICH-as usual i knew i could count on your need to tinker and experiment-what tone am i looking for?-probably something more complex(if that makes any sense) than the classics-but i dont want to lose the crunch factor in the bridge-for the bridge i know the hollow tone is great for leads but how about power chords and general heavy riffing?-the neck i like to shred but also i like the smooth,singing lp thing-if i was just using the r9 for the blues band i would just start swapping in antiquities and other brands looking for that tone alone but i gotta be able to get heavy on any guitar i own (you know what i mean!!!) so before i blow cash i figured id see what you were running-somehow i think you probably gotta crush with any guitar you pick up that you own - i cant see you playing light and sweet:lol-thats how i am -chokin that guitar within an inch of it life every time its out of the case!!!!

 

[RICH]

That general heavy riffing thing AND the crunch factor thing is telling my 500T or duncan distortion. Either of those have good high end, but the 500T may be tad clearer. There is no general heavy riffing (slayer type)with the weak pickups, I tried it alot, and I always go back to my lemon burst with the duncan distorion in the bridge for the heavy thing. I guess the best way to explain it is that with the weak pickups I can do old Rush and some of the early metal, but when you try to get modern or thrashy the weak pickups start to show their shortcomings. With the 500T or the DD pickups you can still do the old rush, but with a little less clarity, but it still sounds good, and the heavy shit just kills. I guess it shifts your compromise area to a different area of the spectrum. For me the heavy thing is an absolute, so I will deal with a tad less clarity in the high end as long as I can get my heavy thump scooped thing when I need it, and the 500t and DD are very percussive pickups, and by controlling your pick attack you can make them sing or bark, so clarity and sheer balls are available in the same pickup. In other words its alot easier to get the 500T and the DD to clean up than it is trying to get the weak pickups to bark. The duncan is stronger than the 500T, not by much. If it was a V, I would be inclined to go with the 500T , but a LP with that maple top is brighter with more snap, so a DD works real good in them. The down side is the covers, if you plan on using covers, they are readily available for the 500T by any dealer that sells gibson parts, the duncan cover would have to come from duncan. I usually will get a zebra, and a reverse zebra DD and build a double cream DD for the LP, and use the leftover black DD in something else like a V and to hell with the covers, but its something you might want to think about.

 

[Marshallhead]

hmmm ,bedy, bedy rinteresting

ok dude-humor me with this-i have tried a dd in the last 2 pauls i had which were both tonally inferior to my r9 and the dd and the 500t in both of those sounded harsh and um, ceramicky-i did have a 10.00 epiphone lp custom some years back(tag sale item) and i threw a dd in there and it killed-i plan on using the r9 still for blues and i need that singing scream in the bridge with almost a vocal quality to it-you know that bwahhhh sound!!-so the 500t or the dd???-as far as the neck goes im still unsure as to what to use i get dimarzio at cost from my buds shop and i have tried some of their new air this and that but they were bad-i have not tried the vv yet though--what value spragues are you using?-- and how is the balance between the high out put bridge pick ups and the different neck pickups youve tried? i know the balance is way off on my r9 classics and they measure 8.2 and 7.8-kind of like the ones i got from you which by the way sound great in the v with no balance problems at all-and as i get more and more time on the r9 (which is turning brown in red areas) im starting to notice the shortcomings more and more of the stock electronics.dont get me wrong, it is the best sounding axe ive ever had but i know it could be better

 

[RICH]

Shit, I have no clue, I always run a hot bridge with a PAF type in the neck and never noticed any balance problems, then again, the middle position of my pickup selector has cobwebs. I do know this, if you used the DD or 500t in any of the production LPs with the homo 300K pots AND a hooked up tone pot, they WILL sound like mud shit city. I refuse to run either of those pickups with working tone pots, it just kills them dead and turns them to mud. If you plan on running a tone pot, I don't know what to tell you. In my R9s the DD's and 500T's sing, and they do sound better than they did in my production LPs, why I don't know, but they do. It was the main reason I sold all my production LPs. I don't know, maybe another guitar is in order? Blues and crunch is kinda like "military inteligence", so you may need one set up for each. Oh yeah, I have the .015 spragues, and they are ONLY in guitars with weak pickups, because the weak pickups have that icepick in the forehead treble, and the tone pots kinda smooth them out.

 

[Marshallhead]

thanks for the info

i think im just going to start experimenting and see what happens-as for as the tone control goes-i hardly ever use them so i probably will ditch them-i get enough flavors working the vol knobs- i am going to pop a 500t in there for shits and giggles and see what happens-i use gary moore type gain for the blues stuff so hotter pickups wont hurt in the bridge-ill just lower the dist on the pedal and go for it-i am going to change the pots asap because theyre starting to scratch like burlap underwear:lol
thanks again-later