Three pickup les paul

[J.chinn]

Hello! I’m new to the forum and pretty new to working on guitars. I’m currently working on upgrading an epiphone les Paul with three humbuckers. I’m swapping the bridge and neck out for a set of pearly gates. Adding a bone nut and a new bridge. replacing the electronics. Hoping to do push pulls for the neck and bridge to split and most likely do three volumes and one tone knob and just use the volume knob for activating the middle pickup. The middle pickup I would like to use is a Seymour Duncan phat cat. It is a humbucker sized p 90. My question is should I use a bridge or neck position phat cat in the middle? Also, what should I look for when shopping for capacitors? Thanks!

 

[charliechitlins]

I know it doesn't answer your question, but you may want to consider...
I wired my 3-pickup firebird basically like a Tele.
On the switch, I get N, NB, B, with a master volume and tone.
All 3 pickups are wired to the master tone.
Then the Middle has its own volume pot that is always on.
The middle pickup is brought in and out anytime, giving every possible combination...with 3 knobs.
Your idea of 3 volumes is only a little mire complex and would allow blending the N and B.
As for push/pull... I have never heard a split humbuckers that I didn't think sounded thin.
If I was forced to use push/pull pots, I'd do series/parallel.

 

[KoP]

I would think that you’d probably want to use a neck position Phat Cat. I had a 91 LP Standard with a Phat Cat neck and Seth Lover bridge combo. It was awesome.

As far as capacitors, the materials make no difference. Paper in oil, Mylar, whatever. There’s no difference that the human ear can pick up. They all do the same job. The only difference is in their ‘uf’ (micro farad) ratings (.022, .047, etc). The higher the number, the more it will limit the higher frequencies. Gibson uses .022uf for most of their guitars.

 

[zacknorton]

freeway 6 way toggle. middle pickup by itself is fantastic.

 

[charliechitlins]

As far as capacitors, the materials make no difference. Paper in oil, Mylar, whatever. There’s no difference that the human ear can pick up. They all do the same job. The only difference is in their ‘uf’ (micro farad) ratings (.022, .047, etc).

The Les Paul Forum police will be over to your house in the middle of the night.
You will be bound, gagged and brought to a re-education facility where you will be kept until you learn that bumble bee caps bring toanz like buttah.

 

[KoP]

The Les Paul Forum police will be over to your house in the middle of the night.
You will be bound, gagged and brought to a re-education facility where you will be kept until you learn that bumble bee caps bring toanz like buttah.

I know, right? They’ll fight to the bitter end about being able to hear a difference. (But never in a blind test, of course.)

 

[NickiC]

The Les Paul Forum police will be over to your house in the middle of the night.
You will be bound, gagged and brought to a re-education facility where you will be kept until you learn that bumble bee caps bring toanz like buttah.

Only way to survive the FILTH; buy some pickups from one of the MLP winders.
Even the mods will shake you down for “likes and quotes”, or sell you a tele.