New Guitar Gibson Medallion “V”

ibmorjamn

ibmorjamn

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ibmorjamn said:
. I wonder if they can build their own pickups correctly ?
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Jared Brandon (who owned Brandonwound pickups) took over the Gibson pickup shop a few years ago (and afterward they had a slew of new releases). He is widely known among "booteek" pickup nerds as to having some of the best T Top clones out there. He was the guy who actually had a new mold made for the T Bobbins. My Wolfetone T Tops (limited production) source the BW bobbins. Based on the pictures from Gibson the new 68 T top RI pickups are the same bobbins (look for the little "b"). Guessing Gibson made some kind of deal with the guy who took over /bought Brandonwound after Jared went to Gibson.

Besides authentic bobbins, I can vouch for the guy knowing WTF he is doing on the tone aspect. The recent Gibson Greenybuckers are Jared's work. I've owned a ton of all the Gibson PAF wannabee types from Shaws to 57s and all the Burstbucker variants and sometimes they are great, but oftentimes lacking. The Greeny's are every bit as good as my booteek PAF stuff and have dethroned all that in my #1. I'm not into the peter green OOP sound (at all), so I pulled the covers and reversed the magnet in my set, but they are absolutely some of the best hot A2 PAF "clones" I've used. They are not terribly "authentic" in build, but the tones are excellent. fwiw- mine are the aftermarket unpotted set, not the potted versions that come in the greeny production guitars.

I've got T Tops from Rewind and Wolfe, so I'm not likely to purchase a set of the new Gibson Ts. You can't formulate the old mags, metals, and wire perfectly these days (especially under mass production constraints), but I'm willing to bet these 68 RI T tops are going to sound very good- particularly in all mahogany guitars and semi hollows ( which is where IME T tops have always sounded their best)
 
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JeffB said:
Jared Brandon (who owned Brandonwound pickups) took over the Gibson pickup shop a few years ago (and afterward they had a slew of new releases). He is widely known among "booteek" pickup nerds as to having some of the best T Top clones out there. He was the guy who actually had a new mold made for the T Bobbins. My Wolfetone T Tops (limited production) source the BW bobbins. Based on the pictures from Gibson the new 68 T top RI pickups are the same bobbins (look for the little "b"). Guessing Gibson made some kind of deal with the guy who took over /bought Brandonwound after Jared went to Gibson.

Besides authentic bobbins, I can vouch for the guy knowing WTF he is doing on the tone aspect. The recent Gibson Greenybuckers are Jared's work. I've owned a ton of all the Gibson PAF wannabee types from Shaws to 57s and all the Burstbucker variants and sometimes they are great, but oftentimes lacking. The Greeny's are every bit as good as my booteek PAF stuff and have dethroned all that in my #1. I'm not into the peter green OOP sound (at all), so I pulled the covers and reversed the magnet in my set, but they are absolutely some of the best hot A2 PAF "clones" I've used. They are not terribly "authentic" in build, but the tones are excellent. fwiw- mine are the aftermarket unpotted set, not the potted versions that come in the greeny production guitars.

I've got T Tops from Rewind and Wolfe, so I'm not likely to purchase a set of the new Gibson Ts. You can't formulate the old mags, metals, and wire perfectly these days (especially under mass production constraints), but I'm willing to bet these 68 RI T tops are going to sound very good- particularly in all mahogany guitars and semi hollows ( which is where IME T tops have always sounded their best)
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That is cool Jeff , thanks. I will look into all of that.
I remember a few years back one of pickup winders ( not sure which one) was supposed to have great T /Top pickups , the catch was , they were $500. I could get custom shop SD for less than $200 however they don’t seem to know the magic behind the T-Top. If they do, they didn’t share with me on my custom shop wound.
 
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DirtySteve said:
Ok I have to ask...what makes T-tops so special?
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The only stab at the subject that I feel that I am qualified to make would be this…
In the 70s, the Norlin guys at Gibson thought that the T-Tops were a suitable representation of their product line. They were used in many of their “mainstay” models of the era.
Was it because they sounded really good? Maybe.
Was it because they could be made to a price point, with readily available materials, with a sense of consistency? Probably.

Reality…a lot of them were yanked, unceremoniously, in favor of other tools available at the time….like the venerable Super Distortion pickups that were ubiquitous at that time.
Why?….it depends who you ask…
66 Galaxie said:
I also hear about Tim Shaws... how do they stack up?
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Tim Shaw pickups were embraced in a more “accepting” manner. For good reason IMO…just like early Dirty Fingers models.
 
Thatbastarddon said:
The only stab at the subject that I feel that I am qualified to make would be this…
In the 70s, the Norlin guys at Gibson thought that the T-Tops were a suitable representation of their product line. They were used in many of their “mainstay” models of the era.
Was it because they sounded really good? Maybe.
Was it because they could be made to a price point, with readily available materials, with a sense of consistency? Probably.

Reality…a lot of them were yanked, unceremoniously, in favor of other tools available at the time….like the venerable Super Distortion pickups that were ubiquitous at that time.
Why?….it depends who you ask…

Tim Shaw pickups were embraced in a more “accepting” manner. For good reason IMO…just like early Dirty Fingers models.
Click to expand...
I love the Dirty Fingers pups!
 
I never wanted to try the DFs because of the ceramic mags.
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