2021 Gibson Les Paul Standard 50's Gold Top:

Mitch Pearrow SJMP said:
I have not changed any of the pickups in any of my Gibsons yet. But I do want to experiment !
Faded SG maybe first .
Cheers
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I don't have any plans to change the pickups. These are indeed wax potted, so I'm happy for that. I made a huge impact on the tone by adjusting the pole pieces and lowering the bridge as @gball described.

I played it for several hours last night and I was really happy with the tone and gain structure.

I swap a lot of pickups for people and TBTH, I think it's probably the last thing you should do on a quality guitar. Most people are swapping pickups, chasing a nuance that really isn't in the pickup itself.

I had a guy bring me Gibson Les Paul he had purchased from a mutual colleague recently. It was a Joe B "Lazarus" model and he wanted me to go over it and recommend better pickups. I asked him why...

He related that the neck was "muffled sounding" and the bridge was "too bright."

There was nothing wrong with his stock pickups.

I first set the pole pieces by eye to my SOP stagger and lowered them because they were both sky high - at about 4/64" from the strings.

I added a 220k resistor in line with the bridge signal lead and a very small, gray & black cylindrical .047uf capacitor that @syscokid removed from my Marshall Origin, in line with the signal lead to the neck pickup.

I then balanced the pickup volume levels on a VU meter and ended up with the bridge pickup at about 12/64" and the neck about 10/64" from the bottom of the strings, when fretted at the 22nd.

Next, I tweaked the poles until I had even string to string volumes. I set ALL pickups "square," so there's no "tilt" on the bass or treble side. I achieve that by staggering pole pieces.

I took the guitar to his pad in Benedict Canyon and said nothing about what I had changed, since it's reversible in minutes. I always have my service kit in the car with me too.

He was amazed. Played clean, there was that beautiful, chimey overtone (almost chorusy) effect in the middle position. The bridge had less top end edge, but was still bright enough to allow you to mix in a lot of lower frequencies. The neck was suddenly brighter and more refined...clear and articulate.

In summary , it was a totally different guitar. He was over the moon and when I revealed what I had done, he said, "Dude, whatever you did, this is one of my best sounding Les Paul's. "

Now, I have done work for people who needed "more gain and saturation," and in those cases I've used a DP404 in a Stratocaster or a DP100 or a Carvin M22SD in a humbucker-routed guitar. In those cases, more output was needed.

But, in situations where you find yourself playing more and more "cleaner" passages (as is the case with me and my work at the music academy) the higher gain pickups don't always provide the articulation that shines in a clean environment.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
Still, it is not my '79 but then again, it will cost me likely $3-$5 k to find another like the Original I foolishly parted with and will likely never see again unless a miracle happens.
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We've had a few offers in the $5,000 to $6,000 range for Mom's 1979 Les Paul Custom Silverburst.

Mom's interviewing people to see who is a worthy owner.

1979 Les Paul.jpg

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chilipeppermaniac said:
The Other Pup swap I did was to put the Original pups back into a guitar I bought where someone put EMG's in place of the OEM which he kept.
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I like the quietness and clarity of EMG's personally, but in your case, I think the originals were a better move.

People keep asking me if I'm gonna put a "50's Style Harness" in it or what kind of pickups I'm gonna put in it. Well, It's already got a hand wired harness with orange drops and the pickups (after adjustment & balancing) sound great.

Besides, the whole purpose for buying a $3,000.00 Les Paul was so that I would NOT have to work on it.
 
Ok,

After some playing, I only have one real gripe about this guitar and it's minor.

The saddles on the ABR-1 are a little sharp against my writer's palm.

Other than that, it has that typical Gibson light buzz that goes away when you touch the strings, that all 5 of my new Gibson's had.. I checked the ground circuit in the guitar and there is continuity with near zero resistance.

I'm assuming it's because this guitar is unshielded.

Not a deal-breaker....
 
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Thought I might (at some point) try copper shielding the back of the cavity cover, then running straps of copper tape from the back of the pots to the stepped legde of the cavity cover recess so it would offer some shielding without disassembly of the guitar.

Thoughts???

@gball , @syscokid
 
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gball said:
Been a couple years since these Chinese cases came along. I like them, they are really solid. The Costa-Rican ones are the best, just monsters, then these, and the TKLs are the worst in my opinion - the TKLs are flimsy compared to the other two.
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How do you tell them apart?
 
Robert Herndon said:
How do you tell them apart?
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The little tag in the compartment will tell you where its made, but they all do look different as well.
The Costa-Rican ones are seriously heavy as poop and thicker than the others and they have pink lining.
The Chinese ones have red lining and different hardware (as you noticed), handle and different piping along the edge.
The TKLs are made in Canada, usually have red lining and are the lightest and by far least robust - I can take one of mine in my hands and twist it.
 
gball said:
The little tag in the compartment will tell you where its made, but they all do look different as well.
The Costa-Rican ones are seriously heavy as poop and thicker than the others and they have pink lining.
The Chinese ones have red lining and different hardware (as you noticed), handle and different piping along the edge.
The TKLs are made in Canada, usually have red lining and are the lightest and by far least robust - I can take one of mine in my hands and twist it.
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Awesome!@!

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