Gibson Les Paul

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Zuff-1A
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Gibson Les Paul

Post by Zuff-1A »

Hey all who modded your Les Paul's
Just interesting what mods and pickups you tried and what
works best?

I bought recently 1991 Standard and replaced all Nashville
system against Faber (solid steel one piece bridge posts and
ABR-1 bridge.
Result: tone is fuller and nicer, now without tiny metal overtones.
Removed metal plate and replaced also vol pot's against 500K pots and ceramic disc caps against original bumble bees + 50's wiring.
Result: huge difference to better, more detailed (brighter but sweeter) tone. Especially good feels cap change!
Tried lot pickups (loaned from friends):
Sheptone 59' set (bit weak and dry sounding)
Kloppman 61 set (good overall but without special character)
Dave Stephens HD59' set, (amazing neck! bridge was not my taste)
Slash Singature set (too powerful without detail, bit muddy)
Best set was
Raw Vintage RV-5760 in bridge and original (8K or so, 498?) in neck
60-s T-Top will coming soon, will try it in neck...
Guitar have super responsive and loud tone, more bright side because thinner 60's neck.
Quite funky overall and not massive or woody like newer Historics.
Very playable guitar!
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Doctor X
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Re: Gibson Les Paul

Post by Doctor X »

I've got an R8 that's about 10 yrs old. I've tried a couple of sets of Bareknuckle Pickups in it: Mules and PG Blues. It's got OX4's in it at the moment, which are better, but I'm going to move those into my ES-335 and will replace them with a set of Monty's PAF's that I've ordered.

I've also replaced the pots/caps with one of the RS Guitarworks vintage things, but I'm fucked if I could tell any difference.
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devnulljp
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Re: Gibson Les Paul

Post by devnulljp »

I tried a bunch of different pickups in my R8 and a Tokai Love Rock.
Reilander PAFs are nice, but gold medal goes to ReWind PAF2s, so that's what ended p going in them both.
I also have a nice set of OX4s but currently no home for them.
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thebends9
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Re: Gibson Les Paul

Post by thebends9 »

I have a mid 90's studio - Replaced all pots/caps with a RSGuitarworks vintage kit.
Also dropped Seymour Duncan custom shop Pearly Gates pickups. It sounds great, however I have an issue with the fret height. I may look into a refret w/smaller frets.
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Mr. Legit
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Re: Gibson Les Paul

Post by Mr. Legit »

I am interested to hear your thoughts on the Dave Stephen's pickups? What about the bridge did you not like? I was about to order a set but the wait times are ridiculous. Nonetheless, I have tried just about every winder known, and for me, Wizz pickups seem to take the cake! A friend of mine has OX4's in his guitar and they are great. I am currently happy with the stock Custom Buckers in my guitar though. You can perhaps mod the plastics and such? It depends though, for me I want a vintage Les Paul vibe going on.
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Laundromat
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Re: Gibson Les Paul

Post by Laundromat »

Is Dave Stephens the guy who's a bit of a loony? I've heard good things about OX4 and he seems to actually deliver shit in a timely manner. Same can't be said about Shed, who has kept me waiting since October and isn't replying to my emails right now.
I really liked a set of Sheptone Tributes I had in the past, but my last order went completely down the shitter. We agreed on a pair where both pickups are wound the same, which I tend to prefer. I was sent a pair with the normal balancing, along with hardware for a pair of strat pickups. :oldlol: None of my emails about it were acknowledged.
thebends9 wrote:It sounds great, however I have an issue with the fret height. I may look into a refret w/smaller frets.
This is probably the biggest gripe with the more modern Gibsons I've played. It seems that they just roughly level the frets and then do fuck-all about it, which leaves them shaped like a railroad track or a street curb.
There's no real need for a refret since material can be removed easily. Take it to a competent luthier and have him recrown the frets for a round profile that they should've been in the first place. I'd do this even before deciding about lowering the height, since the difference will feel like day and night.
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Stu
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Re: Gibson Les Paul

Post by Stu »

Laundromat wrote:Take it to a competent luthier and have him recrown the frets for a round profile that they should've been in the first place. I'd do this even before deciding about lowering the height, since the difference will feel like day and night.
Good advice. I have a '92 Standard which I bought new and the frets were completely flat on top. It's much nicer to play with properly crowned frets. The string alignment was also terrible, so I ended up plugging the Nashville holes and redrilling for an ABR-1. Tailpiece is now a Pigtail, but still with the original studs and anchors. I also dumped the metal plate and 300k pots in favour of 500k pots with '50s wiring, and rewired it with braided wire.

Pickups:

Stock 490R/498T - nothing special.
Duncan '59 bridge - muddy in the bridge position, worked better for me as a neck pickup
'57 Classics - ice pick treble
Duncan Antiquities - dull, weak and lifeless
Duncan Antiquities with '57 Classic magnets - much better with stronger magnets, kept these in for a while
Decal T-Tops - liked these too
OX4 - best by far, and the first to give me the sound I'd had in my head

I'm still curious about Wizz pickups, but the OX4s are the first set that's enabled this LP to hold its own against my '64 SG.
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redeyeflight
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Re: Gibson Les Paul

Post by redeyeflight »

Wait, those stevens pickups are really $650?!?
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Zuff-1A
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Re: Gibson Les Paul

Post by Zuff-1A »

Mr. Legit wrote:I am interested to hear your thoughts on the Dave Stephen's pickups? What about the bridge did you not like? I was about to order a set but the wait times are ridiculous. Nonetheless, I have tried just about every winder known, and for me, Wizz pickups seem to take the cake! A friend of mine has OX4's in his guitar and they are great. I am currently happy with the stock Custom Buckers in my guitar though. You can perhaps mod the plastics and such? It depends though, for me I want a vintage Les Paul vibe going on.
I think Dave Stephens is best if we talking 50-s PAF tone. He's current stuff is much better than older.
I had his VLIII set and tried also Jimmy Page set (sold by forum fellow DaCod) then HD61 (bridge only) and now I tried my friend's HD 59 set. I can say about HD59 bridge it is too high reading for my taste near 9K. Maybe bit too angry or too bold or too full sounding and not the best pickup for fuzz or drive pedals. But still articulate and very dynamic, drives amp well. Neck was super great (I do not have idea what would be better) Liked HD 61 bridge a lot but had problems match it with non Stephens neck.
Now he have couple interesting new set's 57HD low reading, single coil like throaty tone and Black Beauty HD (similar to 59HD but with lower reading 8,5 bridge).
Price is very high though.
What I understand if you are not happy with your Les Paul electric tone but like guitar's acoustic tone and feel you must try lot different pickups. Never give up with Les Paul.

here is nice higher price PAF comparison including Dave Stephens, Wizz etc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-NGySD ... 2e2BXpM8ng


***
If anybody interested my friend sells same Sheptone set for 200€ (2013 made zebra 59 PAF set bridge 8,6 and neck 7,8 or so )
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Zuff-1A
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Re: Gibson Les Paul

Post by Zuff-1A »

Stu wrote:
Laundromat wrote:Take it to a competent luthier and have him recrown the frets for a round profile that they should've been in the first place. I'd do this even before deciding about lowering the height, since the difference will feel like day and night.
Good advice. I have a '92 Standard which I bought new and the frets were completely flat on top. It's much nicer to play with properly crowned frets. The string alignment was also terrible, so I ended up plugging the Nashville holes and redrilling for an ABR-1. Tailpiece is now a Pigtail, but still with the original studs and anchors. I also dumped the metal plate and 300k pots in favour of 500k pots with '50s wiring, and rewired it with braided wire.

Pickups:

Stock 490R/498T - nothing special.
Duncan '59 bridge - muddy in the bridge position, worked better for me as a neck pickup
'57 Classics - ice pick treble
Duncan Antiquities - dull, weak and lifeless
Duncan Antiquities with '57 Classic magnets - much better with stronger magnets, kept these in for a while
Decal T-Tops - liked these too
OX4 - best by far, and the first to give me the sound I'd had in my head

I'm still curious about Wizz pickups, but the OX4s are the first set that's enabled this LP to hold its own against my '64 SG.

There is now special Nashville replacements posts by Faber -
one piece steel. Easy "drop in" install, no drilling needed.
I can recommend them all who don't like Nashville system (btw
my LP stays lot better in tune after bridge and bridge post's replacements, because Nashville bridge post's move little back and toward inside bushings)
Only thing - these Faber Nashville replacements posts works only with special Faber ABR-1. Because Nashville bridge measures bit different from regular ABR-1

http://www.tokaiguitar.de/xtcommerce/pr ... pair-.html
Last edited by Zuff-1A on Sun Apr 02, 2017 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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