The Watering Hole

I love the single coil tone but I also love the feel and playability of the les paul.

So, I want to swap out my humbuckers for single coils.

Any suggestions as to what pickups I should switch to?  

Would seymour duncan p90-2 do the job?

Might want to try these.  Heard great things about this pup, plus it fits a full size HB so it doesn't look retarded.  :)

http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/ZP-MQ.html

What I really want to do is put a couple of decent pickups in the guitar and do the jimmy page wiring to coil tap etc.  My soldering skills are up to the job, but I can't decide on which pickups to choose

Aaah, now that's a totally different ball of wax.   ;)

http://www.wcrguitar.com/  Love Jim's pickups.  I have a Godwood (bridge) / Darkburst (neck) in my PRS Singlecut and they sound awesome.  If you have questions about his pups, email him.  He usually gets back to you the same day (usually late afternoon EST here in the States).  Very helpful with pickup selection.  He also offers different magnet options.

Schneidas just picked up a used set of Godwoods for his Paul and totally digs them.  

For your tastes, ya might want to look at the Darkbursts or Crossroads (Darkbursts are just a hotter version of Crossroads).  The Darkburst neck is just plain yummy.  Warm but focused.

Harmonics are off the scale and the coil-tap sound is very good.

Dearthian: — May 16, 2009Schneidas just picked up a used set of Godwoods for his Paul and totally digs them.  

Harmonics are off the scale

Absolutely!
Best harmonics I've heard from a pickup so far.
Godwoods are the shit!
I cannot comment on coil-tap tones since I don't use my pickups this way.

Oh yeah, I'm generally not a fan of Duncan pickups, I had about 12 different Duncan models to test and wasn't too thrilled with any of them, but: you might want to try a Duncan P-Rails.
It's one pickup that can be soldered to a on-off-on switch and give you a humbucking sound, a P90 and a Singlecoil tone.
I haven't tried one myself but the concept is really cool!

Schneidas — May 17, 2009Oh yeah, I'm generally not a fan of Duncan pickups, I had about 12 different Duncan models to test and wasn't too thrilled with any of them, but: you might want to try a Duncan P-Rails.
It's one pickup that can be soldered to a on-off-on switch and give you a humbucking sound, a P90 and a Singlecoil tone.
I haven't tried one myself but the concept is really cool!

Funny, I was just looking at those.

Interestingly, take a look at this youtube vid of a guy using coil splitting on his les paul (I think this is stock gibson pickups?).  I really like the single coil sound here. I actually don't like it when he switches it back to humbucker about a minute into the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iml7D1XsMe8

Haha, that's Gregor Hilden, the German Les Paul guru!
He's one of the more famous Les Paul players around here. He even had an original '59 but sold it some years ago...

I really like his tone in the vid, especially the first split-coil part aswell. You're right, once he switches to humbuckers it doesn't sound as nice. But I'm sure this is due to the amp and settings used.

I've heard other clips from him where he used regular, unsplit humbuckers and they were just as nice and very similar to that first tone.

When I had a fender strat, it sounded great through my Peavey C30, but I sold the strat because I just didn't like the feel of it, far too light.  Even though it was a really good guitar, the lightness of it just made it feel cheap to me (which is was not).

The les paul on the other hand, even though mine is an epiphone and not a full gibson, feels really nice to play and 'feels' like quality.  However it sounds like shit through the C30, far too much mid-range tone and I just can't dial that out with the tone controls on the C30.  Which brings me to my next testing which will be to try a 7 band eq pedal before the amp to see if I can drop the mids coming from the les paul to approximate the eq curve that the strat was giving the amp....which then brings me ideally to swapping out the pickups so I can coil-split to get a true single coil sound.

Dearthian: — May 16, 2009Aaah, now that's a totally different ball of wax.   ;)

http://www.wcrguitar.com/  Love Jim's pickups.  I have a Godwood (bridge) / Darkburst (neck) in my PRS Singlecut and they sound awesome.  If you have questions about his pups, email him.  He usually gets back to you the same day (usually late afternoon EST here in the States).  Very helpful with pickup selection.  He also offers different magnet options.

Schneidas just picked up a used set of Godwoods for his Paul and totally digs them.  

For your tastes, ya might want to look at the Darkbursts or Crossroads (Darkbursts are just a hotter version of Crossroads).  The Darkburst neck is just plain yummy.  Warm but focused.

Harmonics are off the scale and the coil-tap sound is very good.

I've recieved an email response from Jim. I told him what I wanted and the sound I'm going for and he suggested Crossroads-DarkBurst combo....not sure which in what position (I sent him another email to clarify).


I've already order the wiring kit for the "page-bucker" from http://www.torresengineering.com/noname7.html

I've changed my mind on wiring this up myself. I've found a local luthier who will do it for me and very reasonable at £65 ($97.50)

If this doesn't get me close to the sounds I'm after then I'll burn the fucker!

It will be Darkburst for the bridge; it is the higher output of the two.  

Page wiring is really cool.  I had an Ibanez Artist with Duncans and Page wiring.  Tons of possibilities.  

If you burn the fucker, put it on youtube!!  We'd love to see!!   Just make sure you put on a Hendrix Wig.  ;) :D

The deed is done.  Just ordered the Crossroad/Darkburst combo.

So, all the stars are in alignment and all the parts have been ordered and I have a luthier waiting to get stuck in.

Jon — May 18, 2009[quote author=Dearthian: The Boogieboy link=1242491122/0#3 date=1242498272]

I've already order the wiring kit for the "page-bucker" from http://www.torresengineering.com/noname7.html

That looks interesting. I've been toying with the idea of doing this type of thing to my Agile LP. I'd be very interested to hear how it goes.

I'll do a video of the various settings when it's all done, and if it doesn't work out as planned I'll do a video of me burning the fucker!

All the parts have now arrived; the pagebucker wiring kit and the crossroads and darkburst pickups. So I'm off to see the luthier this Saturday to get it all done.

Can't wait to try this once complete!