A few Q's for the electric guitar gurus in the room...

So even though I made the decision to buy the Gibson LP as soon as I have the money, I'll still have to rely on my Epiphone - and anyway I'm not giving up on that little gem of a guitar. But I'm thinking of upgrading it for my birthday, come July.

I want to throw in a Di Marzio Super Distortion (bridge) and something like a DI Marzio PAF DP 103 (ok, I know sweet nothing about this one, I just stumbled upon it while looking for something old school that'd work in neck position and was available in the right color).

http://www.musiciansfrien...5Ec-adid%5E14207111402

That being said, the one thing that's puzzling me is the Regular vs F-Spaced. Can someone explain the difference - and if you know which one I should be using, please tell me...


Onto the next question, this one about the guitar hardware - bridge, tail piece, pick up... 

Last year, I posted about how my sweat would eat through almost anything. In spite of me keeping something to wipe my guitar as often as I can between takes and songs, my sweat has started eating through the finish on the bridge and the sides of the pick up, leaving those nasty red-ish spots:





Obviously, as long as the guitar plays fine, this isn't much concern - and replacing the pick ups with cover-less DiMarzio means I don't have to worry about the pick ups finish.

But I'm looking at my 15+ years old strat and not seeing any such damage - so I'm guessing that there's some hardware that's more resistant out there. Any idea?

When I think about that Gibson I want to buy, I'm thinking that that is probably one of the difference (the details such as the metal they use and the finish). But I'm not sure. And as silly as it'll sound, I'd hate to see a guitar worth a few thousands wearing out like the hardware on the Epi.

Lastly, and completely gratuitously - isn't this the most amazing finish ever?

I am not sure but Mike is probably right. I had a DiMarzio PAF Pro in the neck of a 1991 LP Studio. It is and was a great guitar with an ebony fretboard. I ended up changing the pickups mostly because of the sound of the PAF Pro. It always sounded too dark, on the verge of muddy... though it sounded great split (the guitar had a coil tap for the neck pup). It had a JB in the Bridge and I highly recommend the JB for the bridge in any LP, that pickup screams.
I still have those pups and plan on putting them in a LP Classic I now have.
Anyway, I think I finally figured out why the PAF Pro didn't ound good to me. It is high gain and a good pickup BUT the Studio didn't have a maple cap, it was an all mahogany body and I think that was the problem with it sounding too dark. I imagine that your Epi has a maple cap but since I don't know I thought I'd throw this into the mix because it matters. I still really love that JB bridge tone and miss it. While you're changing pickups you should consider a coil tap for the neck, it really adds a lot of flexability and I don't think it is a hard mod (mine was already done). Some have a knob that you pull out, mine split the double coil if I turned the neck tone knob all the way up, back it off just a touch and it would go back to full double coil.
If you haven't heard a JB, you should read up on them. They are near perfection in a bridge of a LP, IMO.

Good luck with it and I hope you get exactly the guitar you want... don't settle. BTW, both the PAF Pro and the JB are coverless. The JB is a Duncan, IIRC.

Julien

Hi Rain,

Well, I'm the furthest from a guru but here's my take.

First: Regular spacing (1.90" 1st-to-6th) is for vintage Gibson guitars. F-spacing (2.01" 1-st-to-6th) is for most Fender guitars, modern Gibson, and guitars with Floyd Rose bridges.

Second: You seem like a guy that would be more intoa purist tone. I do not think a hot output pup or "distortion" pup would be for you. The reson being, it's a very un-natural, synthetic tone in my opinion. I just personally do not like hot pup sounds. I'd rather a pre-amp with the guts to drive a guitar instead of a guitar with high output pups. The other reason for that is...your clean tone will really suffer. Just about every guitarist I know that uses high output pups or some sort of "distortion" pup, has a crappy clean sound or struggles with clean sounds. Do what you think is best man, but at least keep what I'm saying in mind as it CAN make a difference.

Though the metal may be better on a real LP, if you got acid sweat it's still going to eat it up. You can always ask someone at Gibson or Epi etc if there is something that they have that doesn't do what you are seeing. Every guitar I own has some sort of fade no matter what. Whether it's gold, chrome or black, this dego baystid sweat I have eats it. Come to think of it though....same with my strats...I don't see the same wear I see on my Gibsons and I don't play my Gibsons anywhere near as much. Then again, totally different tail pieces too.

And yes, that is a gorgeous finish. Looks a bit flamed maple or something. Sort of close to my Carvins which are quilted maple. I love the way that looks! Good luck with everything. :)
 
-Danny

Well, I'm the furthest from a guru

 
That certainly goes for me too...
 
Danny makes sense (as usual). While I really like the JB, the fact is that it is sitting on a shelf and SD 59s are in the guitar.
 
I googled and read some about the Super Distortion and the JB, mostly stuff from different forums. More people seem to like the SD over the JB and a lot of people talk about the high mid spike of the JB, some like it some dont.
 
J
 
 

Furthest from a guru? lol what does that make me?

I only wanted to comment on Danny's comment about hot pickups.

A long time ago, I designed my own, very low current (ie batteries lasted forever) guitar preamp that fit inside the guitar cavity. I messed with it for a long time to get a good distortion sound and good clean sound. Of course I did it :-) but nowadays, I let outboard equipment do the boosting.

I am into Carvin gear so I use the standard Carvin pickup with an Empress ParaEQ (just got one a week ago :-)  ). I like this much better because I can change the eq with my mood :-)    Kinda like having many different pickups in my arsenal but without changing pickups all the time

Good luck!

Assuming you start with a guitar with decent "known" PU's, I wouldn't make any decisions about replacing them until I had the guitar a while to figure out what I liked/disliked about it. One or both of the stock PU's just might turn out to be perfect (or not). 

And my experience is that whenever you ask a forum about PU's everyone tends to respond with what they like/dislike regardless of what the OP specifically asks, so keep that in mind.

Age shows character.  :-)

Magnet type in a pickup makes a difference as well.  I like a rounder/ warmer, old school tone from my pickups and I found that I leaned more towards Alnico II magnets.  Gibson pickups are expensive, but I really like the Classic 57 neck and Classic 57 plus pickup pair that I had in an Epi Les Paul.

I agree with Danny that hot pickups are hard to get a nice clean tone out of.  I like less hot pick ups with lots of tone and character, then getting my OD or distortion out of the amp.

This weekend, Guitar Center has an Epiphone Les Paul Special I with P 90s for $89.
If it's half as good as my Epi LP, it'll be worth the money.

Wow, that's plenty of goos info - glad I asked. Thanks a lot guys!

I like the Burstbuckers as well.  I had a Gibson rep demo a Burstbucker 3, in the bridge position at the Dallas Guitar Show a few years ago.  He had a quick change system built into a customized LP and could change pickups in a matter of seconds.  All of the models were laying on a table ready to demo.  We walked through them one by one and narrowed my favorites down to a couple.  They were BB 3 in the bridge and BB 2 in the neck. The other choice was the 57 and 57 plus.  

I work trades shows, so I happened to catch him before the show opened when he had a lot of time to kill.  It was quite enlightening.  I believe I still have his business card in my office somewhere.

Burstbuckers are different than the Burstbucker Pro's by the way, different magnets.

Burstbucker = $149 a piece.


Bill Lawrence Wilde L-90  =  $60 a piece.
less than half of one burstbucker.

http://wildepickups.com/Wilde_Bill_s_Twin_Blades.html

The stock ones on the Epi's don't sound bad, actually. The whole guitar packs in a lot of value for the money. That being said, there's always room for improvement. 

Another contender which just caught my eye and which I'd certainly like to hear are these babies: http://www.seymourduncan....whole-lotta-humbucker/

But again, these are more expensive than the DiMarzio SD or such.

Bats - Thanks for the link, I'll check them out. 

I have a friend who's an expert at getting the best deals on eBay - I hadn't really thought about it but it might be an option to get him to check these out if I decide to go that way.