Just ordered new Pickups for my Les Paul.......

[slash-ed]

The other day I bought a pick. At first it sounded shit, but after I realised I paid $100 bucks for it, the sound got better in about 10 seconds or so.

True story.

[Voxshall]

The pickups apparently only change dramatically when you first break them in, not over there entire life. Below is the instructions from the designer if anyone is interested. I'm still open to the fact that our ears change as I have this weird feeling when demoing tennis rackets I play awesome with Demo's as they feel different, then after the honeymoon period is over my level of play drops again. Human nature is deceptive sometimes. If it is my ears changing it's pretty cool how dramatic it is happening with these pickups. I have had lots of pickups from new Duncans, Fenders, Jim Rolphs etc and I have never experienced this from other pickups.


VINTAGE LAB PAF REPRO INSTRUCTIONS-PLEASE READ-DO NOT IGNORE.
Be aware that there is a "break in" period that takes about a month and will go as long as 3 months. The first day you play them they may be dark sounding, second day they will really start to open up. They may switch back and forth for a couple weeks. Over a period of months they will stabilize like a good wine. This is a real phenomenom and no one has figured out why, but expect it and don't listen much the first day, but DO play them awhile the first day to get the break-in process started. Be patient.

Pickup height and pole screw adjustment are very sensitive and take time to adjust right. Spend some time and find your ideal tone through adjustment. Best to keep neck pole screws down low and flat, this lets the slug coil, which is brightest, dominate the the sound for best clarity. For bridge, raising the pole screws some makes the pole screw coil dominate more, it being the darkest sounding coil, and this will tame brightness if needed; you may also need to drop the bridge a bit to compensate for higher screw poles. Put them flat for more brightness. If this sounds odd to you, I could show you on an LCR meter that pole screw adjustements as I described CHANGE INDUCTANCE. Very small pole height changes can be very noticeable. There are two ways to adjust the brightness/darkness using pole screws. You can fine tune a single string by changing the screw height. Or you can completely warm up, or brighten up the whole pickup by changing ALL the pole screw heights. I have set the pole screws on all new sets for best effect, fine tune to taste after the first break-in day.

MAKE SURE YOUR WIRING HARNESS IS 100% 50'S REPRO. Most Gibsons have decent harnesses, but GET RID OF THEIR STOCK TONE CAPS, unless you want the pickups to be limited in what they can do. Gibson probably also wires their caps modern method, tone caps need to be wired 50's method which is just a simple change, this will give you more clarity when turning the volume pots down. Make sure you are using .022uf PAPER IN OIL caps as were vintage LP's. BE AWARE THAT SOME GIBSONS HAVE 300K POTS IN THEM, THESE WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS, GET RID OF THEM. In my opinion dump the Gibson pots altogether and get the ones RS sells, they're better quality with nicer taper. If you ignore my advice expect less than desirable results.

USE YOUR TONE POTS! Modern players don't realize what masters of tone pot useage their classic rock heroes were. If you find the bridge a tad bright, a slight twist of the tone pot and you're into a completely different world. Real PAF's are not dark and muddy and have plenty of "bite" when needed, but are not shrill. Vintage rock heroes also didn't turn their volume pots all the way up all the time, a slight turn back and you get a little less treble there too. There is a nearly infinite tone world in how you adjust the pickups poles and pickup height, volume and tone pot useage, take time to explore that world.

[robnobcorncob]

Yes, I agree with what AlanP says.

If the audience can't tell the difference, it's probably not worth it.

If you can't tell the difference.... well......


Sounds like you got one hell of a deal on that pick Ed compared to these pickups! hahaha

[Voxshall]

If we all got gear just to please the audience we would all be rocking Peavy Bandit's, Boss multi FX and Hondo axe's (cheap/reliable) and this forum wouldn't exist

Can you imagine how sad our hobby would be if that was the only gear available to us???


The majority of the audience don't care but I didn't get into guitar as a hobby because I cared about what others might think.

If I walk into a bar and the guitarist has really good tone I certainly appreciate hearing it, even when I'm super drunk yelling out Back in Black.

Also different people are into different things Eric Johnson or R Ford have a large percentage of there audience interested in tone. Thats all I hear people talking about after the show.

Some people get a buzz from good guitar tone and if that makes them happy and only them happy does it matter what they spend . Money is called currency because it needs to keep moving, and it's because people pay the big bucks for all the new amazing toned gear that we have such an awesome variety today including Bare knuckle pickups. If I had a friend that was a multi billionaire and brought a million dollar Martin that made him super happy I'd think that was good value for him as he got to be happy and hardly felt the cost to his pocket.

[Voxshall]

The other day I bought a pick. At first it sounded shit, but after I realised I paid $100 bucks for it, the sound got better in about 10 seconds or so.

True story.

In 10 more seconds I'm going to show you this http://most-expensive.net/guitar-picks $5,000 dollar pick that will instantly make you think your $100 happy meal pick is sounding like shit again.

[druz15]

sometimes I think the SKY pickups I put in my LP are crap, other days they really shine. Only cost me $89 each or something like that and they are miles better than the standard Epiphone ones. Sometimes I think they would benefit from a treble bleed mod to make the volume more useable. But the P90 in my LP Junior takes the cake, so much clearer yet it has more bite and overdrives nicer, without actually sounding hotter. For only having "one" tone it is extremely versatile, a change in picking dynamic can go from lead to rhythm without a volume knob adjustment or pedal or anything.

[Voxshall]

sometimes I think the SKY pickups I put in my LP are crap, other days they really shine. Only cost me $89 each or something like that and they are miles better than the standard Epiphone ones. Sometimes I think they would benefit from a treble bleed mod to make the volume more useable. But the P90 in my LP Junior takes the cake, so much clearer yet it has more bite and overdrives nicer, without actually sounding hotter. For only having "one" tone it is extremely versatile, a change in picking dynamic can go from lead to rhythm without a volume knob adjustment or pedal or anything.

Sweet, what amp are you using with the Jr. I played Phil's 1955 Jr for a week and in sounded like a Grand Piano through a 60's Vox AC30. That tone haunts me till this day I should have brought that guitar I think the stupid engagement ring got in the way.

[Voxshall]

sometimes I think the SKY pickups I put in my LP are crap, other days they really shine. Only cost me $89 each or something like that and they are miles better than the standard Epiphone ones. Sometimes I think they would benefit from a treble bleed mod to make the volume more useable. But the P90 in my LP Junior takes the cake, so much clearer yet it has more bite and overdrives nicer, without actually sounding hotter. For only having "one" tone it is extremely versatile, a change in picking dynamic can go from lead to rhythm without a volume knob adjustment or pedal or anything.

Gibson PAF's are modeled after P90's, so if you love that dynamic tone you should check some good PAF type pickups out.

[druz15]

Sweet, what amp are you using with the Jr. I played Phil's 1955 Jr for a week and in sounded like a Grand Piano through a 60's Vox AC30. That tone haunts me till this day I should have brought that guitar I think the stupid engagement ring got in the way.

50Watt 1987x Plexi Clone, out of all my guitars this one sounds the best, and the most "vintage rock" if you will. It's an Ex Tonymcbony Gibson LP Junior

Gibson PAF's are modeled after P90's, so if you love that dynamic tone you should check some good PAF type pickups out.

Well the SKY pickups are PAF type buckers I believe, but would love to one day get a Gibson Standard and chuck some BKP PAFs in it if I didn't like the existing ones, although an old LP would probably do the trick

[Voxshall]

Hit me up if your ever in Wanaka and we'll have a jam

[druz15]

definitely man, am coming to Queenstown with one (possibly both) of my bands in July if we have time could stop by in Wanaka for a jam.

[Voxshall]

Perfect, I'll come watch your band for sure.

[Voxshall]

I asked the Maker of the pickups if it was normal that the bridge p/u changes and not the neck p/u. This was the response...

They both take the same time, its more obvious in the neck because the strings up there are way more bassy than what the bridge pickup hears. Most are hearing the neck do something nice after about 7 days. Usually after a month the neck is pretty stable, the JP neck I play took probably 3 months to really turn into something awesome. The hotter the neck pickup the longer it takes

[Polar Bear]

I'm struggling to believe that magnet and wire can break in also. What's the scientific reasoning, or explanation behind it?

[Capt. Black]

Can I just get this straight?
Despite the fact you think the pickups sound SO wrong and in spite of all our suggestions and recommendations and in spite of the explicit "do not ignore" instructions from the pick up maker, you're saying you're not planning to check the installation, check the wiring, check the other components, change the strings, or make any adjustments to heights?
Rather, you hope that in a month they will magically become dramatically better sounding.

Sorry voxhall, I do believe these will be great sounding pickups once they're set up properly but, did I miss something here?