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I NEED HELP!!!!!!! I own a Les Paul Classic with stock ceramic pickups. These things are way too hot for my tastes. I like the output when I play with gonzo distortion, but I also like cleaner and slightly overdriven sounds. As you can guess, these pickups suck when being used for the latter. I'm looking at SD pickups to replace them because I've heard nothing but good things about them, and a lot of my favorite artists use them (though my No. 1 guy, David Gilmour, uses EMGs, and I would consider putting his system in a Strat, but that's another time and another place). Thus, the question I have is this: what would be a good choice for covering cleaner jazz type things to metal distortion sounds? I'm considering the JB/Jazz combo that Adam Jones of Tool and about 100 other artist use, but will I have the same problem with the JB (too hot for a good clean sound) as I do with the stock Gibsons? Would a set of Alnico II pickups suffice? I'm kinda lost here!


Originally Posted by asylum1298I NEED HELP!!!!!!! I own a Les Paul Classic with stock ceramic pickups. These things are way too hot for my tastes. I like the output when I play with gonzo distortion, but I also like cleaner and slightly overdriven sounds. As you can guess, these pickups suck when being used for the latter. I'm looking at SD pickups to replace them because I've heard nothing but good things about them, and a lot of my favorite artists use them (though my No. 1 guy, David Gilmour, uses EMGs, and I would consider putting his system in a Strat, but that's another time and another place). Thus, the question I have is this: what would be a good choice for covering cleaner jazz type things to metal distortion sounds? I'm considering the JB/Jazz combo that Adam Jones of Tool and about 100 other artist use, but will I have the same problem with the JB (too hot for a good clean sound) as I do with the stock Gibsons? Would a set of Alnico II pickups suffice? I'm kinda lost here!

Custom would do well for the bridge, but doesn;t clean up the best

Custom Custom in the bridge will give ya the output and be smoother...better cleans

PG set would work, as a well as 59s, APros, or Seths.

I'd stay away from a JB in a Paula...I've yet to hear one that didn't just end up sounding more like a JB, and less like a Paula...overbearing with the frequency overlap IMO

If bridge cleans are a must stay away from the Custom...otherwise, I'd go Custom/59, Custom/PG, Custom/APro

Hi, welcome to the forum. What kind of amp are you playing through?

Right now, in my Hamer Special I have an Alnico II Pro in the neck and a Custom 5 bridge and they work very well for pretty much anything. Cleans are great and these pickups really sing when used with hihg gain. In my Les Paul, I have a Pearly Gates at the neck and a Pearly Gates in the bridge. The tone is a little more quot;vintagequot; than with my Hamer, maybe a touch brighter. Other than that, I can use my Lester for pretty much any style of music.

I highly recommend the C5. It brought new life to my Epi, I can only imagine it would sound even sweeter in your LP.

This pup (IMO) is one of the most versatile pups in the SD line up. It can do crunchy Led Zep, AC/DC stuff to punk hard rock stuff. Roll back the vol know and it cleans up extremely well, and very well balanced.

Combine it with the '59 in the neck!

My vote is for the CC/AII Pro. My Hamer has similar woods to your LP, and that combo sounds AWESOME in it. I tried the JB in my Hamer and I didn't like it as much as I liked it in Alder/Basswood body guitars. If you want a lower output bridge pup, an AII set or Jazz set would do nicely too. (I believe Jolly has some clips of the Jazz bridge, sounds amazing)

I'm with Jeff (both of 'em). The CC is a good choice. Classified as hot but it doesn't behave that way. I love it in my LP. And like mentioned, A2Pro neck or Jazz neck. 59 bridge is a good choice in the vintage humbucker class.


Originally Posted by Benjy_26Hi, welcome to the forum. What kind of amp are you playing through?

Right now, in my Hamer Special I have an Alnico II Pro in the neck and a Custom 5 bridge and they work very well for pretty much anything. Cleans are great and these pickups really sing when used with hihg gain. In my Les Paul, I have a Pearly Gates at the neck and a Pearly Gates in the bridge. The tone is a little more quot;vintagequot; than with my Hamer, maybe a touch brighter. Other than that, I can use my Lester for pretty much any style of music.Thanks for the tips (and the welcome). Right now I'm working on a two amp setup, with a MESA/Boogie Subway Blues, which is a killer, no-frills amp, and my Fender Cyber-Twin. I'm running the MESA dry, with only a Boss Overdrive/Distortion going into it to get switchable drive sounds and letting the Twin cover all the effects. (By the way, a really cool solo sound for someone running a similar setup is having the dry amp set up with some distortion and theTwin set to the quot;Subliminal Jimiquot; preset with it's reverse delay. On slower, non-shred solos, this sound is really cool.) I'm gonna have to take both the amps to get re-tubed soon, so I think I'm just gonna save my money and have my whole rig tweaked by a tech. I'm not wanting to see that bill!!