TonalDynamics
New member
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2020
- Messages
- 2
Evening all, first post here. :dude:
I've had a 2013 Les Paul Standard for a few years now, and I am starting to think it's time to put some new PUPs in them. I hate to say it but the stock BBPros don't really sound all that great to me. It's a beautiful guitar, but to me the neck pup sounds rather muddy and undefined, and this is after a height adjustment and lowering them a bit.
Particularly for clean tones, I don't really find them impressive at all. Also, they somehow seem to be very "sensitive" I guess is the right word? I get more random string noises with this guitar, especially with the top 3 strings, than I ever did with the Dimarzios in my Ibanez RG or the SDs in my clapton strat. In fact, with this particular guitar those 3 strings will ring out even when playing with light dynamics the majority of time unless I mute them.
To be totally fair, I didn't buy this guitar for its clean tones, I bought it to basically keep it tuned in drop D and be a massive, crunchy chuggachugga rhythmic foundation, with larger than life single-note sustain and rich tone as is its purview... but lately the more I think about it, the more I am doubting these pickups and feel like they're probably not the best thing for this instrument.
Also the bridge pup can have a "harsh" character to it at times, maybe harsh is too harsh a word idk. Like its bright but not the good kind of bright, almost in a "thin" sounding way.
So I guess I'm looking for less muddy, more defined pickups which will still bring the thunder when cranked for saturated sustaining rock rhythm but have a bit more pleasant clean character as well. I know these pups are in the coil-tap sysem, which can yield some interesting results at times. Will this complicate things a bit/should it affect my decision? I'd like to keep the coil-tapping feature if I could, although I admit I have no idea how it will affect the wiring and so forth.
I'm interested to hear about others experience and thoughts about the stock BBPros in general as well.
Really appreciate any feedback/insight you guys could give me. Thanks!
-TonalDynamics
I've had a 2013 Les Paul Standard for a few years now, and I am starting to think it's time to put some new PUPs in them. I hate to say it but the stock BBPros don't really sound all that great to me. It's a beautiful guitar, but to me the neck pup sounds rather muddy and undefined, and this is after a height adjustment and lowering them a bit.
Particularly for clean tones, I don't really find them impressive at all. Also, they somehow seem to be very "sensitive" I guess is the right word? I get more random string noises with this guitar, especially with the top 3 strings, than I ever did with the Dimarzios in my Ibanez RG or the SDs in my clapton strat. In fact, with this particular guitar those 3 strings will ring out even when playing with light dynamics the majority of time unless I mute them.
To be totally fair, I didn't buy this guitar for its clean tones, I bought it to basically keep it tuned in drop D and be a massive, crunchy chuggachugga rhythmic foundation, with larger than life single-note sustain and rich tone as is its purview... but lately the more I think about it, the more I am doubting these pickups and feel like they're probably not the best thing for this instrument.
Also the bridge pup can have a "harsh" character to it at times, maybe harsh is too harsh a word idk. Like its bright but not the good kind of bright, almost in a "thin" sounding way.
So I guess I'm looking for less muddy, more defined pickups which will still bring the thunder when cranked for saturated sustaining rock rhythm but have a bit more pleasant clean character as well. I know these pups are in the coil-tap sysem, which can yield some interesting results at times. Will this complicate things a bit/should it affect my decision? I'd like to keep the coil-tapping feature if I could, although I admit I have no idea how it will affect the wiring and so forth.
I'm interested to hear about others experience and thoughts about the stock BBPros in general as well.
Really appreciate any feedback/insight you guys could give me. Thanks!
-TonalDynamics
Last edited:
