Neck pickup suggestion for Les Paul

[darkbluemurder]

Hi,

I have a Les Paul for which I want new pickups. I have tried a few different sets in this guitar but no BKPs yet. Most of the bridge pickups I tried were OK but any PAF type neck pickup was always far too bassy and muddy on the 3 bottom strings no matter how it was set (pickup height, adjustment of polepieces - pots are CTS 500k BTW). The pickup with the least muddiness was a Wilde by Lawrence L-500C but unfortunately the guitar does no longer sound like a Les Paul. There must be a way to get the Les Paul tone without the muddiness on the lower strings or are these intrinsically intertwined?

So I am first looking for a neck pickup that is really tight in the bass and clear/full in the rest of the frequency range, and then match the bridge pickup to it. The tone should be typically Les Paul so I was looking at the vintage and vintage hot categories. This guitar is intended for blues rock and classic rock - no metal.

From the descriptions and tone charts it seems that Riff Raff and VHII would come closest to what I am looking at. I ruled out Mules and Stormy Mondays for now because they may be too bassy in that guitar as well.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and kind regards,
Stephan

[ericsabbath]

riff raff set, brother

 :D

[Telerocker]

VHII is awesome for the neckposition. I'd stick to a Mule for the bridge (closest to the '59 PAF-tone).

[Nolly]

I agree with Eric's Riff Raff recommendation, though I don't think the Mules would have any clarity issues whatsoever.

[gwEm]

i also think riff raffs

[darkbluemurder]

Thanks guys, this seems to be an easy one :D.

[dheim]

my neck mule has a great, bright and definite sound in my LP... easily one of my favourite neck pickups! ever thought about a Mississippi Queen?

[darkbluemurder]

I have one Mississippi Queen. To be honest, it was not what I wanted to hear in that particular guitar. While it helped with the muddy bass problem it had too much midrange and not enough highs. Also - being a true single coil - it hums.

[darkbluemurder]

I have not followed this up for a while until very recently when I did a little experimenting with various bridges. I found out that this particular guitar had a very dark sounding bridge. I now fitted a Duesenberg steel saddle bridge which made the guitar quite a bit brighter.

I then stuck the Abraxas neck in the neck position and bingo - muddiness bye-bye. Great fat lead tone for sure.

I have not finally decided on the bridge pickup but I guess that's an easy one - I probably just get the Abraxas bridge.

Cheers Stephan
 

[gordiji]

i can't make a recommendation (positive one) but your right to stay away from stormy II in the neck because it can be boomy and flabby. it's great clean and earns its money higher up the register when driven giving lovely creamy tones,
it's a trade off.mines in an LP and i love it paired with a vhII.

[wolfenstein]

I had the same problem with my Les paul...Dark and mudy..I emailed Tim and he answered Riff raff in bridge...Also I asked about Emerald as higher output option he said  ""the Riff Raff is going to have the tightest bass response - the Emerald will have more output but it will reproduce more bottom end too.""

[darkbluemurder]

The bridge pickup was never a problem in that guitar. Every bridge pickup I had in there sounded good or better. But the neck pickup was always a problem, especially on the wound strings.

That particular case just goes to show that pickups are not alone responsible for the total sound but only part of the picture, as is the hardware (as is the amp and the player).

Cheers Stephan