New Pickup Day! (LP w/ Stormy Mondays)

[Tsetse]

Hi there!

I registered some time ago and asked some questions on which pickups to get in this thread:

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=19506.0

I also spoke to Tim about which pickups to get for my Les Paul Classic (w/ stock ceramic pups)
and I pretty much followed his advice and ordered a calibrated set of covered and potted Stormy Mondays,
along with some PIO capacitors to replace the ceramic ones.
The package arrived at the end of last week (along with a set of strings and a pick, thanks!).
I've got the pickups put in since and gave the guitar
some playing time on my own as well as at practice with my band.

Well, I think that is the last thing I'm ever going to change on that guitar (except for strings, of course).
It took only a little experimentation with pickup heights and now I've really found the perfect
Les Paul tone for me. It's sounding warm, but neither boomy nor muddy (regardless of which pickup is selected), with lots of string definition and absolutely lovely clean tones.
The guitar has really changed (output- and tonewise), but there's a lot more of its acoustic character
shining through.

When overdriven, the guitar really sings and still has lots of warm sustain.
Like mentioned before, I use a SF Twin Reverb for my clean tone and I've never expected my LP
to sound so great through it. I can get absolutely clean tones and when the guitar is on full volume, the pups
add just the slightest amount of "hair" to the sound. I'm pretty amazed by this as I've always thought
the Twin to be an amp that only works REALLY well with single coils.
Additionally, I've since gotten my hands on an old Bandmaster Reverb Head (which I use for my
overdriven sounds) and the LP is still fully able to drive that thing quite a bit.
With regards to my other guitar, a '52 Tele RI, I can really switch between guitars without having
to adjust the amps a lot, so using both guitars in live situations has really become an option again
(which I will use). The LP feels more alive than ever and I've really grown to love it again.

Thanks for all your help and thanks to Tim for making those pickups,
I couldn't be happier with them!

Greetings,
Stephan

[tomjackson]

Stormy Monday's are great, congrats.

They are a very musical pickup with a very broad sonic range.  I found that they sound at home at many styles.

Pity I sold mine because I was too lazy to take them out of the guitar they were inm now my 335 is begging for some!

[BigB]

(snip)
The guitar has really changed (output- and tonewise), but there's a lot more of its acoustic character
shining through.
(snip)
The LP feels more alive than ever and I've really grown to love it again.

Thanks for all your help and thanks to Tim for making those pickups,
I couldn't be happier with them!

Hi Tsetse

Glad to learn you enjoy your "new" axe  :D

Kind of had the same feeling when I replaced the stock X2Ns with a crawler set on my Vox Custom 24 - was my first BKP set (waiting for the second one - BGF50 for a CiJ '62 RI Tele), and the difference was just so incredible I just couldn't believe it. Felt like I had a brand new guitar - and yet it still was the same one I had been playing for the 20 past years and loved so much unplugged, except that suddenly, it sounded even better plugged than unplugged   :o. And FWIW, this feeling only gets stronger with time - each time I plug this guitar (that is, almost every day...) I discover some new subtle detail and love it even more.

Hope you'll have such an happy experience with the SM on your LP - but given the love you seem to have for this guitar and your first impression, I'm pretty confident it'll do the same to you  8)

Thanks for sharing anyway - and happy NPD of course  8)

[Tsetse]

@tomjackson:

Stormy Monday's are great, congrats.

They are a very musical pickup with a very broad sonic range.  I found that they sound at home at many styles

Thanks! Yes, your description fits their sound very well. I guess it's because of their (comparatively) low output that they don't over-emphasize certain frequencies. It still has that typical LP thing with that mid "honk", but it's not that dominant or extreme any more. It still sounds very different from my Tele, of course, which is a good thing, because I wanted two use those two guitars for different things. Those pickups definitely do it for me. The LP doesn't have the power to make the Twin sound "ugly" (which was a big problem before), but sounds really rich with a lot of clarity through that amp yet still has enough power to push the Bandmaster over the edge.
Before, I always thought that I'd have to use the Tele for the "cleaner" songs and save the LP for the "dirtier" ones but right now I'm not sure which guitar sounds sweeter or more interesting through the Twin. They're just different, not better or worse.

With the Bandmaster it's really magical. The LP really starts to sing through that amp and when the sustain ebbs away, it goes into absolutely sweet feedback... it's hard to describe, but that is the most musical feedback I've heard and it's easily controllable as well.
It's really astonishing how good both guitars work on very similar amp settings, for live purposes I think I'll be able to get away with leaving both amps at the same settings and just switch to the appropriate guitar for the next song. Tbh, I never thought that would be possible.

One more thing: Both guitars are dead silent with both amps when nothing gets played, so that's a big plus as well.

@BigB: Hi once again!  :D

Felt like I had a brand new guitar

Same here... it's more responsive, dynamic, clear than ever before. The things I play when unplugged translate into the plugged sound seamlessly. It just works, right now I just want to go to the practice room with that guitar, plug it in and let loose...

given the love you seem to have for this guitar

Yes, I do. It's full of memories for me and this was my first "real" or "serious" guitar. I really saved up for that guitar in the first place and even my grandma helped me out to get it. Once I got it I took it to a lot of gigs and used it with all the bands I had before my current band. So it was just a shame that when my taste in music changed, that guitar seemingly didn't want to change with me. I would have never sold it for sentimental reasons anyway, but now it's become a real "user" again which I'm actively incorporating into the band sound again. Those pups really rekindled an old love... yeah I know, I'm a sentimental old fart when it comes to that guitar   :lol:

Anyway, I'm enjoying it as much as when I had it brand-new.

On a different note:

(waiting for the second one - BGF50 for a CiJ '62 RI Tele)

Really looking forward to what you'll say about those pickups. Given on what the SMs did to my Les Paul, I don't want to exclude the possibilty to swap my Tele pickups as well...

[FernandoDuarte]

Great! I bet that this guitar sings "Jessica" without you playing it! :)

[LP_LOVER]

1) The guitar has really changed (output- and tonewise), but there's a lot more of its acoustic character
shining through.

2) The LP feels more alive than ever and I've really grown to love it again.

1) It's impossible to change the naturel tone of your Les Paul with different pickups. They do change the eq to make the tone as balanced as possible, which differs from guitar to guitar.

The added bonus is that these pickups let the acoustic character (unplugged tone) shine through, which can be very bad, something in-between or extremly good.

2) That's because of the pick sensitivity you get from these pickups and the guitars woods.