Replacement Pickups for Gibson Sg Standard (Opinions and Suggestions Please!)

[Alex]

Ok I'm gonna sound very stupid but what does CTS mean and what effects do the pots have to the pickups?

CTS  is just a pot brand - which happens to be of decent quality. About the effect of pots on your tone (and overly simpified): a part of the high frequencies always "bleed" to the pot's earth. The higher the pot's value, the lesser you loose your highs, so you can play on the pot's value as a kind of fixed tone control. One usually uses lesser values for bright vintage single coils (250K pots is the standard on strats and teles) and higher values for darker higher output humbuckers (500K being the standard).

Note that there's usually a +/- 20% tolerance so a 500K pot can range from 450 to 550K (usually it's rather between 450 and 500 than above 500). And yes, 50K can make an audible difference.

Exactly. To add to that: Gibson uses some rather strange pots rated at 300K (usually mixed with some 500K). I have found on my two Gibsons that new pots have improved the tonal quality a lot, making the sound not only brighter but also better defined, transparent and less mushy.

[Jonasan5150]

Hmmm...so 500k pots are the way to go for humbuckers?

[darkbluemurder]

There is no hard and fast rule but I believe most would agree that 500k works well for humbuckers - the best compromise between good high frequency response and even taper.

Cheers Stephan

[Jonasan5150]

OK thanks. So what's a good neck pickup that will suit the Warpig, Black Dog, and/or Alnice Nailbomb? I haven't decided which bridge pickup yet so until I settle on one I'm open to any options for the neck pickup.

[BigB]

I'm currently waiting for a A-Bomb bridge for my own '80 SG Standard, so I can't tell yet how it works - now my own SG is definitly not thin sounding nor trebly (rather on the dark and "full" side) so it won't probably sound the same.

Let me know how it sounds when it comes in if you don't mind.

So here we go... Just a very quick "first impressions" review, as I only had a few minutes to try it out, but well... First and most important point: it works quite well in this particular SG - "big powerful crunchy sound", very clear and detailed even under high gain, rich highs but with present lows and roaring mids, and definitly NOT thin at all :twisted:. Works wonder for power chords and open chords riffs, had to roll down the tone knob a bit for leads but haven't tweaked anything (height adjustement, amp settings etc) yet. I'll tell you more after our next rehearsal...

[Grim]

OK thanks. So what's a good neck pickup that will suit the Warpig, Black Dog, and/or Alnice Nailbomb? I haven't decided which bridge pickup yet so until I settle on one I'm open to any options for the neck pickup.

I'd say VHII is a good choice, probably too hot for the Black Dog though. In that case I'd go for one of the Vintage pups like a Mule.

[Jonasan5150]

So here we go... Just a very quick "first impressions" review, as I only had a few minutes to try it out, but well... First and most important point: it works quite well in this particular SG - "big powerful crunchy sound", very clear and detailed even under high gain, rich highs but with present lows and roaring mids, and definitly NOT thin at all :twisted:. Works wonder for power chords and open chords riffs, had to roll down the tone knob a bit for leads but haven't tweaked anything (height adjustement, amp settings etc) yet. I'll tell you more after our next rehearsal...

Ok that sounds like what I'm looking for. How is the versatility? Btw thanks for the update!

[Jonasan5150]

OK thanks. So what's a good neck pickup that will suit the Warpig, Black Dog, and/or Alnice Nailbomb? I haven't decided which bridge pickup yet so until I settle on one I'm open to any options for the neck pickup.

I'd say VHII is a good choice, probably too hot for the Black Dog though. In that case I'd go for one of the Vintage pups like a Mule.

What kind of tone does the VHII give? Thanks for the suggestion!

[BigB]

So here we go... Just a very quick "first impressions" review, as I only had a few minutes to try it out, but well... First and most important point: it works quite well in this particular SG - "big powerful crunchy sound", very clear and detailed even under high gain, rich highs but with present lows and roaring mids, and definitly NOT thin at all :twisted:. Works wonder for power chords and open chords riffs, had to roll down the tone knob a bit for leads but haven't tweaked anything (height adjustement, amp settings etc) yet. I'll tell you more after our next rehearsal...

Ok that sounds like what I'm looking for. How is the versatility? Btw thanks for the update!

After a rehearsal, a quick height adjustement and a first gig, I can confirm the first impressions. While it's not quite as warm for lead work as the old JB(J) it replaces, the added bite, clarity and definition really helped for the gig yesterday, as I didn't have to overpower my singer's guitar to cut thru the mix.

wrt/ versatility, it's perhaps a bit too soon to give an in-depth answer, but it indeed seems to react as advertised to the volume pot, going from full-roar to more classic, old school rock tones, without loosing bite nor definition (Gibson 50s style wiring with PIO caps and 500K pots here).   

Once again, both SGs and NBs are known to be bit picky wrt/ what (resp) pups / guitars they work fine with so I can't tell how it would sound in your own axe, but it seems I'm a lucky bar-steward, 'cause so far it really sounds good in mine :mrgreen:

[ztikmaen]

From what I hear, it gives a more cutting and "single coil-y" sounding.
By the way, what is it about SGs that makes it harder to go pickup shopping for?

[Philly Q]

By the way, what is it about SGs that makes it harder to go pickup shopping for?

It's just that a set-neck, all-mahogany construction naturally tends to emphasise bass and midrange frequencies (even though the thin body of an SG can make it sound quite bright acoustically).

It seems to work very well with vintage-output pickups (Mule, Stormy Monday, Riff Raff).  It also works with high-output pickups because you're almost hearing more pickup than wood.  But when you fit a medium-output pickup with a bit of bass or lower-mids it seems to mush out and/or get boomy on the bass strings (the worst pickup I ever tried in an SG was a DiMarzio Tone Zone, a horrible muddy mess).

Personally I think you can get away with some medium-output pickups, if they're bright and tight enough:  Cold Sweats sound awesome in an SG, and I think the Rebel Yell would work too.  Crawlers or Holydivers wouldn't work!
 
Here's a very old quote from Tim:

I always recommend trying to keep the output low on SG's as medium output pickups mud out with all that mahogany, hence my Riff Raff suggestion.A high gainer like a Warpig sounds good and so does a Miracle Man as both have more than enough power to really drive through timber.Funnily enough I fitted a Stormy Monday to a friends SG and that sounded really nice too......quite a surprise but it chunked up really well into an overdriven Marshall.
The ones to avoid are the medium output humbuckers as they simply seem to add to the bottom end of the mahogany.So I wouldn't bother with VHII,Emerald, Crawler or even a Nailbomb as that's got a big bass response too even though it's quite high gain.
I wouldn't totally dismiss it but my experience of SG's is the bottom end blooms up quite a bit with certain pickups and the Nailbomb has a lot of bottom and mid range both inherent in an SG.Some SGs will take a Nailbomb perfectly well if they're very bright but on the whole I've found that sub DC8.5K humbuckers sound fantastic,Alnico V powered humbuckers in particular the closer you get to DC8.5K so in this instance if a customer wanted a Mule I'd go with AV over AIV.A Stormy Monday, because the wind is lower and the tone more open, sounds great with AIV.
At the other end of the scale, the high gainers like Miracle Man which is ceramic powered work well as the magnet controls the bass response or Warpig are excellent.Both of these are wound with a very fine gauge wire which keeps the coil size small.........the smaller coil footprint under the strings keeps the tone more focused.

[ztikmaen]

So you'd have the same problem with a topless Les Paul?
Well that's interesting. No mention about the Black Dogs?

[Jonasan5150]

That's interesting...so even though I use a lower output humbucker it can still give an SG a full sound? I've always been drawn to high output pickups for some odd reason but I guess its because I'm a little scared that low output pickups won't give me a big sound as oppossed to high gain pickups but I am open to new things. Also, as i was going through the different pickups and their specs, I noticed that alot of the pickups that had huge amounts of bass which appealed to me because I'm looking for pickups to beef up my SG. With the vintage pickups, can it get a big crunchy sound and also go to metal?

[Philly Q]

So you'd have the same problem with a topless Les Paul?

Exactly!  But on a typical  Les Paul the maple top adds some brightness and balances out the warmth and bassiness of the mahogany.   So Les Pauls seem to work great with just about any humbucker.

I've often wondered if Gibson worked that out right from the start, or whether the top was just there to look good!  If it was intentional, whoever came up with that idea was very clever.

Well that's interesting. No mention about the Black Dogs?

I think Black Dogs would generally come under the "avoid" category in SGs, because although there's not much output the pickup has quite a lot of bass/low mids.

I did have a Black Dog in the bridge position of a V, and it sounded fine actually, but (I've said this many times) a bit dark next to the Stormy Monday in the neck position.

[Philly Q]

That's interesting...so even though I use a lower output humbucker it can still give an SG a full sound? I've always been drawn to high output pickups for some odd reason but I guess its because I'm a little scared that low output pickups won't give me a big sound as oppossed to high gain pickups but I am open to new things. Also, as i was going through the different pickups and their specs, I noticed that alot of the pickups that had huge amounts of bass which appealed to me because I'm looking for pickups to beef up my SG. With the vintage pickups, can it get a big crunchy sound and also go to metal?

You can definitely get a big sound from lower output pickups in an SG!  It's all about letting the amp do its share of the work!  I'll leave that for someone else to comment on since I don't gig or play at volume.....

When you talk about pickups with "huge amounts of bass", I'd bear those comments from Tim in mind.  The bottom end tends to get mushy/boomy (or "bloom" as Tim says), and once that's happening you can't do much to tighten it back up again.

First time I learned this was putting a DiMarzio Tone Zone in a Gordon-Smith GS2.  It sounded horrible, much worse than the stock pickups, and I couldn't understand why.  Then years later I put the same pickup in an SG and got exactly the same result.   But put a Tone Zone in a brighter/more neutral sounding guitar with a bolt-on neck and it's fine.