SG - Advise on new pickups

[Scrubber]

Hi all...

I'm new here so please be gentle!!!!!!!!! I'm based in the North East of England

I have a mid 1980's Gibson SG Special "Ferrari Red" and i've had lots of issues with the neck pickup and wiring. I'm at a stage where i want to ditch what i have and get someone to do a full rewire with new pots, pickups etc. This is not my main guitar but it's still one of my favorites so i want to spend some time and money on it...

What i need is come advise of which pickups to choose....  The present pickups are great but very muddy. I was thinking of maybe having a P90 type PU for the bridge pick and maybe a split coil humbucker for the neck (the type you can switch to single coil by pulling out the pot).

I mostly play rock/indie, lots of Foo Fighters etc in cover bands.

As you can see form my rantings here i'm no guitar tech so any advise/guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks
Shaun

[Mr. Air]

According to pickups I'll suggest you take a look at the Mississippi Queens if you want p90. They're p90s in humbucker housing so they'll fit your guitar without any routing. I got a set of MQs in a semi hollow and they are really excellent pickups that can cover a lot of territory. The neck MQ has a clean tone to die for. Super sweat and articulate.

If you want humbuckers have a look at the Riff Raffs. They are versatile and a bit hotter with more brightness than a traditional PAF pickup which suits the all mahogany bodied SG.

A new rewiring of the guitar might be a good idea. Get some quality pots, caps and wire. This should improve the tone of the guitar as well as new pickups.

[Sarkasis]

Any humbucker that you get with a 4-conductor wiring (which can be all of them) can be wired with a push-pull or push-push pot for coil splitting. If I recall you can also get any P-90 in humbucker size.

[Kiichi]

I wholeheartedly second Mr Air.

The MQ would do wonders for you, the neck too I think. P90s have such a wonderfull roar about them and they can scream like heck and sing beautfifully when you want them too.

Awesome for Foo Fighters and such I would say.

[Telerocker]

MQ's would def. work. MQ/RiffRaff-neck will be a good combo if you want a split on the neckpickup.

[Scrubber]

Thank you so much for the help here guys... I'll look into the pickups and then find myself a good tech in the local area.

Thanks again
Shaun

[Dave Sloven]

I think you might need to switch to 250K pots if you get single coil pickups.  You can get 250K push-pull or even push-push pots from companies like Mojotone in the USA.  If you get humbuckers use 500K

There might be someone near you who can provide a full vintage style wired harness from point to point.  I have one in my SG.  If there is you could ask them to make you a special one with different pots or capacitors (they might charge a bit more).  I'm based in Australia so it wouldn't be practical to go with the guy who did mine here, but you might want to look at the thread on my guitar, which has contemporary humbuckers in it, a Cold Sweat neck and alnico Nailbomb bridge, with 500K Mojotone CTS pots (no switched pots at present) and WD Music oil in paper caps.

https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=30083.0

The only thing that you can see in those photos I would change (besides the bridge earth, which needs to be sorted out properly) is the lack of shielding.  You might want to look into that.  I'm going to remove my harness and pickups eventually and paint the inside with shielding paint, including the underside of the pickguard and control cavity cover.  Although the pickups you are considering are not as hot as mine it might still be worth doing.  I got the idea from the following book, which I would recommend for all SG owners (Gibson or Epiphone):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gibson-SG-Manual-maintain-best-selling/dp/0857332899/