What pickups for LP Signature T for high gain clarity and glassy cleans?

[Markdude]

Hi everyone,

I am about to order my first set of BKPs and I'm overwhelmed by the choices. Everything seems awesome, and all clips I've heard are also awesome.

I just ordered a Gibson Les Paul Signature T, so like most Les Pauls, it will have a mahogany body and a maple cap. I'm not interested in keeping the '57 Classics in it as I've already owned an LP with them and I know I want something different. BKPs seem to be the best pickups around, so I wanna throw some in the new axe.

I'm definitely not primarily a metal player, but I do like somewhat saturated high gain sounds and I like tight, gutsy palm mutes. I suppose my ideal high gain sound would be like that of '80s hard rock, with a good bit of high mid focus and a lot of 'chunk' to the sound, along with good note definition and clarity. I know that probably sounds generic, but I guess the distinction I'm trying to make is that even though I like high gain sounds, I'm not looking for scooped mids or a hardcore metal sound. I definitely want palm mutes to sound tight while still retaining articulate, percussive punchiness at the same time.

However, I'm not the type of player that does only high gain. Cleans are very important to me (especially for the neck pickup) and I want something that can do glassy, rich clean tones (think Oceansize if you've ever heard of them, a lot of their clean tones are single coil but they get nice humbucker ones sometimes), and nice low gain tones out of the bridge pickup without sounding honky.

Another thing worth nothing, although it's more of an icing on the cake thing, is that this guitar will have coil splitting capability, so something that sounds good with the coils split would be a good plus.

Thanks!

[littleredguitars2]

to me, it sounds like a rebel yell would suit you well. i have a set in my les paul and it does everything you're looking for. but i'm sure there are a couple other options that would work out great as well.

[richard]

The RY is getting a lot of recommendations lately and rightly so. It's a class act.

Try this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=20zSjw98Gvg

These are mine:

Radar love

I have coil splits and the split sounds are great especially the bridge.

[Telerocker]

+1 for the Rebel Yell. It has that uppermid bite you're looking for.

[Dave Sloven]

Rebel Yell set.

I'm sure Kiichi can fill you in on how he coil split the RY in his guitar

[Markdude]

Awesome! Rebel Yells it is then. Those Youtube clips sound amazing, Richard.

Thanks for the help! I can't wait to get this axe all spiced up.

[ericsabbath]

cold sweats would work too, as an alternative

[Kiichi]

Rebel Yell set.

I'm sure Kiichi can fill you in on how he coil split the RY in his guitar

I really am that predictable arenīt I...but let me also tell you about polepieces!!! xD

Nah, seriously, two things for which I am the parrot around here:
1. You might wanne consider doing a split wiring. However half a HB is not really a SC, it will be weaker and thinner. It will always be like that, but you can make it come closer.
To do this you wanne go PRS wiring. That means that you put a resistor in series with the ground path. Now instead of sending the entire coil to ground you just massivly turn it down. Here you of course loose more treble than bass. This way you get a back some output and bottom end. Itīs no night and day thing, but easy to do and for clean tones highly worth it.
PRS recommends 1k Ohm for the neck and 2k for the bridge.

2. Tweak the hight on the RY. This PU is insanely sensitive to it. Go from super low to super high and back noting the changes. Really go methodically about finding that sweet spot. Generally you can say higher gives more output, compression, bottom end, etc. while the lower the PU you get more agression, clarity, definition and woodyness.
If you wanne go high but have more definition and clarity with a bit of extra agression raise the pole pieces (up to 1mm I say). Gives back a certain something. Again, worth trying if you ask me, at least when you find something lacking by just regular height adjustment and are lookcing for those described qualitys.

[richard]

Def go along with Kiichi's suggestion regarding height. I tweaked mine for weeks before I found my personal sweet spot.

[BigB]

1. You might wanne consider doing a split wiring. However half a HB is not really a SC, it will be weaker and thinner.
(snip PRS coil-tapping stuff)

Another option - which I've always found to work better than coil-splitting (but I've not tried coil-tapping) - is a serial/parallel switch. Most of the added volume / fatness and hi-end loss on a 'bucker comes from the coils being in series. With the coils parallel, you get a much more single-coilish tone (less output, less fat, more highs) without the shrillness / thinness of a coil-split (well, on the pups I tried this at least but these were either very ordinary 'buckers or worse - think Dm X2Ns) AND (that's the nice point) while still retaining the humbucking effect.

FWIW and IIRC (please someone correct me if I say something wrong), this is how Gretsch's filtertrons (which predates the PAF) are (were ?) wired. Ok, a PAF-inspired 'bucker wired in parallel will still not sound like a filtertron - just like two Tele pups wired in series (the 4-way switch mod) won't sound like a PAF -, but that's still an option to consider IMHO.

[Kiichi]

Agreed that is also an option. I have not tried it very much myself, only on my mule neck, but it is good. Personally I prefer the split still I think, but I can see how a lot of people would prefer it. A big part in the decision for me is the HB for which you decide. With a low output model splitting it losses you even more, so series / parallel seems more viable there, but when you have more output splitting becomes quite attractive.

[darkbluemurder]

Another vote for the Rebel Yell set.

Cheers Stephan