Best Blues/Jazz Pickups for Les Paul? (NGD)

[Cboysen]

Hi all!

NGD: I've acquired a Les Paul Standard Faded from 08. It's stunningly beautiful, 3.9kg chambered with one piece back and neck. The acoustic tone is very resonant and balanced with a great airy/woody quality.   It's probably one of the best Les Pauls I've ever played/heard.

Current pickups: Burstbucker Pros



Into my champ/princeton clone, it sounds good. The response is sweet and you can sense that this is a quality instrument. The tone is not really balanced though, in comparison to the unplugged sound. It also seems to be quite high in output, overpowering the preamp section, making it all a little muffled / muddy, especially in neck position.

So I'm looking for lower output pickups, brighter/extended range, more balanced and able to deliver the clean sound, I know the guitar is capable of. It'll be doing mostly jazz/blues and occasionally soft rock / blues rock.

I've leaning towards a set of Stormy Mondays, or Mules, maybe even the SM neck/Abraxas Bridge - prefering the clips of the SMs, but need to make sure the bridge pickup can handle a great rock lead sound.

What do you guys think? Any comments are greatly appreciated.

Kind regards
Christian

[AndyR]

Fab geetar - absolutely gorgeous :-)

I was looking out for one of these a while back and then I found a limited run 2016 version with a plain top. Incredibly fabulous guitars. Mine came with 57+/57 Classics.

I've put Stormy Mondays in mine. I believe they'll do what you want.

Haven't recorded with that one yet, but I also have Stormies in a 2012 Traditional that I have done a few recordings with.

All the guitars on the following three are that Traditional with Stormy Mondays. In each song, there was very little changing the amp settings, I just used the controls on the guitar to change the sounds for each part.

This one's got the most lead in it, including harmony stuff near the end, but it's full of "clean" rhythm and some crunchy stuff:
https://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/silver-swan

This one is blues/rock, I was going for an earlier Billy Gibbons vibe, could've done with a slightly cleaner basic amp:
https://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/are-you-done

This one is, I dunno, pop-rock. It's the first time I recorded with the Stormies (I was AMAZED at what they could do ... and as a confirmed strat-man of 30-odd years I haven't really played a strat since!!):
https://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/dancing-girl



Mules can do it it too - this thing has a lead guitar that starts in the middle somewhere that I played on Mules in a 335 (the Riff Raffed SG broke a string! I think most of the rhythm gits are the SG and an Explorer with 57s - there might even be some Mississippi Queens in there too - I can't remember):
https://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/meet-me-at-the-crossroads

And this one is all Mules (the same set) in a Tokai Loverock before it gave them up to the 335:
https://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/muletide


Personally, I don't find the Mule cleans feel so sweet and yummy to play as the Stormies do. They do do clean, but just not quite as organic an vocal as the Stormies seem to be for what I want. This means they don't seem to work so well as "all-rounders" for me. Not sure about Abraxas - haven't tried them, though they are on my list, I suspect they might be a little hot for what you want?

So, for what you're describing, I'd suggest Stormies. Or conceivably a Mule bridge with a Stormy neck? I love the middle position on SM/SM though. And I use bridge pickup clean just as much as I do the neck.

[Cboysen]

Thanks for the extensive post Andy R!

I had already read a few of your Stormy Monday reviews, and that has been a big part of sending me in the right direction. The soundclips are lovely, and you sing really well! The guitar is sweet, and very musical, very bare knuckle-esque!

I have given the whole "one guitar to rule them all"-concept a bit of thought, and I think someone mentioned that there is no point in trying - You'll be much more pleased by having 2 or more guitars occupying their individual spectrum of styles. So I think I'm quite set on the Stormy Mondays (or just maybe a slightly hotter bridge pickup, a Mule e.g)

Oh and I also fiddled a bit with the pickup height - That seem to have helped a bit, at the expensive of clarity/definition though.

Kind regards
Christian

[AndyR]

Hehe - I'm definitely not a "one guitar to rule them all" kind of guy! (Ask the missus!!) But I do like all the pickups/controls on a guitar to give me sounds I can use without changing the amp... I guess it comes of when I used to gig through a single channel amp and not much else... I tend to value versatility when it jumps out at me on a guitar, but I don't want all the positions too different (never seemed to be able to cope with HSS or coil taps). Up until the last few years I was "a pure strat is the most versatile thing" - but Stormies in the Trad started giving me some of the clean tones I never thought were possible from a humbucking Les Paul. After 6 months I wasn't even touching any of the strats... I'm just getting back into them at the moment.

One guitar, though... nope! Even these two Les Pauls, both with Stormies, they feel so different, so I play them different... how could I possibly part with either!!

And yes indeed, pickup up height makes such a difference. On my standard faded I almost got it to the point where I was happy to keep the 57+/57 in there. Then someone was offering a set of nickel covered Stormies second hand, so I went for it. My standard faded still isn't quite as sweet sounding as my Traditional - but it's got its own thing going, slightly more zing. It does mean that I could possibly do with a little more body sometimes on the bridge compared to the same pickup on the Trad (but that could easily be some further height and polepiece adjustments needed) - when I've been playing it for a while, though, I hardly notice, they both make the noises I like.

I do love the Mules (and Riff Raffs) too, but when I finally got round to trying the Stormies I found they seem to give me the "PAF sound that was in my head" - so they've turned into my "go to" set when I need some new humbuckers.

It is possible that I might experiment with my Mules in my Standard Faded at some point (but that means pickup surgery on the 335, I did it safely before, but it took a while and a certain amount of angst!!). Those Mules have been round several guitars now, and they always work nicely.

[ericsabbath]

I'd be tempted by stormies, but I would most likely go mules
mules are just magic

[Telerocker]

I'd be tempted by stormies, but I would most likely go mules
mules are just magic

Exactly this.

[PhilKing]

I would also look at the PG blues set, which is a little hotter version of the Stormies, with the out of phase middle setting.  I have them in a goldtop and they sound great.  Mules and Stormies work well too, I have a couple of LP's with combinations, the VHII Bridge works really well with a Mule neck and the Mule bridge can sound great with a Stormy Monday neck.  All of these work really well for the sort of music that you are looking at.  They clean up really well but also have some balls when you want it.

[Cboysen]

Alright - So I will be changing the pickups sometime in the near future! It seems like you can't go wrong with any of the humbuckers you guys mentioned.

Now for a bit of nerdy-ness!

I took closer look at my sound/setup and rewired the amp back to stock princeton circuit. The amp became very sweet and fenderish, albeit very boomy with my les paul. This is typical for the fender circuits, due to rather large cathode bypass caps and a bass-heavy, scooped tonestack.

So I started padding the cabinet it with my girlfriend's blankets, and (not so much) to my surprise, the resonance peak changed from G (~95Hz) to A (~110), due to the reduction in internal volume. The Cabinet is a cheap Harley Benton 1x12 open back cab, and my guess is, it's simply too cheap, the walls being too soft/spongy.

My next step is to find a used 10" speaker for around 50 euro, and reinforcing the inside with some spare wood I have laying around. You can get a 12" to 10" adapter at tube town. My idea is, that the stiffening of the cab, and decreased low-end extension of the smaller cone, will even out the sound. .. I'll keep you posted!

Thanks for all the wonderful recommendations

I'm off to tinkering!

Kind regards, Christian
 

[Dave Sloven]

You could always consider a Manhattan P-90 in the neck and a humbucker like the Stormy Monday in the bridge.  The Manhattan will give you those jazz tones when you want them.

[Telerocker]

Don't rule out the Mule-neck, which has a great jazztone too.

[Cboysen]

Don't rule out the Mule-neck, which has a great jazztone too.

I'm very much considering either a match or mix of Mules and Stormies!!



An update from the amp techy department:

I did the testing of 10" speakers, and to my surprise, the bottom end wasn't that much more tight, just a tad more aggresive and fast responding, a bit more "detailed" and forward.

So I looked through several schematics of Fender deluxes and princetons, only to notice that a capacitor right before the phase inverter is way bigger (0.022uF) on the princeton, in comparison to the small (0.001uF) capacitor in the deluxe reverb. The result being a much higher low end cut-off point. Lo and behold, changing out that one component made all the difference in the world. Totally in the ballpark of pure deluxe sounds. Very nice!

Excuse me for the rambling of guitar amps. My opinion is just, that everything matters, and going down a 300€ road, buying new pickups to change the sound of your rig, might be better solved by changing components on the amp for 0.5€.

Kind regards :)